Hello there, I’m in need of experienced people here!
I built one of those ice chest incubators-
Two aquarium heaters
Aquarium fans to circulate the water
Egg crate on platform above the water line
Egg box with perlite/water mix and egg crate resting on top
Press n Seal layer with lid resting on top to keep water formed from condensation off the eggs.
I’ve tested this set up multiple times over week+ long periods to see how it holds temp and humidity and have had it staying within 89.0-89.5F and 100% humidity during all of those tests.
The thermometer I’m using is a bluetooth one that sits directly in the egg box.
But now that there’s eggs in the box, the best I can get is 95% humidity.
I’ve added more water to the perlite.
I’ve tightened the press n seal
I’ve loosened the press n seal
I’ve laid the lid on top
I’ve made sure the lid was clamped on tight
I gave about a day between each change to give it time to recover, and no matter what I do it pretty consistently stays between 95-97% with all of the fiddling.
I’ve read online that it should be 100% or you run the risk of the eggs drying out.
Is 95% okay, or do I need to figure something else out?
How are the eggs themselves looking, are they plump and round or are they denting in?
The humidity may be getting lower because the eggs are taking in the moisture. As long as there isn’t any condensation on the eggs or the eggs aren’t denting in and you have good consistent temps (86°F) they should be fine.
If you keep fiddling with the setup that very well may cause too much moisture to escape.
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I agree with everything above.
The more you peek the more instability.
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This sounds like the DIY Igloo incubator from SNKE LTD. Are you sealing you egg box with the Press’N Seal? Does your egg box have any ventilation holes?
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Yes, the eggs are still very plump looking, no denting.
Yes to both press and seal and a couple ventilation holes on the bix.
In your DIY cooler incubator with a heated, circulating reservoir of water, you want the air in the cooler to equilibrize with the air in the egg box. The air in the cooler will be at 100% humidity. You want that air to naturally mix with the air in the egg box. That’s how you get the humidity in the egg box up to 100%. So your egg box will need a few ventilation holes. Sounds like you have a couple. You may need a couple more. And since you don’t want the egg box to be a closed environment, you do not want to use press and seal, that would work against the effort to get the egg box humidity up to match the cooler air humidity of 100%. Just put the lid on the egg box. This is probably not an issue, but you want the lid to be secure enough to where the hatched babies cannot push the lid off and end up swimming/drowning in the cooler reservoir. If you are worried about condensation forming on the lid and dripping on the eggs, you can tilt the egg box slightly so any water runs off the lid and down the side of the egg box. Using this setup, you don’t need any medium in the egg box for the purpose of humidity. All the humidity will come from the air in the cooler. However, you may still want to use some damp medium to keep the eggs from rolling in the egg box.
All that said, you said your eggs are still plump, which is excellent. As they get close to hatching, maybe a week left, they should start to dimple. This is totally normal and not a symptom of too low humidity. And you said your humidity is at 95% in the egg box, that’s probably close enough to 100% to have a successful hatch rate. Remember, nobody is monitoring the humidity level for these eggs in the wild and they hatch just fine. Nature is quite resilient and tolerant. If it wasn’t, the BP species would have gone extinct a long time ago.
Can you supply some pics of your DIY incubator setup?
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Out of my current five seasons I can tell you I’ve never checked humidity, and I’ve never had an issue.
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