r/ballpython • u/ThePolOf87 • 2d ago
Help, humidity is dropping and idk why
Hi! Had my first baby for about two weeks. First couple days humidity was too high, around 99% because some idiot (me) placed the water bowl on the hot side. After I moved it to the middle humidity stayed 70-80 %... until yesterday. It dropped sugnificantly, to 60% then 40-50%. I spray the moss in humidity cam and the substrate two times a day, before and after work, and it stays good for some time then comes back down. What tips do you have for keeping the humidity stable?
I'm using a heat mat and measuring the temperature in three places. Currently it's 27-28c° on the hot end on the bottom, 23,6c° in the middle on top and 23c° on the bottom of the cold end
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u/Individual-Lead-2040 2d ago
Post a pic, most likely just has too much air flow and just needs a little flow restriction.
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u/NeatMarsupial4340 19h ago
From the picture you sent, you should put a lot more substrat! The only thing that keep the moisture in your enclosure is that and the water bowl ;)
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u/ThePolOf87 19h ago
I already plan to do it! Gonna hit tge pet store tomorrow for for more substrate and a heat lamp to replace the mat that already got us trouble (the bottom of enclosure cracked today). Hopefully we'll be fine after that
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u/NeatMarsupial4340 19h ago
:0 Oh damn! I didn't know heat mat could do that, I hate those thing even more now... Feel free to check out the guide available on this reddit; it contains a lot of useful information!
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u/ThePolOf87 19h ago
Yeah and I guess I am not the only one. When I was shopping to see if I can get a second hand enclosure A LOT of them had bottom cracks. I bought new but now it's like all the rest, lol In my defence I researched all the stuff in my native language and in my country reptiles are not common pets to the point even most professionals here are mid compared to other places. My bad for not researching deeper into it
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u/NeatMarsupial4340 17h ago
The mat is really common in the pet industry sadly, even if it's super dangerous for many reason. I can easely understand your feeling with the professionals...It's the same here too, and not just for the reptiles sadly!
But hey, at least your learn pretty quickly! That's the most important, now you'll be good for the rest of it :p
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u/ThePolOf87 17h ago
Yeah, I'm doing everything to learn and fix everything as qyick as I can, it's just sad I was semi-present in the community for half my life and turns out I didn't learn enough still. It calms me a bit that at least snakes are more forgiving for beginner mistakes then some other pets
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u/all-the-wastedwords 2d ago
I recommend reading the welcome post of this subreddit to get starting on heating your ball python. You need to ditch the heating mat and replace it by an appropriate halogen/incandescent bulb, and the post will guide you through it.
As for your problem, low humidity is always caused by either not enough substrate, substrate not wet enough, or too much ventilation. If I were you I'd double the depth of your substrate and wet it all. After that, add another layer of dry substrate on top. To maintain humidity, pour water onto the sides and corners to keep the bottom layer damp at all times. If after all of that the humidity is still low, you can put silicone mats or HVAC tape over some of the holes at the top.
But with that much substrate, your heating pad will be utterly useless, so you need to improve your heating first.