Question about humidity

[Slbrlb]

Hello, I have a question about humidity for my hatchling. I have 4 inches of reptibark and the bottom two inches stay pretty moist. The top always dries out throughout the day so I have been doing a few mists each day when I see the entire top layer is dry. When I mist the humidity raises to 80-85% and when it drops back to 50% I mist again. Is this too much water? I don’t want to cause shell rot but I’m also trying to avoid pyramiding too. Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you.

 

[Maro2Bear]

One of the best ways to help maintain higher humidity is
1). Make sure your enclosure has a lid
2). Thoroughly super saturate the substrate BEFORE you dump them inside.

Take your new (or old) substrate and put it into a nice large bucket. Now, fill that bucket up with nice warm water. Let it sit a few hours, heck, even overnight. Then, drain off all of the water & place this thoroughly super saturated back into your enclosure. You now have a substrate that is soaked, maintains moisture AND will respond better to “mistings”. Ive always done this with good success. Give it a go, and good luck.

? As an aside, think about a potted plant that comes from a nursery, or a big box garden center & how dry they often are. If you just water on the top, it seeps all around & right out the bottom. Take this same plant, place in a bucket of water for a few hours and the soil gets saturated. That soil/plant once watered will now accept a good watering without it all running out the bottom.

 

[Tom]

Hello, I have a question about humidity for my hatchling. I have 4 inches of reptibark and the bottom two inches stay pretty moist. The top always dries out throughout the day so I have been doing a few mists each day when I see the entire top layer is dry. When I mist the humidity raises to 80-85% and when it drops back to 50% I mist again. Is this too much water? I don’t want to cause shell rot but I’m also trying to avoid pyramiding too. Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you.

Misting the surface does very little. You have to dump water into the substrate and let it wick up to the surface. How much water and how often varies with each enclosure and it varies seasonally too. The way to keep humidity up is to reduce the ventilation that removes your humidity.

Your species is not prone to shell rot and it almost never happens.