My pacman frog is getting bigger so I decided to move him to a new enclosure. I setup a 10 gallon standard tank today, and am having some problems.
First is humidity. I cannot seem to get humidity much higher than 40-50%. I can spray a lot of water and it will spike to 80% or so, but will drop back down to 50ish in no time. His old enclosure (Exo-Terra 12x12x12) was hard to keep humidity up, but not as difficult. I have a screen top with a little over half of the top covered by plexiglass.
Second is heat. I am using a ceramic heat emitter. I live in the cold northeast so the only way to give him proper heat was by using a CHE. I started with a small bulb but ended up having to run a 100w CHE bulb to get day time temps in the lower 80's. The temps are usually around 80-82 during the day. I know 100w is too much, but the smaller bulbs just do not work. Ambient room temps are a low of 68 to a high of 72-73, depending on how often the furnace runs. Any suggestions here?
Lastly is probe placement. I have a analog temp/humidity gauge that I mounted near the top. I have an exo-terra digital combo gauge and I put the probe down by the substrate. And lastly I have a zoo-med temperature/humidity controller and I also put that probe down near the substrate. So I have 3 different sources of information and they all are roughly showing the same. Sometimes I accidentally spray the probes and that messes it up until they dry, so I try to avoid that now. Both probes for the digital gauges are on the same side of the tank as the ceramic heat emitter. Is this proper placement or would you suggest I move them?
As you can see I am pulling my hair out trying to get everything correct. I may have to go back to the Exo-Terra 12x12x12, but it seemed kinda small. Not to mention that the top plastic has been warped by the heat from the CHE. Any help is very much welcome at this point.