# Humidity and how often do you mist?



## Gekido (Feb 18, 2016)

I have had my setup for around three years but I lost interest in the hobby for a long time. I always took care of the frogs but I didn't really change anything or spend time looking at the tank. 

About three months ago I started looking at other tanks online and getting excited about the hobby again. My humidity was always around 40% with the screen top with plexiglass over it, but I wanted to do what I always thought about so I bought glass. I took off the screen siliconed glass over the edge so I can still remove the top if I want and then drilled the glass for my mistking.

Here are my questions now, my humidity is sitting around 60% to 90% is this normal or is it to high? It changes a lot because I leave the door open when I feed my frog and just watch for a good 10 min + every day. The glass is always covered in water now and I can not see anything. My orchids look great and happy the bromeliads I don't know about though. They had been turning yellow for some time and losing leaves? I not only changed the humidity but I also changed the light to a 6700K led fixture. 

I don't know if its the lights or the humidity but the leaves that were yellow are not falling off like they use to they use to get soft and I could just lift them off the plant now they turn hard and curl on the sides and I have to cut them. No other leaves have turned though since I got the new light its just the old ones and I have grown 4 new pups.

Can the bromeliads get to wet? is 60 to 90% to much? Should I now add a fan? 

I have a dual nozzle mistking going off for 20 sec every four hours all day and night. I don't mind the glass being covered if the frog and plants are happy. 

Please let me know what you think.


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## erikm (Oct 1, 2015)

20 seconds every 4 hours is a lot of misting! My system goes for 20 seconds at 830am followed by 30 minutes of air circulation by the internal fans. Then 15 more seconds of misting at 3pm again followed by the fans. This allows for a nice spike in humidity a couple times per day but also for the plants to dry out a bit before the next misting. 

The leaves yellowing could be caused by over watering but if they are the outer leaves, they could just be dying off normally. Take some photos. 

I would dial back the watering big time. You don't want to constantly have an extremely high relative humidty. Some variation throughout the day is great. Search the forums for 'evaporative cooling' and you'll find lots of great info about ventilation, misting and relative humidity. Look for posts by Ed. 

Don't get stuck on percentages though, hygrometers are notorious for being completely off, especially cheap ones. Make sure you have some ventilation in your top and reduce watering to a couple times per day and you should be good.


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## Gekido (Feb 18, 2016)

erikm said:


> 20 seconds every 4 hours is a lot of misting! My system goes for 20 seconds at 830am followed by 30 minutes of air circulation by the internal fans. Then 15 more seconds of misting at 3pm again followed by the fans. This allows for a nice spike in humidity a couple times per day but also for the plants to dry out a bit before the next misting.
> 
> The leaves yellowing could be caused by over watering but if they are the outer leaves, they could just be dying off normally. Take some photos.
> 
> ...


I have a exo terra digital hygrometer I hope its not a cheap one but I will cut back the misting to half and see how that works. Something like 10 sec every four hours. I do not like to mist a lot all in one shot though my tank is setup to drain very well and then I remove the water every two weeks with a pump. 

I come from years of reef tanks so I use a six stage RODI for water and I really have a hard time getting my mind around the drainage of some of these tanks I see. In reef keeping its all about exporting the waste and keeping the system clean. My mist systems main point was to flush out the waste to the water below so I could remove it, of course keeping them wet is a other point to using it.

I have been thinking about adding a fan for flow for some time I have glass saws for 1" bulkheads for reef tanks. I may drill a hole for one then place a bulkhead and screen on it and add a fan to the outside blowing inside.


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## erikm (Oct 1, 2015)

You don't want to flush all of the waste out. In fact, frog poop is a great food source for all of your plants and microfauna 

Try misting less often and allow things to 'dry out' a bit in between.

Every 4 hours doesn't really allow for a dry period ever. 

Post a few photos of your setup as well.


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## Gekido (Feb 18, 2016)

My orchids, bromeliads and java moss are the only plants I have in the tanks and they are all up on wood and off the ground well all but one orchid but its very large and I can't put it on any wood. I will change the misting timer today though. I can post some pics on here later on tonight, but I just took the tank apart last month to foam it and silicone it after three years of thinking about it.

So its not really grown in yet but i'll show you some pics and thanks for the help.

Edit here are some pics.



















Please let me know if that works I used my website as the url I don't like to use photo sites.


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## erikm (Oct 1, 2015)

Ok a few comments.

Just by looking at the photo I can tell its very damp/stagnant in there. Your frogs and plants would *really* benefit from some ventilation in the glass top.

The yellow leaves look like mature growth dying off. Hard to see but I think you're ok there.

Get some leaf litter in there. Magnolia and live oak are great leaves to use. Your frogs and microfauna will thank you.

As an overall suggestion I would spend a few hours looking over some of the great setups that members have built in this forum:

Member's Frogs & Vivariums - Dendroboard


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## Gekido (Feb 18, 2016)

I have some leaves I'm just letting the moss attach to the foam some more before I add it back. I may drill the top glass and add a fan soon. Right now I only have the one frog in there I'm going to move her soon and add 4 more though so I will add the leaves then.

I hope the leaves that are yellow are just like you say the broms were red when I bought the main one years ago all that you see came from it and they all turned green it was the bad zoo med light with crappy light bulbs. 

Now I have 6700K 30 watt leds I have seen a big change since I bought them. I know my tank is kind of strange looking right now but that is only about one month since I added the foam and the moss has not grown that much yet. I love to see all the tanks here and think of all the things I can do.

In a few months I will be getting a rack and more tanks so I am doing all the research I can on styles and making plans.

I just foamed my 12x12x18 last week and it came out a lot better.


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## Gekido (Feb 18, 2016)




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## Gekido (Feb 18, 2016)

I pulled the pups off and moved the older plants and changed some things around I will leave it like this and get more leaves. I cut the mist time in half to.


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## chirept (Mar 24, 2015)

I was wondering the same, starting to get my equipment list set up. what are you using for fan/ventilation?


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## Kalle (May 14, 2010)

[EDIT: Accidentally necroposted]


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

chirept said:


> I was wondering the same, starting to get my equipment list set up. what are you using for fan/ventilation?


FYI: The OP hasn't been here for 15 months. You'll likely do much better searching the archives here, and then starting a new thread with whatever questions weren't answered in the past.


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## chirept (Mar 24, 2015)

Socratic Monologue said:


> FYI: The OP hasn't been here for 15 months. You'll likely do much better searching the archives here, and then starting a new thread with whatever questions weren't answered in the past.


Thanks! Will do, this was one of the first threads that popped on my search.


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