Greenhouse cover and humidity

[Natalie44]

It’s me…….again! 😅 another question- i saw someone mention in the forum that having a greenhouse cover over my tortoise table might make things abit too dry while the CHE and basking light etc is on. Is that right? How can I correct that issue? Making sure that I pour water in the corners every now and again?
Natalie x

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

It’s me…….again! 😅 another question- i saw someone mention in the forum that having a greenhouse cover over my tortoise table might make things abit too dry while the CHE and basking light etc is on. Is that right? How can I correct that issue? Making sure that I pour water in the corners every now and again?
Natalie x

We love people asking the right questions here, keep doing you🙌🏻
Having the cover will do the opposite in that it will be helping to lock your humidity in, you should see some condensate on the cover once it’s on🙂 the post may have meant it’s because their topper is locking in heat so much better, that if they weren’t maintaining the humidity with some pours, they were probably spraying constantly which only lasts so long.
Just make sure once the topper is on and left for a bit, check the ground temp with the temp gun so it’s not too warm🙂

The che will only come on nights when it’s dropping a little too low for your hatchling, and the only time they may be on at the same time, would be colder days that maybe the floodlight alone isn’t achieving optimal ambient temps, even then, the thermostat will keep turning the ceramic on and off periodically as to not overheat the enclosure, therefore not drying it out too much. The floodlight won’t overheat your enclosure provided you’ve ran it a full cycle and kept doing temp checks, it’ll always be good to check on heatwave days too regardless of set up, just for safety🙂

Obviously people who don’t keep up their humidity will still find their enclosure drying out with a topper. To maintain your humidity simply pour some luke warm water into the corners, again not loads, but enough to get that under layer nice and damp, the top layer dry, to avoid the top layer getting a bit too dry and dusty, take out the tort and mix the substrate every now n then, that helps gives a humidity boost too without adding more water🙂once that topper is on I don’t think you’ll need to be doing many pours at all, just keep an eye on the substrate and your monitors, do as and when needed😊