Humidity Too High - Page 2

Neon Aurora · 07-29-18, 01:25 PM

Thanks! I agree, much more enjoyable now that he is happier and more comfortable.

Here are a few more pics of him:

Roman · 07-29-18, 02:03 PM

How big is your enclosure?

I suppose since these snakes come from the pantanal they are used to a lot of water and high humidity (not an Eunectes expert myself, but did a little reading).

Just keep in mind that these snakes have a distribution where the winter can get quite cold (Northern Argentina could very well get freezing temperatures), so keep them with lower temps for at least 8 to 12 weeks.

Neon Aurora · 07-29-18, 02:15 PM

The enclosure is 4 x 2 x 2. I know they live near water and whatnot, but all of the caresheets I've read by other people who keep them say they like 50-60% humidity. 99% seems a bit excessive.

I've never really purposely cooled him before, but because of the location of his enclosure, temperatures naturally get cooler in the winter. I live in a place with hot summers (sometimes 100+ F) and cold winters (sometimes below 20 F). Right now the warm side is around 88-90 F and the cool side is about 75 F.

Roman · 07-29-18, 02:57 PM

4 ft seems a little on the small side, especially with the need for a large water bowl. Personally I would provide something like 6 or 7 ft long (at least)…

I found a care sheet (which seems relatively reasonable to me) recommending a minimum humidity of 70 to 80 %.--> http://madisonherps.org/guwp/wp-cont...owAnaconda.pdf

All care information I found here in Germany suggest at least a short hibernation period for the yellow Anaconda, that’s what I meant in my previous post.

Neon Aurora · 07-29-18, 03:23 PM

I've been through the discussion on enclosure size before, and there seems to be a lot of different opinions. I went with the 4 x 2 x 2 because the main things I heard from people were 1 square foot of space per foot of snake (I have 8 square feet and a 6 foot snake), and then I also heard length + width = length of snake which also fits my enclosure. I talked to several people who said it's okay to keep an 8 foot boa in a 4 x 2 x 2, so I figured a 6 foot snake would be fine in one. I do kind of wish I have gone bigger, but I just bought this thing so I can't just buy another one right away. I think it's fine, but maybe not fantastic or anything.

That is the first care sheet I've seen that says that. I still think it would be good to get some air circulation going.

I've never cooled him before, had him for 8 years, and it's never been a problem. But I will look into it.

ClockwerkBonnet · 07-29-18, 04:45 PM

Whoa, that snout looks so narrow! I'm not saying that's an issue; it's just really cool.

Neon Aurora · 07-29-18, 05:29 PM

Hmm, yeah, there does seem to be some variation on snout thickness from pictures I've seen. Some seem to have really fat heads and others taper to a point. I like his head shape. =)

I think he looks pretty comfortable in his enclosure. It's a work in progress, but I'm planning to add some stuff to utilize the vertical space.

I'm working on having an acrylic pool made that fits the dimensions of the enclosure better. That way he will just just as much water space but will have better use of his land space. Then I want to add sort of a shelf part of the way up so he can have a second story to hang out on and it will double to create somewhere to hide underneath it (I can use some draping decorations hanging off the shelf to create somewhere dark and secluded for him to hang out. He's also got the top of his pool to hang out on since it had a lid now, and then the water space underneath.

I'm pretty sure if I utilize all of the available space in the enclosure, it should be pretty comfortable for him.

Neon Aurora · 07-30-18, 07:22 AM

I think I had a great idea over night.

I could make his pool external. Since PVC is so easy to work with, I could make a tunnel into an external acrylic pool. This way, he would have all of the land space in his enclosure and I could give him as much water as I want, really. It would give him a lot more space, and the extra benefit is the pool could be detachable for ease of cleaning. Because that is one thing that is bugging me right now about his pool. It seems like it's going to be hard to clean thoroughly, especially because he can be defensive.

Not to mention it would look really cool.

This would also make the humidity less of an issue.

kudzu · 07-30-18, 08:57 AM

The Habitrail approach. I love it. Just make sure the lid on pool and pool connection to the cage are very strong and secure. (You'd do that anyway, but thought I'd mention it nonetheless.) Will you have a door to close off the pool from the cage?

And now I feel dumb. Because I thought of that approach as a way for you to later expand the living quarters, but didn't think of moving the pool out of the cage. You've got to share the final results with us.

Neon Aurora · 07-30-18, 12:38 PM

Yes, of course they will be very secure. I always have a fear in the back of my mind that my annie will get out and eat my cats. I'm thinking I will use a PVC tube as the tunnel and silicone/glue/whatever it onto the hole in the wall of the enclosure. I'm less sure how to make it secure on the pool side. Has to be some kind of latching mechanism, I guess, so I can still take it out and clean it thoroughly.

I'd like to do a door, but I'm not that great at building things.

Maybe I should head over to the enclosure building subforum to get some ideas. I know someone who can cut holes in things for me and cut the acrylic, etc, but I don't want to bother him too much so would like to do most of it myself. I just can't cut nice holes or acrylic by myself.