Please tell me what I'm doing wrong

cul3one104

Arachnopeon
Joined
Feb 13, 2003
Messages
21
Hi, I don't understand what I'm doing wrong that the humidity is always so low. I have a 20L tank with a screen top. Half of the screen top is covered with ceram wrap. Other half for the lamp. I have a defogger inside of the tank. I have gravels in the bottom of the tank. I have a pothos plant inside. The soil feels moist. The humidity is always very low. With all that, can someone please tell me what I left out? :confused:

Thanks
Dwight
 

cul3one104

Arachnopeon
Joined
Feb 13, 2003
Messages
21
Here's my tank

The defogger is on the left side of the tank, inside the minitank. If you look closer, you can see the fog. Everyday I would have to refill the mini tank because that's how much water it defogs out. I have a timer on the defogger too. Someone please help me with the problem.

Thanks
Dwight
 

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skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
Arachnosupporter +
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Aug 15, 2002
Messages
4,341
First of all, it is a fogger, not a defogger. Okay, now onto the important bits. First of all, feel free to further restrict your ventelation. You can easily go to the point where 90% is covered without running into problems. Obviously you still need the light to shine.

Next, what are your temperatures? Lights can be very drying, so I wouldn't use a higher wattage than is needed to get the tank to appropriate conditions (I assume you are keeping an emperor or something similar?) If you are indeed keeping an emp, you need temps from the high 80s through to the mid 90s. A single spot over 100 can also, debatably, be a good idea.

You have that lovely gravel layer, do you fill it with water? If you keep that layer full of water, it will evaporate up and humidify the entire container.

Lastly, how are you measuring humidity? It is possible your guage is just broken and you have higher humidity than you think.

Cheers,
Dave
 

cul3one104

Arachnopeon
Joined
Feb 13, 2003
Messages
21
reply

Dave,

Sorry about the defogger thing... I was thinking about a car. I was thinking about covering more but I was worry about ventelation. I'll definitely try to cover more then.

My temperature is always in the 80's to 90's. Sometimes it might hit 100. I'm only using a 75 watt black light. I want to know do I need some other sort of light. Do I need to give it day time kind of light or I can just use the black light all the time? And yes I'm keeping 4 emps inside the tank.

The gravel is always full of water. I check on the water level every once awhile.

I'm measuring humidity with the gauges I have on the back of the tank in the center(it's visible in the picture). Is there another way? The left gauge is for the heat and the right one is for the humidity. I don't think it's broken because when I spray water at it; it goes up.

Thanks,
Dwight
 

skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
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Joined
Aug 15, 2002
Messages
4,341
Dwight,

You don't have to worry too much about ventelation. I'd be tempted to cover as much as possible unless you started running into some mould.

I'd nix the black light. While it does make the scorpion glow, there is some evidence that it causes problems for them, including eye damage. I'd go with a red light or ceramic heat emitter if you want it 24/7.

It really does sound to me like you just have too much ventelation mixed in with a dry room. Restrict the ventelation some and you should see improvements.

Cheers,
Dave
 

chau0046

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
477
Maybe move youre humidity gauge away from youre heater . It seems to be right on the other side of the glass. If your room is to dry, you can just put a couple buckets of water, standing in the room.

Mat
 

Craig

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 12, 2002
Messages
246
have you concidered putting a heat mat under the enclosure as well? i use them under and it shoots the humidity up. is the light a heat light? i would get rid of it and use a normal 15 watt bulb. the flexiwatt mat you have on the side should heat it fine.
 

skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
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Heat mats underneath are a bad idea. Scorpions burrow to escape heat and their little hard-wired ganglia aren't sophisticated enough to deal with the concept of down meaning hotter. On the side is the recommended way.

Cheers,
Dave
 

XOskeletonRED

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
Messages
707
As someone already said, if the humidity guage is next to the heat source, the humidity readout will be incorrect as to the overall enclosure's humidity levels. I don't recommend heat pads under the tank unless the temp of the pad itself can be lowered a substantial amount, which is rare for the majority of them. I only use under enclosure heating on a couple instances of my enclosures and they are all desert enclosures with the burrow being on the opposite side of the tank. I make use of this only on three scorp species, Hadrurus spadix, arizonensis and L. quinquestriatus. If the humidity guage reads out around 10-15% humidity at the direct location of heat, the rest of the enclosure is probably at nearing rainforest levels. Relocate it and check it again an hour or so later. It is probably a newer humidity guage and therefore, if it is incorrect, should be replaced at no cost, but I highly doubt it to be inaccurate.


adios,
edw. =D
 

chau0046

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
477
Not bad ,,eh?

Starting to pick up on this problem solving thing .
Maybe one day(or a different life) i`ll be like Exo......
*edit*; or like any other of the great profesionals out there!!

Mat

Long way to go ... But enjoy it a whole hell of a lot!!!
 
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XOskeletonRED

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
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Jan 6, 2003
Messages
707
Don't give me too much credit. Much of my knowledge of things such as heating methods, humidification, enclosure building, etc., come from the professionals in those fields. If I don't know an answer for heating, or something, I go to them and remember their answers and reasoning for upcoming situations. I just do a lot of "stuff" with electronics, construction, mechanics, and anything else I can find with someone willing to explain things for me. Some of the lighting, heating and cooling engineers can come up with many ideas which are virtually unheard of in the pet hobby. They are great and should rightfully be put to good use, in my opinion. They may not have scorpion experience in any way, but I cross reference anything I may get from others in the hobby, with the pro info, and 9 times out of 10, it comes out pretty darn good, with occasionally some slight compensations here and there. There are many others in the hobby with far more experience than I, at least on certain species, so please don't forget any of them.


adios,
edw. :D
 

skinheaddave

SkorpionSkin
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Aug 15, 2002
Messages
4,341
XO,

Well don't just sit there .. share some of these heating/cooling ideas with us.

Cheers,
Dave
 

XOskeletonRED

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
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Jan 6, 2003
Messages
707
*lol* I happen to keep the scorps and such, in the basement of a large house, so I'm lucky in the aspect that I have a lot of advanced methods to modify things, as well as a lot of room.

I have a heat pump in the basement routed to some of the tanks that are in locations that occasionally get excessively warm or excessively cool during certain months. I used sheet metal tubing (1.5 inches) and insulation to run it to the enclosures (it directly connects to the pump's main output via an adapter plate made of sheet metal [one side of it is flat and the other side round to mate the tubing and it simply uses sheet metal screws to mount to the side of the main air output line{I used high temp RTV sealant to close all gaps} and is taped over with insulation and duct tape]. I have full hoods on all of the enclosures I use this with and have a small portion of the opposite side of the hood drilled out with a hole the same size for output as input and both covered with screen. If I set the house thermostat too cool or too warm for the scorps, I have a valve installed in the ducts directly in front of the enclosures to shut off or partially shut off the air input until it maintains the same temps needed or as close as possible. Some heat pads also compensate a little, as I do not make use of bulbs for any heating purposes of them anymore (I only use bulbs for reptiles now).

As for humidification, I have a recently built enclosure which makes use of a 1.5 gal per day humidifier (Wal-mart had em' on sale for $26) at an input on the enclosure side (screened over) to compensate from the natural 50% levels around me to increase to 60% as needed for Hadrurus, during specific months. I have yet to introduce the scorps to the enclosure though, because I'm still monitoring the humidity levels until I get a perfectly steady rate or until I get as close as I can to steady. I'm making use of the same duct materials and valve to compensate for it's higher output than needed as well as the fact that it has a fan built into it with three speeds (actually listed as levels on the humidifier). Once I weed out of the minor flaws I have run into with the humidifier, I'll put the scorps in and put it to the real test. I have a feeling it will perform far better than misting (from what I have noticed, Hadrurus despise wet humidity, but they enjoy dry humidity to the utmost).

Most of the building and reference materials were provided by my Uncle, who was an A/C technician at Ft. Benning, GA. for 25 years, until he was retired by the Army's decisions to train service members on an A/C MOS. Some info was used from my last roommate from the Army who specialized in heating and cooling small enclosures (the system trucks, etc. ["system" is used to refer to the component which houses the computers and analysis hardware in the trucks used by the mil intel unit I was in])

And don't worry, if you're interested, I'll post pics as soon as I get a new scanner. Just be patient, as it may be a little while. I obviously spend far less time and money on the comp than I do the scorps and have been wanting to get a new hard drive for the last year (I procrastinate a lot, supposing I'm just lazy). Hopefully I'll have all the "bugs" worked out prior to posting pics.


adios,
edw. =D

PS: Window A/C units, central units, etc., could be utilized by the methods I already stated. I have drawn up design plans from almost all possibilities, in my situation, though any of them would have to have slight mods as per their connections. Of course, most didn't get off the floor and into the test phase due to dreamers syndrome (there's no way I could've afforded a lot of them *lol*). I'll make some of the plans avail when I get pics up. It gets you just a little closer to the ultimate lazy dude! heheh Also, forgive me if I may have posted any info that may be incorrect (going off memory alone) but it will be corrected as of the plans post I'll make.
 

chau0046

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
477
HOLY..........................................................cow!
 

XOskeletonRED

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
Messages
707
Cul3one104's enclosure appears to be the correct length to height ratio of a 20 gallon long. Most of mine are 10s, 20Ls, and smaller petpal enclosures. I also keep a few 55s, one 75 and a few customs I built.

adios,
edw. :D
 

Longbord1

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 13, 2003
Messages
1,217
is lexan maditory for scorpions so that they come out and how to u use the heat light on ur scorps if there is lexan i have a rd bulb for my tarantula is that bad for a scorp
 

XOskeletonRED

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
Messages
707
Lexan is not mandatory for the keeping of scorpions. High humidity scorpions require any method of holding in more humidity. Many of the individuals on the forums use nothing more than plastic wrap covering the majority of the top of the enclosure. Escape-proof enclosures are a must! Screen tops are commonly used and occasionally full hoods will be utilized and of course, some modifieds. IR (infrared heat bulbs) are not bad for use, as long as they aren't rated at too high of a wattage and overheat the enclosure. They only carry more intense heat for longer distances than white bulbs and have no adverse effects reported. Blacklights are near UV (ultraviolet) and can basically do the same thing as many of the older styled tanning beds (cook something from the inside out) and are not advised for often use. Periodical is okay though.

adios,
edw. :D
 
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XOskeletonRED

Arachnodemon
Old Timer
Joined
Jan 6, 2003
Messages
707
Well, as you mentioned, you use an IR bulb already. If you don't have a temp guage, I'll recommend you get one and check the temp directly under the light as well as on the opposite side of the enclosure, where it should be cooler. I believe Skinheaddave had mentioned that he allows, or had allowed at one time, the temp under the light to reach the 90s and cooler side around the lower 80s to upper 70s Fahrenheit (it was around there, at least). IR bulbs are good, but do keep in mind, the temp change should be a difference of around a 10 degree drop for nighttime.


adios,
edw. =D
 
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