Hey guys,
I’m preparing to get my first snakes in the next few days, and I decided on a pair of garters (instead of hognoses) as they’re generally less fussy about food and are very active and make use of their whole enclosure.
I bought a 30x15 breeding box to start them off in since they’re very small but I’m encountering some (potential) issues with humidity?
My atmospheric humidity is 81% according to my weather app.
The store clerk was really pushing me to get a bark chip substrate that was marketed for humid species, even though I’d read that they’re a dryer species, needing 50-60%. Lo and behold, the humidity in the tank was 80-100% yesterday when I set it up (no snakes in there yet, wanted to get a handle on parameters first)
So today I hooked up the heat mat, which I got since the enclosure is so small, and noticed condensation in the tank. I took out the substrate layer and replaced it with paper towels to see if that helped and I did manage to get the humidity down to 59% that way but that was without the water dish.
When I added the water dish today the humidity has jumped right back up to 67% even though the water is on the cool end of the tank.
At this moment I cannot confirm what the temperatures are at each end of the tank, waiting on a laser thermometer for that which will be arriving tomorrow.
Any advice?
There is a hide under the leaves btw.
I took the lid off to take the photo and the humidity has jumped back down to 62%