Lets talk humidity...

[broderp]

I understand that Chameleons (veiled in my case) need humidity between 40 and 70%.

I also understand that varying the humidity and temp (night temps) help in proper digestion.

The question I have is WHEN should the humidity vary?

Should I:

1. keep it a constant "60% thru out the day and when it's lights out (Time for the pajama's to go on ) allow it to drop to a lower 30-40%?

OR

2. Allow it to cycle up and down (40-70%)during the day as well as night. (independent of temp/ light)

OR

3. Allow it to cycle up and down during the day (40-70%), but let it settle during the night to a lower 30-40%?


Or is there a preferred humidity schedule other than these?

 

[broderp]

Wow, 45 views and no opinions.

Did I miss a sticky or care sheet on this?

 

[Catiebug13]

Also have a veiled

I am not 100% sure how it should be, but I keep my humidity pretty steady during the day, then let in drop at night. Again, this is just me.

 

[LLGabriel]

Hello Mine usually stay around 45-50 % without any misting throughout the night.

I spike them to 70-80% 3 times a day letting the enclosures dry out in between.

I'm sure you will get different responses. This is just how I do it. I live in the humid state of SC though so I usually don't have any humidity struggles. Haha!

 

[broderp]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm making a controller for my cham and I'm curious as to what would be the "best" humidity strategy for my little guy.

If I can do it easily enough, I will. I just wanted to get the opinions of the forum to see what was the most widely acceptable.

Hopefully others can chime in and agree, disagree or give thier own idea.

 

[nightanole]

You want the cage to dry out after misting to prevent mold. Its why we have a humidity drop at night, to get a good cage dry out. Its also not good to have a cage "wet" all day if you have a veiled or panther. Again the cage should dry out inbetween mistings.

Personally if i was designing a controller, id just figure out how to keep the min, in this case 40%. May-September you dont have to worry in ohio, since it will be over 9000.

 

[broderp]

You want the cage to dry out after misting to prevent mold. Its why we have a humidity drop at night, to get a good cage dry out. Its also not good to have a cage "wet" all day if you have a veiled or panther. Again the cage should dry out inbetween mistings.

Personally if i was designing a controller, id just figure out how to keep the min, in this case 40%. May-September you dont have to worry in ohio, since it will be over 9000.

Hello from Ohio! My chams terrarium stays around 46% during the day with his temp right around 86F. (Normally it's more like 40% with 93F, but it's been really cold the last week or so... )

Based on my responces here, I will see how hard it will be to give me some options, just in case things change (I believe they will) in the spring and summer. I'm still in the prototype stage and testing the basic version of this. So far so good....

 

[Decadancin]

Here's what I do. I try to get the humidity to spike above 80% during a mist and shortly after. As for between mistings, the level will drop off to 50% during the summer months and 40% during the winter. I will add an extra session if it dries out too quickly. I do not do extended sessions with my veiled, because he hasn't shown signs of liking the misting. As for overnight, My last misting session is before 5 pm so it dries out quite a bit before lights out. I have no mold issues and my plants are not waterlogged so this works for me.

 

[Zephalia]

I live in a dry, cold climate at this time of year and this is what works for me.

I run a cool mist humidifier on and off in 1 hour intervals throughout the day. I mist once in the morning when the lights go on and about 1 hour before they go out. This maintains a steady 70-80% humidity during the day. At night, the humidifier is off and when I get up in the morning the humidity is usually around 60%, sometimes 50%. I have a seperate room dedicated for my chams and the door remains closed so if it's open a lot, naturally, a lot of that humidity escapes to the rest of the house and those numbers go down a bit.

Hope that helps.

 

[broderp]

Thank you for the great replies!

Looks like option "3" on my original post is the most common.

So if I get the jist of what you all are saying:

• Mist several times a day to raise the humidity to 40-70% (with some high and low spikes OK)
• Its important to not waterlog the enclosure between mistings and allow it to dry
• It's OK to stop misting at night and to allow the humidity to drop.

I will see if my design will be able to do this via hysterisis settings, humidity and temp settings as well as ambient light sensing. I will see if this can be made adjustable or flexible to cover all the other modes I originally described, but I will focus on the above first.

Thank you for the help.

(Please still post opinions as you see fit, I'm always looking for new ideas.)

 

[GrimsbyPatchwork]

I imagine it the other way around meaning humidity spiking up during the night. I would research the temps and humidity in Yemen. You can't go wrong replicating their natural environment.