Need help with humidity

[Phenomenalhm]

I have a 3 x 4 enclosure for my red foot and am in the process of building him a bigger one. Currently, I can get the humidity up to 74 in the whole room. If I enclose it with plexiglass and cover the screen with foil, the humidity goes down to 50 or 60. My question is, is 74 ok, or should I enclose the table and put a humidifier air stone type device inside. Dampening the cypress/sphagnum moss isn't working obviously. I want to get this right so I can know what correct course to take on my 8 x 4 table. Please help.....

 

[Phenomenalhm]

By the way, the heat is fine 90 under the lights and 80ish in the shady spots

 

[Madkins007]

The Tortoise Library site has some articles on this. There are lots of things you can do, depending on your set up.

I like underground heating. Using moderate temperature waterproof heating tape or cables under a few inches of cypress or similar substrate. Add about an inch of water. What happens is that the water pools in the bottom, warms, than rises as warm water vapor, creating some heat and humidity. It is not a perfect solution since the cables can stop working, etc. and it is a nuisance to redo, but it works nicely. It is not even super important to completely cover the habitat with this since new humidity is constantly generated.

Most other recommendations require an almost completely closed habitat since the warm humid air you try to create wants desperately to escape to the cooler, drier air of the room. With a mostly or completely closed habitat, however, you can try live plants, a sort of mini-tropical aquarium, in-house humidifiers, and more.

Try to avoid ending up with a cool, clammy substrate, however. Lots of housing methods result in substrate that is cold and damp to the touch which is usually not what we are looking for.

 

[tortdad]

What device are you using to measure the humidity. Is it one of thoses disc type analog gauges? If so they are notoriously unreliable and you may have more humidity than you think.


0.0.1 Redfoot (Spike)
0.0.1 Cherryhead Redfoot (Bruce Wayne)
1.0 Sulcata (Hal Jordan)

 

[Phenomenalhm]

I bought a digital one from Home Depot. It seems reliable. Would the underground tubing keep the humidity up in an open table considering the room stays humid itself? I would love to try it in in the large table. Could it push the table humidity high enough? I just got a cheap aquarium pump and tubing for his small table. The humidity is at 88!