Humidity questions

[digitalyak]

Hi there,
I have 2 small White's Tree Frogs, and a nice large 30G Terrarium all set up nicely, and they seem to love it.
I have a timer which maintains the temperature night/day cycle perfectly, but I can't seem to get the humidity levels reliable.
They are never too low, but they seem to spike randomly, and I'm wondering if anyone has any tips to keep it under control.
I try and keep humidity constant, but it seems to go between 65% to 90% and I have heard that if it's too high, it's bad for the frogs.
Obviously I've stopped misting them as it seems my waterfall keeps the minimum levels nicely, but I would like to keep it more regulated.
Any help welcome for me and my little amphibian amigos.

[flybyferns]

Hi there,
I have 2 small White's Tree Frogs, and a nice large 30G Terrarium all set up nicely, and they seem to love it.
I have a timer which maintains the temperature night/day cycle perfectly, but I can't seem to get the humidity levels reliable.
They are never too low, but they seem to spike randomly, and I'm wondering if anyone has any tips to keep it under control.
I try and keep humidity constant, but it seems to go between 65% to 90% and I have heard that if it's too high, it's bad for the frogs.
Obviously I've stopped misting them as it seems my waterfall keeps the minimum levels nicely, but I would like to keep it more regulated.
Any help welcome for me and my little amphibian amigos.

Hi Role
I hear you ! It would be great to look at these and see a nice -stable reading.
You might do a search....there was thread going a few months ago that contained great information.
Wondering what equipment you are using?
It is my experience ........these products tend to do this. You might move it around?
I'm sure you know......to consider how it is affected buy where it is placed within the enclosure.

As a result I have ended up with more than one in each enclosure. Keep an eye, make changes slowly .
Observation of the frog's normal behavior will help!

I find this is a particular difficult time of the year for temp and humidity settings.
ie before the heat is on in the house. There is a shift ( if you will ) in my basement where I keep my tanks

I ended up with an "Ambient " indoor/outdoor weather gadget . It's , hopefully, is more accurate than the probe devices.
Especially an open ended probe device where water can collect.

Ambient Weather WS-1285-X3 Wireless Weather Forecaster with Three Thermo-Hygrometer Remote Sensors

Lynn

[digitalyak]

Hi Lynn,

Thankyou for your post. I will look through the archives and see if I can find that thread.
I may look into getting more humidity sensors for the tank. I want my little guys to be happy (although they may be girls, they're too young to tell yet).
As for the frogs' normal behaviour, they are certainly eating and love moving around and exploring their terrarium, so as far as I can tell, they're healthy and well adjusted. I just want to keep them that way. Since these are my first frogs, I have no baseline as yet to compare them with, but I am keeping a log.

Thanks again
Rog

[deranged chipmunk]

I'm with lynn, depends on what you are using to create humidity. You can always get a controller that will regulate humidity for you. More info would be helpful

[digitalyak]

Hi Bill,

To answer your question - in the terrarium itself, I have a waterfall feature which I leave running constantly (day and night cycle) - my little friends seem to love sitting and playing in it. I also put them a sunken shallow stone bath in the bottom of the tank, and I change the water in this daily. Other than that, there are no other humidity sources. All the plants are silk fakes (the hanging vines etc.) so I am pretty sure they are not producing any humidity. I did originally mist spray the tank once a day, but that seemed to spike the humidity to almost 90% so I stopped that. The substrate is eco-earth, and I initially used water to create it, but according to the literature I read, it is supposed to just retain humidity rather than pump it out.
Other than that, I guess there is just ambient air humidity; over which I have less control.
It seems to me that at night, when their light is off, the humidity seems to rise as when I check them in the morning it has increased during the night, then drops slowly during the day.
I did notice though that having a red night light above their cage on while they were sleeping seems to stop it getting too high without bothering their nocturnal vision, and doesn't affect the temperature too much.

Perhaps as a new owner I am being overly cautious, as both my little buddies seem to be healthy; the literature on the best humidity level seems varied.
I just wondered if anyone knows of any automated de-humidifier device with an automatic cut off or something exists.

Thanks again,
Rog

[Pluke]

Do you have a glass or a screen lid? If you have a screen lid you could always cover a portion of it with some plastic-wrap and this will help with raising the humidity a little and holding it in. Just make sure you don't cover too much as they still need a good amount of ventilation. You could always try a fogger too that turns on when you want it too. I've seen people make good foggers out of humidifiers bought from Walgreens.

[deranged chipmunk]

^^^^^ that was my next question, about the lid. And remember that eco-earth (coco coir) will retain moisture, which in turn evaporates to create humidity. So make sure that the substrate has some moisture, but not sopping wet. The humidifier to make a fogger works awesome. Sharper image makes a cool one that is easily modified it costs about $60 or so. Otherwise, a controller in conjunction with a misting system or fogger will maintain a steady humidity level. My humidity levels spike when i mist, but stabilize after an hour or so.

[Sasha]

I bought a Zoomed hygrotherm for my main tank, it maintains your temp and humidity. I hooked it up to my fogger and I have a red heat bulb. You just program in what you want the humidity and temp to be and it does all the work for you, even has a nighttime temp setting. It was about $65 on Amazon. A little expensive but proved to be well worth it when I had to go out of town for the night.

I had a problem with humidity in my quarantine tank though, it has a mesh top so I would lay a wet washcloth over half the tank leaving room for air to circulate.