HELP! Decreasing humidity at night

jackcsmith91

jackcsmith91

Member
I'm due to get my 3 month old male Cham Friday.
I have been ready up a lot on humidity levels during the day needing to be between 40-50; which is fine

But at night.. with no lamps or lights on the humidity in the terrarium increases to anything up to 90%.. I feel like this may be an issue for my Cham? Can anyone confirm/deny?

And better yet give me advice on how to decrease the humidity?
 
jackcsmith91 said:
I'm due to get my 3 month old male Cham Friday.
I have been ready up a lot on humidity levels during the day needing to be between 40-50; which is fine

But at night.. with no lamps or lights on the humidity in the terrarium increases to anything up to 90%.. I feel like this may be an issue for my Cham? Can anyone confirm/deny?

And better yet give me advice on how to decrease the humidity?
Click to expand...
What setup have you got? Is the cage screen, wood, glass?

What you could do is heat a nightime heat light. Also a dehumidify could help
 
RandellTheCham said:
What setup have you got? Is the cage screen, wood, glass?

What you could do is heat a nightime heat light. Also a dehumidify could help
Click to expand...

Hello mate! It's a glass Exo-Terra; 45cm x 45cm x 60cm. It's currently 19:08pm and the temperature is 19.3c in the viv and humidity level is 75 and rising slowly.

I guess I could try a night lamp.. just thought a temperature drop during the night was good for the Cham
 
Don't use an actual light at night but a ceramic heat emitter instead. It won't interfere with your chams sleep cycles like light will.
 
I'm not even sure that adding any heat source will be necessary. You could try just doing your last misting earlier and see if that doesn't help first.
What species are we talking about? Did I miss that info somewhere?
 
JacksJill said:
I'm not even sure that adding any heat source will be necessary. You could try just doing your last misting earlier and see if that doesn't help first.
What species are we talking about? Did I miss that info somewhere?
Click to expand...
It's a male veiled. So, my last misting was at 3pm. It's now nearly 8pm. The temperature is 19c and humidity is 82%. I'm just worried the humidity is too high during the night when I'm asleep?
A
 
Recommended Temperatures for Veiled Chameleons.
Baby/juvenile (<9 months): ambient 72-80F (22-26C), basking 85F (29C)
Adult males: ambient 75-80F (23-26C), basking 90-95F (32-35C)
Adult females: ambient 75-80F (23-26C), basking 85F (29C)

You could bring your temp up a bit to dry things out. I'm assuming all your lights are off for the night and that is why you are at 19˚C. That would be normal. You could add an emitter for a few after lights out hours to reduce humidity and then let the viv cool the rest of the night for a temperature drop.
I'm not even positive that 82% is too high for overnight humidity. Hopefully someone with more veiled experience will chime in.
If your viv is new and you just planted and watered that may make your humidity higher temporarily. You could also thin out your plants a bit (remove a few leaves) to increase air flow. Ultimately good air flow with out a draft is what you are after.
 
jackcsmith91 said:
It's a male veiled. So, my last misting was at 3pm. It's now nearly 8pm. The temperature is 19c and humidity is 82%. I'm just worried the humidity is too high during the night when I'm asleep?
A
Click to expand...
The problem you have as im aware in uk is it is soooo humid. The exo terra glass terriums keep humidity in so if possible add more vent holes or leave door slightly open
 
RandellTheCham said:
What setup have you got? Is the cage screen, wood, glass?

What you could do is heat a nighttime heat light. Also a dehumidify could help
Click to expand...

Do NOT use a light at night. You also want temps at night to drop. Mid 60 degrees is safe for Chams at night and is beneficial.

JacksJill said:
Don't use an actual light at night but a ceramic heat emitter instead. It won't interfere with your chams sleep cycles like light will.
Click to expand...
^THIS, but I still believe a drop in temp is also good for Cham.

Humidity should also vary and be higher than 40-50% during the day. Read the care sheets, I believe they recommend that it should be upwards of 70% and cycle down.

What is your houses humidity at night? With no misting, the terrarium should get to what ever your house is. Maybe your misting to late in the evening before lights out?
 
broderp said:
Do NOT use a light at night. You also want temps at night to drop. Mid 60 degrees is safe for Chams at night and is beneficial.


^THIS, but I still believe a drop in temp is also good for Cham.

Humidity should also vary and be higher than 40-50% during the day. Read the care sheets, I believe they recommend that it should be upwards of 70% and cycle down.

What is your houses humidity at night? With no misting, the terrarium should get to what ever your house is. Maybe your misting to late in the evening before lights out?
Click to expand...
Morning, so I misted at 7:30am before work. At when I got home again at 3:30pm. They're the only times I sprayed yesterday. Lights were out at 7:30pm. Humidity was at 80% when I went to bed at 10pm. I've now woken up at 6am exactly and humidity was 91%
 
jackcsmith91 said:
Morning, so I misted at 7:30am before work. At when I got home again at 3:30pm. They're the only times I sprayed yesterday. Lights were out at 7:30pm. Humidity was at 80% when I went to bed at 10pm. I've now woken up at 6am exactly and humidity was 91%
Click to expand...

You might have a faulty humidifer meter
 
This topic is incomplete and way to many topics like this get created.

OP, you have a problem but you do not provide a lot of useful information for us to go on.
How can we help if we don't even know what your basic husbandry looks like?
- location of the enclosure.
- Lighting (lamps. wattage, lighting times)
- Type of enclosure (Glass exo tera)
- Watering (misting times, dripper etc?)
- Temperatures: spot, ambient and at night
- decoration, live plants, fake plants etc.
- are you using soil (preferably you shouldn't )? This can hold a lot of moisture too.
- Does your enclosure dry out completely between misting?
- add pictures.
- what's the humidity in the rest of the room?

My wild guess is that you are using misting schedules others use for screen enclosures.
Since you have a glass enclosure you need to mist way less as your humidity will stay in better compared to screen.
This will also mean your chameleon will have less chances to clean his eyes, drink and soak when shedding so you may have to think about showering him on a regular basis (look up the tips on how to shower your cham) and also to add a dripper to the enclosure.
 
Remkon said:
This topic is incomplete and way to many topics like this get created.

OP, you have a problem but you do not provide a lot of useful information for us to go on.
How can we help if we don't even know what your basic husbandry looks like?
- location of the enclosure.
- Lighting (lamps. wattage, lighting times)
- Type of enclosure (Glass exo tera)
- Watering (misting times, dripper etc?)
- Temperatures: spot, ambient and at night
- decoration, live plants, fake plants etc.
- are you using soil (preferably you shouldn't )? This can hold a lot of moisture too.
- Does your enclosure dry out completely between misting?
- add pictures.
- what's the humidity in the rest of the room?

My wild guess is that you are using misting schedules others use for screen enclosures.
Since you have a glass enclosure you need to mist way less as your humidity will stay in better compared to screen.
This will also mean your chameleon will have less chances to clean his eyes, drink and soak when shedding so you may have to think about showering him on a regular basis (look up the tips on how to shower your cham) and also to add a dripper to the enclosure.
Click to expand...

Location: corner of a small double bedroom
Lighting: 40w heat bulb and 18inch uvb tube
Enclosure: exo terra 45x45x60
Misting: 7:30am 3:30pm
Temp: 32c basking 24ambient
Decoration: live ficus plant
Substrate: none; newspaper&kitchen towel
Dried out completely between misitings
Rest of the room humidity is 70-80. I live in a seaside town in england; notoriously humid
 

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jackcsmith91 said:
Location: corner of a small double bedroom
Lighting: 40w heat bulb and 18inch uvb tube
Enclosure: exo terra 45x45x60
Misting: 7:30am 3:30pm
Temp: 32c basking 24ambient
Decoration: live ficus plant
Substrate: none; newspaper&kitchen towel
Dried out completely between misitings
Rest of the room humidity is 70-80. I live in a seaside town in england; notoriously humid
Click to expand...
Remove kitchen towels leave botterm bare also maybe have a drainage system, the kitchen towels
Hold water and will keep humidity in
 
Relatively big pot compared to the enclosure and like Randell said the towels will keep a lot of moisture too.
During the day the heat will draw away humidity but during the night you will not have a heat source on so humidity will rise.

If your room's humidity is high by default it would be easier for you to keep him in a screen enclosure, keep this in mind when you're going to buy him his adult enclosure (because he will outgrow this one eventually).

On an unrelated topic:
I see in your picture that you only have diagonal branches, your chameleon will need horizontal ones and will also prefer some vertical ones (my panther likes to sleep on those)... More paths = better.
 
jackcsmith91 said:
Morning! It's brand new, it's a digital combo meter. I did check the humidity online for my area and it was 85% last night using BBC weather. I'm right by the sea which will have an affect on things
Click to expand...

This explains a lot. Where are you located? (I'm just curious, I've never lived near any large body of water and find it fascinating :))

In your case the terrarium is working against you. I love glass terrariums, and have one as well for my Cham, but they are great of keeping humidity. Too good in this case. You would be better off with a screen case....BUT.....if your humidity is normally 80% or so, that would be the theoretical best you will get without adding heat to dry it up.

I'm not a pro, but I see a few options,
  • Get a room dehumidifier to lower the room humidity down to acceptable levels.
  • Get some sort of AC unit for the terrarium and run a heat emitter to maintain the humidity.
    • You will still need to manage regular heat/humidity during the day
I'm not thinking that changing to a screen cage will help that much. The key is to remove the humidity in the room the terrarium is kept or to modify the environment within the enclosure.

Too bad you don't have frogs, they love the humidity. :D
 
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