Live plants in cage

[brad]

Hello fellow Ig lovers.... I havn't posted for ages on here. Moe is doing great, but my latest quest is to try and stabilize the humidity in his cage. The cage is large, about 650 gallons in volume (5.5' x 3' x 5.5') and in the cold winter, the furnace makes sure that all of the air in my house is bone dry.

I have tried waterfalls, misting, large tubs of water, and even a fogger and I still cannot get the humidity inside his cage higher than 25-30%. When I mist his cage daily, it will spike to 35% for about an hour then it will drop to 24 or 25% again. I would like to have the humidity stable and higher than what it is at now.

I have been thinking about putting a few shallow tubs of live, non-poisonous plants in Moe's cage to help keep the humidity up through transpiration and the moisture from the growing medium.

Does anyone have experience with this? I dont know if this will work without Moe knocking over and eating anything I put in the cage. I would also need some recommendations of good, hardy plants to try and grow in his cage.

Thanks,
Brad

[Merlin]

Sorry but that won't work. The plants and mediium won't put out the sort of humidity you need and the ig will enjoy himself making one heck of a big mess!
Try a room humidifier or vaporizer. You can get a Vicks Hot steam vaporizer for about 10-12 bucks. we use one and it can make the air prety thick!
You will have to mske sure that the ig can't get to it though as the steam coming out is very hot!

[deanie]

I have a fake rock over mine with a zillion holes punched in it, and she just loves to hang on the top of it.




I think you can kinda see her hanging on it in the second picture.

[prism_wolf]

Great idea Deanie. That's cute...:-D

Mine is just placed inside of a smaller animal cage:

[brad]

With the vaporizer in the cage, what is the humidity? Do you have it run all the time, or on and off throughout the day? Where do you get this particular unit (walgreens, target, etc??)? How often do you need to fill it up?

Thanks and sorry for all the questions.

Brad

[Merlin]

Walmart has them and I would expect the drugstores too. Vicks is a pretty common brand.
Running non stop they are good for about 12 hours between refills. If you have it set for several on/off cycles that would be longer.
I would put it on a multiple on/off setting timer and then you would just have to play with it to get the level of humidity you need.

[prism_wolf]

LOL...Questions are what we're here for!!

The humidity was bumped up to about 80% or so while it ran. I ran it intermittently for periods of complete drying out. If I didn't do this there would be mold and fungus everywhere... . Like Merlin suggested - set the timer for staggered times. Honestly - in the wild - most of the humidity collects at night and tends to dry off during the day with maybe a rain here and there. I run mine mostly at night and twice during the day for about an hour.

[brad]

Sounds good, this is much easier than messing around with plants.

Thanks!