Tell what you think please!

[lennie]

I'm working on a closed chamber for my baby Leopard tort using a 50 gallon rubber maid tub. My substrate is cypress and sphagnum moss and peat moss. It is kept moist on the warm side. My hot side temps are high 90-105 and My cool side is in the low 80s usually never lower than 84.

Is that to hot?
(My other bulb doenst even get the hot side into the 90s.)

I have succlents, spider plants and wheat grass planted right now. (He has demolished a couple of times.) My humidity has not went above 25%.

What could I do to bring it up? Also where should my humid hide be placed?

From what I can tell he is just as activite as he has ever been and still eating really well. I have a sun glo and Che shipping to me. For the time being I'm using a black light at night and a zilla tube uvb.

He eats collard, turnip, and mustard greens. Endive and escarole. He also has some squash and peppers sometimes. I am looking into ordering some seed mixes and mazuri but haven't yet.

Any and all feedback is welcome. I would love to know if I'm missing anything. Thanks again.

 

[Jodie]

The temps sound alright. You probably will have to cover it to get the humidity up. It needs to be a lot higher. I like the plants in the enclosure. You can put the hide wherever he usually hides at.

 

[phebe121]

I have leopards to warmth sounds good coving it helps alot with humidity

 

[lennie]

Thanks for the replies! His enclosure is closed. His light is inside of the tub. I'll upload a picture.

 

[lennie]

I just cut a small hole for the cords to come out.

 

[wellington]

The temps are good with a higher humidity. You really need to get the humidity up or the temps are to high for such a low humidity. Be sure to soak him every day for 30 minutes at least until,you get the humdiity up. I would wet the enclosure more, it must be too dry. Are you using reliable temp and humidity gauges, not the cheap disc type that pet stores sell.

 

[lennie]

I'm using two probe thermostats. One is from the pet store and one is from Walmart. They always match up when I move the probes to the same spot. Only half of the enclosure is moist. Should I spray the whole thing? He does get daily soaks and gets in his water bowl too. He has never actually went on the cool side that I know of. He usually burrows in the moist sphagnum on the hot side.

 

[lennie]

I just put more water in it and the humidity went down?! This is defiantly a trial and error process.

 

[leigti]

I think the whole thing should be wet down. Can you use some kind of fogger?

 

[lennie]

I'm going to try wetting the entire enclosure and if that doesn't make a difference than I'll be buying a fogger. Do you have any suggestions for a god fogger?

 

[tortdad]

Hold off on the fogger. No closed chamber should need a fogger to maintain the humidity, that's the beauty of a closed system.

First off, what are you using to measure the humidity? You said you have two prob temp gauges but what's measuring humidity? If it's one of those disc type analog gauges that could be your problem, they suck. Mine never read above 65 even when I had water beading up in the glass. I switched it out to a digital gauge and saw my % was really 90.

Adding water should never lower the humidity level. Something is not making sense here. That's like saying I just put ice cubes in my drink and it got hotter. The only way it could have gotten lower is because you had the top off while adding water which made the humidity level temporary go low (because the lid was off) and the gauge hadn't had time to register with the new moisture. Today mine said 93% so I opened it up and added water and clean up a bit. By the time I closed the lid it registered 86. Then 10 mins later it showed 99%. The lower humidity was just because I had the lid open so that's the only thing I can think of why yours went down.

If your humidity is still low after adding more water it's because of one of 3 things.
You didn't add enough water
Your lamps are too hot and drying it out
You have an air gap letting moisture levels escape.
It HAS to be one of them.

 

[leigti]

I'm going to try wetting the entire enclosure and if that doesn't make a difference than I'll be buying a fogger. Do you have any suggestions for a god fogger?

It was just a suggestion, I have seen it in other enclosures. But more experienced people would have to give you ideas on if one is necessary.

 

[lennie]

I believe it went down because the lid was open. I get a little flustered worrying about it. Humidity was at 26 this morning before I went to work. I have a 150 watt light bulb. It's just a crystal clear one from Walmart. After work I'm going to get a 125 watt bulb. It's cold here in Ohio so I want to make sure they are warm enough. Should I be soaking his whole enclosure or just the warm side?

 

[lennie]

There is a small hole where the cords come out. Is that an issue? It's only a 1/2 in square.