Maintaining Humidity with Wood Heat

[WinterKeeper]

As mentioned above, I heat my house with a woodstove which sucks all moisture out of the air. I mist enclosures daily, I cover screens with foil, and have even resorted to injecting water into substrate with a marinade injector. Everything is still drying out within a hour or two after daily maintenance.

Today I just lost my Scolopendra dehaani to desiccation. I acquired her in the spring and she thrived all summer, happily devouring crickets and dubias. But she just couldn’t cope with the almighty woodstove.

Enclosure is a 10g aquarium with a screen lid. Heat was provided with a ceramic heat emitter on a thermostat, set at 75F. Substrate was 4.5” of coconut coir based potting soil. There was a 12sq” patch of sphagnum moss in one corner, which I did my best to keep hydrated (again, a losing battle). I kept a water dish in there, and regularly observed the ‘pede drinking from it.

I’ve always heard that S. dehaani’s worst enemy is mycosis, but not at my house. Any ideas of what I could do better next time? The experts all say that enclosure humidifiers are a bad idea, but maybe my situation is the exception?

 

[viper69]

Could be an exception here. I've heated w/wood in the past, but I had reptiles then, still do hah. I don't keep these, so any ideas I have might not be good.

The only thing I can think of is keeping the setup inside a humid container perhaps? Sorta like how people do w/Ts in cold apt. Heat up a secondary box, drop T in its home inside that "box".

 

[Malum Argenteum]

I've heated solely with wood for over 10 years now. I run a humidifier in the winter. This one keeps 3000 sq feet at any humidity level I want:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004S34ISA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I do run a negative pressure exhaust fan in the house to minimize moisture problems in the walls (80cfm fan that runs 24/7), though if your stove is older and drafting hard, you'll likely already have the house at decent negative pressure. Newer stoves with secondary burn draw quite a bit less air (as probably do cat stoves, though I've never run one of these).

 

[Dorifto]

As @viper69 told you, maybe keeping them inside a cabinet should solve the problem, or at least slow it down a bit.

Placing something (a water source, ultrasonic nebulizer etc) that could add a bit of moisture inside the cabinet, should increase the inside's RH reducing the amount of moisture that the dry air is taking out from that substrate, as the air reaching the enclosure will be more saturated with water coming from the external source.

But using this method, you need to control the humidity levels inside this cabinet to not allow stagnant conditions. An easy way to solve it is adding some ventilation down low and on top.

 

[viper69]

Stagnant airs kills Avics, and isn’t good in general

 

[Matt Man]

as someone else said, get a room humidifier to combat the dryness
can find them on the used market as kids grow up and their parents sell the ones they used for their kid's issues

 

[Malum Argenteum]

Just an FYI, indoor air in the northern winters laughs at "room humidifiers". I used to run three flat out and they didn't do much. A whole house model is the only way to go.

 

[The Snark]

Meanwhile out here in the tropics we spend a part of every day running around with an atomizer loaded with mold and mildew retardant. Dehumidifiers deliver bucketfuls of water and can barely keep up drying out a small closet. It was even worse up on the north coast of California and Oregon in the fog belt where a very common problem was growing mushrooms in your carpets.
Speaking of which our towel cabinet is once more coated in some weird gray mold again. Time to wash every towel in the house and wipe down the cabinet again. 10% chlorine bleach or 5% hydrogen peroxide? Decisions decisions. Gas yourself or dissolve a few layers of skin and scorch them olde sinuses.