New owner seeking humidity advice

[SurrealReverie]

Hello all, I am a very new tegu owner and have found that it is very hard to keep the humidity up in my boy's enclosure. I did so much research before getting him but like always there are things I am still learning. I was looking for opinions on humidifiers or any other techniques that people have picked up in order to maintain humidity. Thank you all in advance
Oh and my boy is a red who is about 2 months old.
Also I apologize if this has been covered in a previous thread

 

[TheTeguNovice]

Welcome and congrats on the new tegu! It looks like it has a nice temperament! Can you provide a full picture of what you have it in?, right off the back if you have a screen top it will be difficult to keep humidity because it provides escape for the water vapors not allowing them to accumulate. Try using plastic wrap around the top, of course not in the area of your heat lamp. The goal is to retain as many vapors as possible. In addition lightly misting your substrate daily is also beneficial.

 

[rantology]

It looks like he already has a bit of stick shed around the tail in the picture, possibly multiple layers? You will need to soak with betadine daily and work at that, they grow so quickly stuck shed can become dangerous in short order.

For tank humidity: Seal off any open parts of the top of the tank that are not in use. You can use plastic wrap as long as it doesnt touch anything hot. Too much ventilation, especially on top-opening enclosures, makes things orders of magnitude harder to keep humid, so that will help the most. Second suggestion: substrate... you didn't mention what you are using so forgive my if I'm wrong, but it looks like orchid bark or the like. That is OK but it doesn't hold humidity at all on its own. Head to a hardware store and pick up the following (make sure they dont have any added chemicals or whatnot):

-Peat moss (I got a massive bale of peat moss at mine for pretty cheap!)
-Top soil
-Coco Fiber (you may have to get this in brick form from amazon or pet stores)

Mix that in equal parts and you'll have something that holds a lot of moisture while not being too heavy/compacted. You can also throw in agricultural charcoal and sphagnum moss to make it more like an AGB substrate composition. But just the basic 3 combo should hold a lot of moisture, and it's great for digging in. Put a nice deep layer in the enclosure - that will help a LOT in keeping the humidity up and your tegu will appreciate being able to dig and bury himself in it.

The last thing you should do after Ventilation and Substrate has been addressed is the moisture system. You can use humidifiers or misting systems, or a combination of the two - there's no wrong answer there. I use a mistking system on mine but did manual spraying when he was in his baby enclosure. Whatever ends up working best, this is more of a trial and error area as everyone's humidity circumstances are different. Frequent small mistings are good, moisture buildup in the soil and wet/soppy soil is bad and will rot.

Congrats and welcome to the Tegu family!

 

[Dylan koch]

I live in Arizona got reptihumidifiers for all 4 of my setups plus I mist the humidifiers have hose I drilled in side of cage and make it look like a foggy like a California morning they have timers n cut offs once reached the 80%