# Raising the humidity



## TobyD (Aug 14, 2017)

Hey,
I have a terrarium with vampire crabs. The tank is 50cm by 40cm by 50cm. I have a realy easy setup becase i am all new to terrarium stuff. 

Right now i have a problem with the humidity. I need to keep it min 75% and max 95%. Now it is around 50%. I spray it every now and then with a spray bottle. This keeps the humidity up for about 1 till 2 hours and it drops realy fast. Besides, when school starts again i wont be able to spray multiple times per day. So i need to do something else. 
I am thinking of 3 options: creating a waterfall, buy a fog machine, or instal a spray system. This is where i need help:
Waterfall: this is what i wanted to do first, but since i dont have a drainage bottom and just a waterbasin, this is pretty hard to make. All the water i pump out of the basin, has to return in it otherwise i'll pump it empty and drown everything. Besides, its pretty small (about 1 maybe 1.5 liters) so i cant just putt any filterpump in it. So i was thinking of a pump that pumps the water out of the basin by a hose, into the pump and up into another hose that leads it to the top of the waterfall. But i can't find any pump like that. Does anyone now what kind of pump i could use or another way to create a waterfall? 
Fogger: this actually sounds like a good idea to me. But i have no idea if the fog is safe for my crabs? Does anyone know if fog is safe for vampire crabs? And the other problem i have with this idea, is that there isn't any way to bring that whose in my terrarium since it is entirely closed except for the 2 doors infront. So i would have to drop the fog through the ventilation holes. 
Spray system: is also a good option, but my tank is pretty small and a system like that is quite expensive. And i have 2 plants who will die if they are wet all the time and wont have a change to dry.
So yeah this is the problem i have. I hope someone can help me.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Am I seeing that right? Do you have a 120v light bulb inside your viv? If so, forgive my crab ignorance, but...why?


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Also, I don't understand your ventilation situation. You said "my terrarium since it is entirely closed except for the 2 doors in front". Then you mention ventilation holes. So much about humidity is tied up around what ventilation you do or don't have. It's hard to help without knowing that. Do you have a false bottom? What is your substrate? What spectrum is that light, and why? 
Fill in the blanks or we can't really help.


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## TobyD (Aug 14, 2017)

I'm sorry. What i meant with 'entirely closed', is that there aren't any gabs or holes for wires or hoses. There is a ventilation raster on the top. I attachted a picture of it.
No, i don't have a false bottom. I thought this wouldn't be necessary if i would be carefull with water the plants and because i use a bassin anyway. The substrate i did use is Exo Terra Plantation soil. I chose this substrate because i read its good for plants and this substrate allows the crabs to dig, which is necessary for females who carry eggs.
I have no idea what light that is. I bought the tank like this from someone who kept dart frogs in it. But because his snakes and other reptiles needed more spaces, he decided to sell the frogs and tank. I kept this light because its working and keeps the tank on a perfect tempature for the crabs. Unfortunatly, i cant find anything on the light itself how many v it is. But it is a light bulb indeed.


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## Wekkerton (Jul 3, 2017)

Hey Toby,

I agree with Pumilo that there were some blanks unfilled.

I assume that the person you've bought the tank from isn't a very experienced dartfrog keeper? If, and I explicitly say; IF, a dartfrog climbs towards that lampbulb, or lands on it after it jumps, he'll burn his skin and eventually die.

Obviously, you do not have pdf's, you have crabs. 

First of all, what temperature do you want it to be? Plants will have a hard time with a lightbulb, because a lightbulb will eventually burn growing leaves as they approach to close. What I suggest you'd do is craft/buy some sort of lid in which you can place either 1 or 2 T5 TL lightbars. This allows for your temperature to be consistent, it will not burn anything, and as we all know; the hotter it is, the faster humidity drops. 

If you'd place a lid on your tank, vaporizing water has *less* ways of escaping the tank, which means the humidity will increase. I am not saying that this will solve your problem, but it will at least help. 

If you'd combine the above, a lower temperature source (the lightbulb swapped for T5 lighting), plus a lid on your tank, will help to either decrease the temperature a bit as well as maintain a higher humidity.

Try that before you invest in anything serious like a fogging system.

My two cents!

Maikel


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## Hercrabit (Oct 6, 2016)

Along with the enclosed top I keep a small aquarium air stone in my hermit crab water bowls. It seems to keep the humidity a bit more constant. The pump makes a little noise but after a while you get use to it


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## serial hobbiest (Mar 5, 2017)

I'm struggling with a couple of things here. If the previous owner was keeping PDFs in there, and it was set up the same as you have it, then it's doubtful the humidity is as low as your hygrometer is telling you.
1) Have you checked its accuracy? Here's how: How to Test a Hygrometer: 6 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow
2) Are you monitoring the humidity down on the floor where the crabs live? If you're testing the air space in the middle of the vivarium, the humidity there is most likely significantly drier, being closer to the vent and the hot bulb.
3) If you're still convinced it's too dry in there, your fix might be as simple as partially covering up the vent. 
4) Given that you have no false bottom, I'd be leary about fixing it with extra misting. You'll run a great risk of sogging out your substrate, which will cause all sorts of stinky, nasty conditions.
5) I would also avoid the waterfall idea. Any splashing from it, or diversion of flow from plants growing in, could cause you soggy substrate problems as well.
6) That leaves the fogger as your best option. If you're on a budget, you can build one rather cheaply- like $10 or $15. I found an ultrasonic (cool mist) fog generator for about $2 on eBay, and an aquarium air pump for under $10. Grab any old plastic container with a lid, and start making holes for the power cord for the fogger, the air inlet from the air pump, and the fog outlet. Then seal up the holes, and voila!

But like I said. If PDFs were in there, and they were healthy, then I imagine it's fine for your crabs, too. Test your hygrometer before you doing anything.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Turn it off, NOW! 120v plus humidity and condensation, equals death.
Your setup is NOT SAFE! If...no, when, you get a film of water that spreads from the bulb socket, along the ceiling, and down to the doors, and all you have to do is touch that wet door and your humidity problems are gone forever. Household currents, and water, do not play well together. Finally, a bulb inside your vivarium, particularly one that adds heat, which you've confirmed, is drying everything out. The sun evaporates our lakes, and you better believe your light bulb is trying to do the same thing in your viv. With that open top, and the heat near the top, that bulb dries it up, and the heat makes it rise, sending it right out your "skylight". That screen and that bulb together, effectively form an "attic fan", ripping your moisture out of the air faster than it can form...thus low humidity.

The former viv owner was not a frog keeper, so much as a frog killer. That is not a frog friendly tank, and never was. I would seriously question any other advice that gentleman may have given you.

Lose that light bulb, ASAP! That is too much ventilation for a beginner. A tank with that much ventilation takes an experienced frogger to pull off.

Lose the screen top, in favor of perhaps an inch of ventilation along that edge.

Put in the false bottom. A false bottom is pretty much standard for multiple reasons. One is to deal with the standing water that will accumulate. It's a flat tank. You can't drain all the water out of a flat bottomed tank. Certainly not without lifting the viv and tilting it towards the drain. The second reason we use false bottoms, is to raise our humidity. One half to one inch of water in the bottom of your viv, will do a lot to raise your humidity, while keeping that water away from you substrate.

I'm not quite sure what your background is. It looks a bit like cork bark mosaic, but without the sphagnum moss. If you can pack sphagnum moss in between the chunks of cork (if that's what it is), the sphagnum will hold a LOT of water, still be well drained for plants to root in, and it will raise your humidity. Well, it will try to, but it will fail if you don't get a lid up top.

You should not need to invest in any kind of fogger or misting system, for one vivarium. There are several things your viv needs. Once you take care of them, a small, handheld, hand powered, misting bottle is all you'll need.

Exo Plantation Soil. Ugh. Double ugh. It's 100% coco, worse yet, it's 100% compressed coco. A coco substrate, with no false bottom, in a humid vivarium. That's the perfect storm. Those conditions could actually kill frogs fairly quickly. Wet, nasty, undrained substrates (which yours will be) foster bacteria, and can cause bacterial infections. It can actually foster conditions that will literally rot a frogs feet and legs away, overnight. You may not be aware of rapid tissue necrosis, but I bet you've heard of the flesh eating disease? 

I don't know crabs, but you say they like to dig. Are we talking about digging tunnels? ABG mix, with it's tree fern fiber pieces, would make much better, sturdier, collapse proof tunnels, than a waste product from coconut farming. ABG mix would also last longer, and would give you the excellent drainage that a high humidity tank requires.

See, the more info and pictures you give us, the more quality input we give you.


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## TobyD (Aug 14, 2017)

@wekkerton:
Well i actually have no idea if he is an experienced dart frog keeper. But i also think he might be more experienced with snakes than with frogs because he chose to sell the frogs and not a few snakes. 
There indeed is no way for the crabs to reach the bulb. They are able to climp, but they aren't the best climbers in the animal kingdom. They won't be ablo to climp up the backwall, and i dont think they can climp on the wood as well. So they won't burn themselves. 
Vampire crabs do need a temperature above 22 °C ( 72 °F). But they are more active and will only breed if the temperature is above 25 °C (77 °F) and under 29 °C (85 °F). During the night the temperature should decrease under 25 °C (77 °F). 
This light keeps the temperature during day at 27 °C (81 °F). During night, it is 24 °C (75 °F). So this is actually perfect.
I'll do research on a led bar thanks for the tip, but i'm afraid the temperature will decrease.
I could close up the ventilation raster, but doesn't the tank need fresh air? At least that is that i allways read, that there allways should be a way for fresh air to get in.

@hercrabit:
I still have a airpump +stone. I used to have this in my aquarium years ago. Of course i don't use it anymore. I'll try that, thank you.

@serial hobbiest:
I dind't buy the entire terrarium like this, i bought the tank + light like this. I made this setup myself. I even made the background myself. So this setup was never meant for frogs, but for land crabs. I will check my hygrometer, thanks for the link. Yes i have the hygrometer 1 cm above the substrate. If it appears to be correct, i will do research on your idea of a fogger, thank you for your tips.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Oh, yes, one more thing. Your bulb. It's not LED. It's not power compact, and it's not an HID (high intensity discharge including metal halide and high pressure sodium, but it goes into a socket. That tells me incandescent, or possibly a halogen bulb. Neither one is suitable for plant growth. Only a very small portion of the spectrum is usable by plants. Basically, for every hundred watts you use, you might get 10 or 20 usable watts. One or two, 3 watt LED chips, probably give you as much usable light as a crappy incandescent bulb.
Incandescent bulbs are already incredibly *in*efficient at converting energy to light. Couple that with using it for plant growth, and you have the most inefficient light for plant growth that you could possibly put together.

Any way you look at it, that bulb needs to go!


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## TobyD (Aug 14, 2017)

Okay, first things first. The most importsnt thing right now is to remove the bulb and use led light. Okay, i'll see what i can do. Would a led strip (waterproof of course) work as well? And another question, how will i make sure my terrarium has the right temperature if my heat source is gone? 
My first priority is the health of my animals. I am willing to take the light bulb out and replace it for leds, but not untill i found a way to keep the temperature up. I have no idea how they will react on a sudden temperature change and i guess i do not want to find that out either. If the plants will die, than that is unfortunate, but i will buy new ones. Those do not have my priority.
And 1 little thing, my substrate isn't wet at all. I am very carefull with water the plants. When i water them, i inject it directly in the root area and only just enough so the surrounding substrate won't get too wet .


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## serial hobbiest (Mar 5, 2017)

TobyD said:


> Okay, first things first. The most importsnt thing right now is to remove the bulb and use led light. Okay, i'll see what i can do. Would a led strip (waterproof of course) work as well? And another question, how will i make sure my terrarium has the right temperature if my heat source is gone?
> My first priority is the health of my animals. I am willing to take the light bulb out and replace it for leds, but not untill i found a way to keep the temperature up. I have no idea how they will react on a sudden temperature change and i guess i do not want to find that out either. If the plants will die, than that is unfortunate, but i will buy new ones. Those do not have my priority.
> And 1 little thing, my substrate isn't wet at all. I am very carefull with water the plants. When i water them, i inject it directly in the root area and only just enough so the surrounding substrate won't get too wet .


Well, LED isn't going to give you the heat you're looking for, however there are options. Fluorescents are warm, and you have the option of bulbs that provide UVB (I dunno, do crabs benefit from UVB?) in addition to UVA for the plants. If you close up that vent to increase your humidity, you might just find the fluorescent bulb to be warm enough if you keep the room temperature at the crabs' prefered lower limits. You could also try a substrate heater mat to place under the viv... or a reptile basking light... 

But yeah- the light should be on top of the canopy, not under it. I doubt an ordinary LED strip from Home Depot will be sufficient lighting for plants, but I really don't know.


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## Hercrabit (Oct 6, 2016)

I don't know anything about vampire crabs but my hermit crabs need no basking light so I use a UTH (under tank heater) attached to the side of the vivarium. It is plugged into a Zilla temperature controller that keeps the temperature at or close to their ideal temperature - not too cold or too hot. Like this one: (https://www.amazon.com/Zilla-Reptil...&sr=8-1&keywords=zilla+temperature+controller)


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## TobyD (Aug 14, 2017)

I'll dive into everything tomorrow. I had to work these past days but tomorrow i am free. I don't think vampire crabs need uvb. I can't find anything about specific light that thry could need so i think it won't matter. So if i am going to search for leds, i need to make sure they provide uva? 
Maybe i should also mention that i am only 17 years old and i dont earn like a lot of money. So i also can not spend a lot...
I don't know if a substrate heater would work. My substrate is about 7 cms (so the crabs can dig tunnels) and the bottom class plate isn't being lifted by something. I could try to place it at the back but i don't know if that will do the work.


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## serial hobbiest (Mar 5, 2017)

TobyD said:


> I'll dive into everything tomorrow. I had to work these past days but tomorrow i am free. I don't think vampire crabs need uvb. I can't find anything about specific light that thry could need so i think it won't matter. So if i am going to search for leds, i need to make sure they provide uva?
> Maybe i should also mention that i am only 17 years old and i dont earn like a lot of money. So i also can not spend a lot...
> I don't know if a substrate heater would work. My substrate is about 7 cms (so the crabs can dig tunnels) and the bottom class plate isn't being lifted by something. I could try to place it at the back but i don't know if that will do the work.


In terms of a substrate heater, I was speaking of a mat that you place beneath the entire vivarium, not within the substrate itself. I have no experience with them personally, though, but you might want to check into it.

Plants require UVA. Check this out, and have a good read: Lighting Spectrum and Photosythesis - Lighting - Aquatic Plant Central

Something else to consider, perhaps, is a metal halide grow lamp. They do a great job of growing plants, throwing heat, and raising your electric bill. For something small like your terrarium, you should be able to find a bulb & ballast in the neighborhood of $50.


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