# How WET?



## DigitalChromosome (Jun 25, 2020)

Okay, So I've seen several posts on here about substrates being hyper saturated with water, but I haven't found any that address how wet the back walls should be. Many of the images and videos that I've found with gorgeous vivariums possess super soaked substrate and wood and walls of sphagnum moss, hygrolon, or otherwise to match it. They look like they've just experienced a downpour. So....

How wet should the back walls be? I hope to grow mosses scattered around the tank, but not covering everything, orchids, and marcgravias to name just a few of the plants that I'm eyeing. I've used hygrolon and I'm dialing my humidity in currently (sitting about 70-75%). My hygrolon is only very slightly damp to the touch an hour after the tank has been misted (mistking) - is that too soon?

Thanks for any help!


----------



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

DigitalChromosome said:


> Okay, So I've seen several posts on here about substrates being hyper saturated with water, but I haven't found any that address how wet the back walls should be. Many of the images and videos that I've found with gorgeous vivariums possess super soaked substrate and wood and walls of sphagnum moss, hygrolon, or otherwise to match it. They look like they've just experienced a downpour. So....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The sphagnum moss is my background tends to be just barely damp most of the time except the spots directly in the path for the mistking. 

Generally speaking, I aim for the leaf litter to be essentially dry about 3 hours street the misting ends


----------



## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

DigitalChromosome said:


> Many of the images and videos that I've found with gorgeous vivariums possess super soaked substrate and wood and walls of sphagnum moss, hygrolon, or otherwise to match it. They look like they've just experienced a downpour. So....
> 
> How wet should the back walls be?


Two things are likely causing this. One is that a lot of folks seem to take pictures shortly after misting. The second reason is some folks keep their humidity VERY high. There are 2 schools of thought with humidity, one is 80-100% and the other is 60-80%. I don't know if the folks on this board are predominantly in the latter school but certainly there is a goodly sized population of them here including myself. 

I have background made using the titebond 3 method with sphagnum moss stuffed into various cracks. I have basically concluded I am going to need to start hand misting the background at least a couple of times a week because the mistking doesn't get the background wet hardly at all. My moss back there isn't doing so well but elsewhere its growing quite well indeed. My background is for the most part, never damp. So you definitely don't want to go all the way into 'dry' territory all of the time if you want moss to grow. On the other hand my brom is rocking it back there.


----------



## DigitalChromosome (Jun 25, 2020)

As always, you've both been very helpful! Thanks, I'll make adjustments as needed.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

minorhero said:


> The second reason is some folks keep their humidity VERY high. There are 2 schools of thought with humidity, one is 80-100% and the other is 60-80%.


No, there are not "2 schools of thought". 

People used to think that keeping frogs in saturated air was natural, or beneficial. Over time, keepers learned that keeping darts in such conditions in captivity (along with the associated condensation on surfaces, wet substrate, rapidly decomposing leaf litter layer, inability to thermoregulate through evaporative cooling, and lack of ventilation required to attain such RH numbers) lead to negative outcomes for frogs. Keeping humidity lower (actually, adding less water and providing more ventilation; the actual RH percentage isn't relevant except at the radical extremes) leads to better husbandry outcomes.

This has nothing to do with differing viewpoints; this has to do with increased knowledge of ideal captive conditions as an outcome of experience and evidence.

@DC: the level of 'beauty' of a viv is often (though of course not always) inversely related to its fitness for keeping darts (or other animals, as the case may be). Human perceptions of order and visual pleasure don't map onto habitat needs well at all.


----------



## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> No, there are not "2 schools of thought".


I feel this is a semantic argument. There are lots of folks keeping frogs at higher humidity levels and at least to my knowledge there is nothing like a study to suggest its wrong. I don't buy into the higher humidity because what you say makes sense, and the frogs seem to do just fine in the 60-80% range. But I have a hard to shaking my finger at people who keep frogs at the higher range when outside of this board there is so much information out there telling folks to do just that.


----------



## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

The day there is a scientific grant for humidity levels in captive situ will be the day hell freezes over.

herpetoculture values and 'creeds' are developed per experience. 

So are Zoo modalities, as a matter of fact.

Not everything can be googled.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

One of the most interesting facets of animal keeping, to me anyway, is seeing -- being present for, and participating in -- the arc of the hobby (better: hobbies; they are very distinct from each other). Experiencing the ways in which each of the animal husbandry hobbies grow, and decline, and follow each other, and lead the way for each other, is fascinating but also predictable since history repeats itself.

I'll not ever forget seeing the ad for the first piebald ball pythons sold on the open market -- for $80,000 -- and watching where that has led. And while I wasn't around for the introduction of albino balls and burmese, I have talked face to face with people who were, and saw their eyes light up and their lips simultaneous grimace. Without those first and second hand experiences, I wouldn't have a good grasp of what is really going on in the discussions here of morph and locale purity -- my feelings then, and those facial expressions, are more expressive and educational than any words. 

Following the rise and fall of the iguana as the most abused herp pet, and then the ball python and bearded dragon, and now the crested and leopard geckos, and likely next dart frogs, is something a person can read about but not quite understand. Going to pet stores a couple of decades ago -- and owning an iguana then -- was an experience that gives a perspective on current practices that can't really be read about, certainly not in the forum or FB format anyway.

Watching hobbies like reefkeeping grow through equipment changes (recall twin-tube CFLs? Overdriving linear florescents? Sam Gamble's eureka moment in the hurricane in Key Largo? Or Robert P.L. Straughan's fishbowl methods?) and quantum leaps in information about captive animals (Bornemans' 'Practical Guide', the shortest enormous book in any hobby, to say nothing of his fall from grace, which is an entirely distinct but relevant topic) makes the current internet snapshot of that hobby pale and washed-out.

It is hard, for me anyway, to express how the 'so much information out there (on the internet)' idea is so lacking; that there is so much that a person can't Google their way into knowing; that when an old timer in some pursuit or other says something it is worth pondering that thing really hard; that much of what passes for 'information' is just so much advertising to fools and their money. There's no way to learn any of this but to be patient and pay attention, I guess.

**********

Edit to add -- this is what I was channeling:



Kmc said:


> Not everything can be googled.


I was not the only one who noticed the relevance of that powerful thought.


----------



## DigitalChromosome (Jun 25, 2020)

I can't thank you all enough. Its great being part of the forum and getting so much feedback. I'm a reefer too and there are so many things that even after nearly two years in the hobby, I still don't know, and a plethora of things that I wish I had known before I set up my tank, added certain corals or fish, and made a variety of purchases. I'm trying to avoid as much of that headache now with the dart frogs and plants as I possibly can. I'm sure that a year from now I'll still be wishing I had built it differently or something along those lines. Hell, I already wish I had kept the drylok off of the hygrolon in a lot of the areas.
Its nice knowing that a lot of the trouble shooting has already been done and that there are cases of different approaches which those of us who are new can learn from. As for my tank, I'll go with what seems to be best for the darts (60-80% humidity) and choose my plants and their positions from that.
As for the research, there have been a lot of contributions to science through the efforts of individuals taking on the role of researchers to perform 'citizen science'. I'm not sure how active the forum actually is, I tend to see only a handful of you responding to most of the posts, but perhaps it would be worth considering a new section in the forum for collecting data on this sort of thing where people can report their humidity and occurrences of infections. We've gotta get the data from somewhere!


----------



## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Kmc said:


> The day there is a scientific grant for humidity levels in captive situ will be the day hell freezes over.
> 
> herpetoculture values and 'creeds' are developed per experience.
> 
> ...


I wish there would be such a study but I agree its very unlikely to occur. My point only being that I can't tell a fellow hobbyist 'for shame!' when keeping their darts at higher humidity when the only source of information to the contrary are a few people's personal opinions which clash with other people's personal opinions. 



Socratic Monologue said:


> It is hard, for me anyway, to express how the 'so much information out there (on the internet)' idea is so lacking; that there is so much that a person can't Google their way into knowing; that when an old timer in some pursuit or other says something it is worth pondering that thing really hard; that much of what passes for 'information' is just so much advertising to fools and their money. There's no way to learn any of this but to be patient and pay attention, I guess.


This argument holds water until some other person who has been keeping darts for decades and is wise in the ways of husbandry says they need to be kept at 80-100% humidity and anything less will lead to problems in the long run. This happens, there are posts archived on this forum to same and certainly folks posting right now on facebook that say as much. 

Reading people's experiences, listening to their advice, is how people learn to do just about anything. It doesn't matter if its google, youtube, the guy at your local pet shop, local club, breeder, or somebody on an online forum. I mean after all, this thread is on an online forum and is searchable through google......

Experience helps the individual who actually has the experience to accomplish what they wish to accomplish. To anyone else the experience is just an opinion and when opinions are contradictory and without anything objective to decide the matter what is the person without the experience to do? 

Anyway this is why I said 'two schools of thought'. Because there are, you and I might think the other school is outdated but its still quite present and near as I can tell more popular then our school.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

minorhero said:


> there are posts archived on this forum to same and certainly folks posting right now on facebook that say as much.
> 
> (...)
> 
> It doesn't matter if its google, youtube, the guy at your local pet shop, local club, breeder, or somebody on an online forum. I mean after all, this thread is on an online forum and is searchable through google......


I'm pretty sure you've missed my point entirely. Oh, well, I had fun writing it anyway.


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

@OP:



> a lot of folks seem to take pictures shortly after misting


That's *a very important point*. Elaborating - a photo is an instantaneous capture of a moment in time. Viv time is not momentary. It is continuous.



> I am going to need to start hand misting the background at least a couple of times a week because the mistking doesn't get the background wet hardly at all. My moss back there isn't doing so well but elsewhere its growing quite well indeed. My background is for the most part, never damp. So you definitely don't want to go all the way into 'dry' territory all of the time if you want moss to grow


More useful info offered there. I can add my own experiences and practices:

I keep a variety of plants in with my animals (snakes, as it happens - whatever, doesn't matter to you). Broms, ferns, orchids, mosses, mini palms etc etc.
I like to offer a wide range of moistures and temps for my animals to choose from, to suit whatever they need at the moment (to digest, to rest quietly, to complete a shed cycle, etc).
I use a combination of mist heads, drip walls, hand misting, and hand-watering (just pouring water into my substrate) to provide for animal and plant water needs (my snakes don't drink from bowls).
Like the above quote, my misters don't wet my backgrounds much at all - that's why I do drip walls and hand-misting.
I could take pictures literally any day of the week that showed dripping sopping mossy backgrounds. Likewise I could take pictures any day of the week that showed pretty darn dry backgrounds. Not crispy and wilty, but absolutely without any visible water whatsoever. And I'm talking about spots on the same background, that are only a few inches from each other.
I think of water like I do heat - a little too little is a lot better than a little too much. It's way easier to add, than it is to remove.



> It is hard, for me anyway, to express how the 'so much information out there (on the internet)' idea is so lacking; that there is so much that a person can't Google their way into knowing; that when an old timer in some pursuit or other says something it is worth pondering that thing really hard; that much of what passes for 'information' is just so much advertising to fools and their money. There's no way to learn any of this but to be patient and pay attention, I guess.


Right. There's "information" (some fraction of which is horseshit; another fraction of which is agenda-driven) and there is reliable knowledge. It is easy to gather "information" but the acquisition of reliable knowledge - leading to the development of justified belief - is a different game entirely. It takes some sort of exposure - direct experience and/or being taught, as well as memory, and most of all some sort of scheme (hey, call it a schema) for organizing everything you experience or are taught, and remember. Otherwise it's all just a big fucking word salad.

The best schema for our hobby set is provided by a decent science education. Which is also the best source of, and also provides the best means of developing one's own, justified belief.



> To anyone else the experience is just an opinion and when opinions are contradictory and without anything objective to decide the matter what is the person without the experience to do?


I wonder about the degree to which contradictory experiences are not so much that, but instead are actually just contingent, or context-dependent. For instance, the interplays between the viv environment and the room the viv sits in are pretty important. Simply moving a viv from one room to another can really change how a keeper needs to manage the viv "weather". Likewise, if the room sits in a small old house in Omaha, it's going to behave quite differently from a room sitting in a large new apartment in Phoenix. Often we aren't taking the time to get into that level of detail in our conversations. It's just "2 or 3x/day is OK but 5x/day is probably too much" or whatever. Or, people just tap out and say "it's way too complicated to even bother - you need to figure it out for yourself". Which is more honest, but not that helpful either.

Also - I find it pretty dismissive, and also a little offensive, and finally just weak thinking, to have experience (and by implication, *justified belief*) called "just an opinion". It's edging into "alternative facts" territory. Postmodernist subjectivsm. Floppy-brained horseshit. 

It is my opinion that mauve is vastly uglier than lavender. 
It is my long experience and thus my justified belief that my animals really do not like to be exposed to temperatures above about 87F, particularly at higher humidities.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

jgragg said:


> Also - I find it pretty dismissive, and also a little offensive, and finally just weak thinking, to have experience (and by implication, *justified belief*) called "just an opinion". It's edging into "alternative facts" territory. Postmodernist subjectivsm. Floppy-brained horseshit.


A handful of years ago I was talking to a younger extended family member about what she was learning at (middle, early high) school. I learned that as a part of the English curriculum (??) she was taught that propositions about empirically measurable matters were 'facts', and everything else -- mostly value judgements -- 'opinions'. I tried to explain to her that it is an indisputable fact that it is _better_ (value judgment) to ride a boat across the ocean than to ride a horse across the ocean, but she wasn't having any of it. Once people accept a simple explanation of how the world works, they'll hang on to it come hell or high water.

Epistemologists (people who make a career out of reasoned study and formulation of accounts of knowledge) get twitchy and reach for alcohol when they are reminded of how many/most people subscribe to 'just an opinion' sorts of views. From an even minimally studied POV, these 'just an opinion' claims are on a par with flat earth theories. This is not hyperbole; the two are on the same level.


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

> English curriculum


There's the problem. You don't learn critical thinking in English class. English class is where you learn about the postmodern relativism and associated word-salad horseshit. Not that there's anything fundamentally wrong with English class, or the humanities in general - I just wish the more rigorous disciplines got more air-time. Why not make Logic and Critical Thinking (say...) a compulsory topic? Not a 1-semester elective, but at minimum a year's requirement?



> Once people accept a simple explanation of how the world works, they'll hang on to it come hell or high water.


I know. It's sad. Probably _quite adaptive_ (I mean just look - _here we are_! pardon the tautology...) over nearly our entire modern-human history, say the last 100,000-odd years. But since maybe 1750, humans have been pretty well-served with better methods.



> Epistemologists...


Exactly. The people who think hard about "So, anyway - how do we *know*?". Useful people. Clever people. People we should pay more attention to.

Better to reach for the alcohol, than for the horseshit. The first is easier to quit once you don't need it any more.


----------



## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Here is what I have observed. If contact moisture is adequate, RH in the air does not affect well being outcomes. 

I ok, personally think cyclic is the way to go and that striving for RH uniformity is a beginners angst, and understandable.

Plant life creates a dynamic promoter of encourage/perfect buffer. Sweet moist breath of Transpiration+holding water - rivulet and dropet. I dont know much about plants but I know they do that.

Live insects and larvae, used for food, interestingly fall off easily and do not locomote as well on artificial foliage. The minutiae of foot pads evolved to plant morphology. 

Some reptile and amphibian taxa also, do not utilize artificial plants as they exhibit - with biome appropriate (subject weight, cover value and other native relevance) that they do in interface with real foliage. I rely on pothos mostly and a few others as im a plant dummy.

I have use artificial foliage to create cover areas and hold on to misting aftermath but its not as good.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Kmc said:


> Here is what I have observed. If contact moisture is adequate, RH in the air does not affect well being outcomes.


I'm assuming you are talking about lower-than-typical RH (rather than higher). If so, I've suspected that this may be the case. I'd suspect that the desiccating effects of ~50% RH in the still air of a viv is equivalent to 80%+ with any sort of breeze in the wild. Likely this is effect can be calculated, though not by me. 

Some/most species of darts are said to hide more at low RH, but likely some of that behavior is simply the frogs engaging in extended drinking sessions on some moist substrate somewhere.


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

> Live insects and larvae, used for food, interestingly fall off easily and do not locomote as well on artificial foliage.


Good observation. Plastic is slippery, as is silk. This too:



> striving for RH uniformity is a beginners angst


Back to the OP:



> I hope to grow mosses scattered around the tank, but not covering everything (...) My hygrolon is only very slightly damp to the touch an hour after the tank has been misted (mistking) - is that too soon?


Mosses are pretty, and utterly charming in their own way, and scattered but not smothering is a fine thing to shoot for. I have played around a fair amount with hygrolon, and found it to be rather excessively draining ("dries too fast") for establishing new moss under the conditions I run my vivs. It could actually be the best substrate for moss growth, _for someone who was overwatering his dart tank by a lot_.

Conversely, if you arrange things so the hygrolon always has "wet feet" (like, it reaches down into your false bottom's permanent water layer) then it can wick up some of that water and make for some very happy moss. The problem then is, keeping your substrate from also touching the hygrolon, and thereby also wicking, and becoming a stinking waterlogged mess (assuming you don't just have a granular mineral substrate under your leaf litter).

After consuming the last of my hygrolon, I have not replenished the supply, as I think I'm done messing around with the stuff. There's just better solutions out there, for my aesthetics and the limits to my skills and creativity.


----------



## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

During the dry season researchers also count less Tinctorius in the open. The found most frogs hiding in moist places. So both drought and moisture are very important in their cycles Imo.

This is part of why I think it's import to recreate 3 month dryseason. I do this from november to februari.


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

> This is part of why I think it's import to recreate 3 month dryseason. I do this from november to februari.


Definitely. I'm not aware of anywhere in the Neotropics that lacks a dry season. And as far as I know, this dry season (or at least one of them, if there are two of them) is cooler, too. Some places it's downright chilly, and can surprise the traveler in shorts and sandals. Ha ha.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, Nov-Dec to say Feb-Mar is the ideal time to work with nature, not against it, and offer a cooler, darker period of rest and hunger.


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Tijl said:


> This is part of why I think it's import to recreate 3 month dryseason. I do this from november to februari.


Yeah, those of us who live on the Arctic Tundra (not now, though; summer here is like living in an armpit, except more mosquitoes) don't have much of a choice but to have something of a dry season during the dark days of winter. 

@Tijl, what parameters do you run during the dry season? Do you adjust misting, or ventilation, or temperature, or all of these? Do you see a lot of difference in the behavior of the frogs?


----------



## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Yeah, I was going to ask Tijl about this, too. I am always nervous about over-doing it for my dry season. How dry do you let things get, Tijl? When does dry become dangerous? This always made me nervous when I had mantellas. I worried I was keeping them too dry in the winter.

Mark


----------



## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

I still mist 3x a day just enough so (some) plants survive. Moss defenitly won't, that's part of the reason why I don't have a lot of moss in In my breeder tanks. I my case I mist around 3-5 seconds in most tanks.. but this is not a standard guideline in anyway. I can only advice you learn to 'read' your tank. 

I always make sure there is a small amount of water in my drainage gutters so the frogs have acces to some water if they need it. This also prevents the 'too dry' issue.

I use the period of november-februari since this is winter in my country. This way they temperature is naturaly lowered. It gets min 16.5-18°c and max 21-23°c during that time

If you have specific questions about mantella keeping, there is no one better than @johanovic to answer your questions.


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

I've been trying to work out what a 'dry season' for terribilis looks like. They're reported to come from the wettest rainforest on the planet, so that appears to be the difference between daily rainfall and catastrophic flooding, which they presumably avoid by heading for higher ground.

The village of Timbiqui in Cauca Department is (I think) the last stop before making the trek out to their habitats, and data like this is anthropocentric without taking into account micro-climates in the actual frog habitats, but it's interesting reading (there are a few sites you can find things like this and cross-reference):

https://weatherspark.com/y/20685/Average-Weather-in-Timbiqu%C3%AD-Colombia-Year-Round

Their dry season has only about a 20% or slightly under chance of precipitation and lasts about 2 months. The graph some ways down that tracks 'Humidity Comfort Levels' is entertaining.


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

Fahad - your example shows the 2 wet & 2 dry thing; about equal wets, and with the drys, one quite a bit drier than the other. You could simplify and just go with about a 9-month warm & wet, and one dry, a 3-month warm & dry. Note that just being drier, a frog (or person) could feel colder due to stronger evaporation. You don't have to mess with thermostats or anything, trying to adjust the temps. Adjusting the humidity adjusts the effective, sensible/sensed temp.

In nature, their driest season (which, at 1.5 inches a month is really quite dry) is in our (N hemi) summer. But with their invariant equatorial photoperiod, personally I would just go with whatever months was most convenient to reduce watering but not suffer too much viv desiccation due to either your furnace or your air conditioner running a lot, if you have those and need to use them hard. Both can really dry out a home environment!

I brumate my snakes. Death by dehydration on the one hand, and lung infection on the other (can happen with either too wet or too dry) is always a concern brumating reptiles. So like Tiji I maintain a viv moisture buffer in the face of reduced daily misting duration, in my case by keeping my false-bottom reservoirs full, which I ensure by deeply watering my substrate right before "winter", and roughly monthly during. Of course there are also lots of live plants "breathing" to help keep humidity tolerable. And the snakes are free to shelter in terrestrial hides, or under the leaf little. Even though they are arboreal snakes, this is their normal practice in winter - to go to ground and find a nice dark safe hiding spot.

For your needs I would emulate Tiji and keep up the daily misting times, just reduce the duration. Maybe soak your "dirt" beforehand and make sure your leaf litter is topped off, so the frogs can hide out under there and find higher humidity pockets if they want to, if the air is a little dry for their tastes (as _any frog in nature_ experiences now and then, or on the regular).

good luck!


----------



## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

jgragg said:


> Fahad - your example shows the 2 wet & 2 dry thing; about equal wets, and with the drys, one quite a bit drier than the other. You could simplify and just go with about a 9-month warm & wet, and one dry, a 3-month warm & dry. Note that just being drier, a frog (or person) could feel colder due to stronger evaporation. You don't have to mess with thermostats or anything, trying to adjust the temps. Adjusting the humidity adjusts the effective, sensible/sensed temp.
> 
> In nature, their driest season (which, at 1.5 inches a month is really quite dry) is in our (N hemi) summer. But with their invariant equatorial photoperiod, personally I would just go with whatever months was most convenient to reduce watering but not suffer too much viv desiccation due to either your furnace or your air conditioner running a lot, if you have those and need to use them hard. Both can really dry out a home environment!
> 
> ...


Thanks for weighing in -- this has more or less been my thinking. What I didn't think of was to retain water in my false bottom reservoir -- that could be a useful addition. I keep a deep layer of leaf litter and add to it continuously, so there's actually a vertical moisture gradient for the frogs to access, and my terribilis are not shy about rooting through the leaf litter in search of prey or burrowing under it to bed down, so I'm not too worried about them drying out -- they know how to access the deeper layers which are never totally dry.

Observation is key, of course. As I live in the Frozen North, my winter months make the most sense. Ambient humidity will decrease with central heating, but being located in the basement the tank's passive ventilation was designed to deal with both central heat and A/C in the summer.
_
p.s. What kind of arboreals do you keep? I had chondros and Basins back in the day. Love me some tree snakes._


----------



## DigitalChromosome (Jun 25, 2020)

You guys are awesome! I havent been on in a while so I was quite surprised at how many responses I had. Thanks to all who gave their insight! At this point the tank has turned the other direction. In the first few days I added water to the substrate in the viv a few times since my RH wasn't going up, thinking that it needed to be wetter. Turned out that my hygrometer wasn't working. A new digital one came in and the reading is at 99% constantly. I've dropped my misting cycle to 15 seconds twice a day. Now that its been at that for a week and shown no signs of improvement I'm dropping down to 10. I occasionally open the viv doors and set a timer for 10 minutes so I remember to close it, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. I'm scared to air everything out for too long because of the anubias, moss, crypt, and marcgravia I have in the tank.

Any suggestions on this end of the RH spectrum I would like to get it closer to 80%


----------



## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Typically hygrometers that read 99% in spite of other evidence (such as leaving doors open) that RH is actually lower are broken. All it takes is a bit of condensation on the sensor to do it in.


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

> I'm scared to air everything out for too long because of the anubias, moss, crypt, and marcgravia I have in the tank.


I'm sorry, I haven't really been tracking your set-up, its timing/age, what animals, water features, plumbing, drainage, lids, vents, fans, etc you may or may not have etc. That said, I will just offer this - if you are trying to keep plants that require more or "different" water than frogs can tolerate (say, extremely-heavily overhead sprinkled vs sub-irrigated via your drainage layer), in there with the frogs, then you have a conflict.

So I'm going to take another, shorter whack at this. It might be excessively prescriptive, but based on your last post you still seem to be struggling to reconcile big picture with fine detail:



> How wet should the back walls be?


For a few minutes, a couple of times, per day you could (not should - just could, especiaily if the viv is drilled & drained, and ONLY if your substrate has a wicking break from the background) have them dripping, sopping wet. Otherwise, they should be slowly drying out between soakings. Should. Not drying all the way to crispy/wilty before the next soak, but definitely having plenty of air, not water, in the pore spaces, nearly the entire time. Say, 23 hours 50 minutes per day, at least.

Note - most plants, especially once established, have some range of tolerance. They may not be happy enough to explode with growth, they may even sulk a little, but they will persist. Honestly, most animals are the same way, but as vertebrate-chauvinistic pigs, we are going to come down hard on the side of the vertebrates, right? So - is this viv still in the grow-in phase, with no animals yet? Because if it is, you can mess around keeping conditions unhealthy for frogs but ideal for plants. Then at some point, you can start making the plants suffer a bit, as you work towards establishing the conditions needed for frogs. Best not to hard-slam the plants, they much appreciate a slower crank. But with a slow crank down to what the frogs would like best, and then maintaining brief punctuations of plant-favoring, frog-tolerable 100% humidity + dripping back wall, the frogs can be happy and the plants can be content, and maybe even happy.

It's really an iterative, heuristic process. Just dive in, pay close attention (maybe even _write some stuff down_), and start racking up experience, reliable knowledge, and justified belief.

Hope this helps some.

Good luck!


----------



## DigitalChromosome (Jun 25, 2020)

jgragg said:


> So - is this viv still in the grow-in phase, with no animals yet? Because if it is, you can mess around keeping conditions unhealthy for frogs but ideal for plants. Then at some point, you can start making the plants suffer a bit, as you work towards establishing the conditions needed for frogs. Best not to hard-slam the plants, they much appreciate a slower crank. But with a slow crank down to what the frogs would like best, and then maintaining brief punctuations of plant-favoring, frog-tolerable 100% humidity + dripping back wall, the frogs can be happy and the plants can be content, and maybe even happy.
> Good luck!


Yes, this is exactly what I'm going for. I suspect that it will be several months before I introduce the frogs. I want to make sure that this is a beautiful green utopia that is thriving in its own right before I introduce darts. This is both so that I don't have to constantly be tweaking things while there are frogs inside and thus disrupting their environment and also to provide them places to hide.
You make a good point though. I was trying to dial things down in preparation for the darts even though I still have many more plants that I want to get in here. The additionally plants would increase transpiration and therefore necessitate another set of adjustments to misting cycles to bring down to levels appropriate for the frogs. I hadn't considered that the higher humidity would make many of the plants happier and settle in easier.
Seems like the best way to go is keep it high for now and adjust about a month before the darts come in.

THANKS!


----------



## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

> The additionally plants would increase transpiration and therefore necessitate another set of adjustments to misting cycles to bring down to levels appropriate for the frogs. I hadn't considered that the higher humidity would make many of the plants happier and settle in easier.


Precisely right. Plants geo-engineer a viv atmosphere to an extent, more so when they fill the glass box, less so when they are sparse. While they are sparse, YOU need to be the geo-engineer. But once they fill in, they will take up some of the burden. If you don't adjust to their contribution, well, it isn't helpful. It's also interesting to see the degree to which this plant or that plant plays a big role. Certainly part of it is simple linear scaling by leaf area. But plants that are more thrifty with water loss - _Neoregelia_ for example - don't seem to add much humidity, even when massed. While others, especially those that wilt easily (suggesting poor water-retentive features & physiologies) do seem to help maintain humidity levels - _Pothos_ is one of these. I have one large vivarium that I have allowed _Pothos_ to dominate. It's also my least-ventilated (it's a commercially-produced PVC snake cage, that I have cut a number of holes in to add screened vents, but it's a long way from e.g., an Exo). Anyway, it's a weird one, there's like an inch of large bark for substrate, and just a single mister head. I hand-water the snake a couple times a week with a pump sprayer set to a very coarse mist or sloppy stream, and not too much pressure (I want the snake to drink, not flee, when shot in the face). I pour a quart or two of water into the orchid bark every month or two. But I think the plant and the orchid bark and the air mass do a lot of water-swapping between night and day. Without the Pothos, under my current water-adding regime, I think this tank would almost be suitable for a desert animal. The plant acts as a water banker (with its tissues) & trader (via loss from leaves & perhaps fine roots), I think. It's quite a monster, and I have to hack it back about monthly; when I do so, I perceive (no measuring, just looking) that the viv runs drier for at least 2 weeks, and I have to add more water.

Something fun to chew on there. Sounds like you're well on your way - best luck to you.


----------



## Gamble (Aug 1, 2010)

I do things the same as Tijl. 
Dry season from Nov - Feb. 
At this point, I am only misting 2x/day for 10s each. 
(My wet season is 4x/day for 15s each). 

I also second his statement ... study your tank. 

If you watch your tank, and pay attention to your frogs behaviors, they’ll tell you what you need. 

If it’s too dry, they’ll either be hiding constantly or regularly sitting where the hardscape is holding moisture. 

If it’s too wet, you’ll have constant condensation on the glass, and the smell of your tank will be a little off. 

Like someone said, your plants/leaf litter should be dry within 3 hrs. Start there. 
The rest is just observation of the animals. 


Something I’ve always wondered though:
Let’s assume all things being equal, and everything is dry within the 3 hr window ... 
Is it better to do to have many short bursts, or less but longer bursts? 

(IE. Misting 4x/day for 10s each vs 2x/day for 20s each.)


Nick Gamble
Gamphibian


----------

