I am looking for advice on 1) How to keep the humidity in my tank high enough in general, and 2) How I can control humidity while I am away for about a week visiting family during the Christmas holidays. My crested gecko, Zuri, is very healthy and acting normally for the most part (will explain at the bottom). I have had her for 10 months. Her tank is 16' tall, 12' wide and 36' long. The walls are plexiglass and the top is made of bars. It was originally bought for my old water dragon so I know that it's not optimal, but she seems to enjoy it. I use about 1.5- 2 inches of coco fibre as her substrate and she has plenty of fake foliage to climb and hide in. I recently moved to a new house in a new town and the thermostat doesn't seem to work very well. It always seems much colder inside than the thermostat says, so I have been using a heat lamp on Zuri's cage. The temperature on one side is ~73F and the other side is 70F. Since adding the heat lamp I have had trouble keeping the humidity level high enough, even though I spray her cage down thoroughly twice a day. I have recently experimented with using a homemade dripper but it empties pretty fast and I feel like it gets the substrate wet but does not keep the air very humid. I have also experimented with using a plastic bag over ~3/4 of the bars on top of the cage, with a small blanket on top of that. This was meant to keep the humidity and heat in the cage, but I am worried that she may not get enough ventilation if I do this for a long period of time. Anyway, so my pressing problem is that I have just recently moved to this town and I don't know anyone I can ask to look after Zuri while I am away for about a week during Christmas break. If I did I could just get them to spray down the cage everyday or something. While I am away I am going to keep the house at 22'C (71.6F) and turn off the heat lamp to avoid a fire. I am more worried about keeping the humidity levels and water availability high enough for her than the temperature or food. She should be fine with those. As I have very little money at the moment, I was hoping to avoiding having to buy an automatic mister for her, but this is the only thing I can think of that will keep her cage properly while I am gone. Also, I was wondering if anyone might be able to give me some insight on some of her behaviour. Most of the time I would describe her behaviour as completely "normal" but today I woke up to find her almost completely buried under the coco fiber under a leaf. She freaked me out because I did not know how she could breath under there, but apparently she could. I left her there after making sure she was okay and she stayed until I took her out to play with her later. The only other time I have seen her hide in the coco fiber is when I move houses. She normally shimmies under the fiber when moving but keeps her head out. I assumed this is because she is stressed, but I don't know why she would do this while in her normal cage, because there was nothing stressful happing in the last few days. I was thinking maybe she wanted to keep herself more moist, but the humidity levels are not that low... maybe 40%. Any advice or insight you could give me would be appreciated! - Alison
Welcome Alison = ) Contrary to common belief, very few reptiles actually require a very high constant humidty. It can have as many adverse effects as positive ones, such as increasing the chances for things such as respiratory infections and increasing the chances for mold and bacteria to populate the enclosure. Even Chameleons who often require automatic misting systems would respond badly to constant humidity highs, because they live in screen enclosures that have a constant airflow that allows for drying between mistings. The only animals that may truly benefit from a dense humid environment may be amphibians that require the moisture to breathe properly and keep their skin moist. If you observe crested gecko's when they are sprayed, their skin is actually fairly impermeable to water. It will bead and mostly slide off of their body because their skin is composed of scales being reptiles. In an enclosed vivarium, you can actually attain adequate humidity for Rhacodactylus geckos with only a decent sized water dish in the enclosure. This seems like taboo for these species; being from a rainforest type of environment, but I know of several breeders who raise their animals by only misting the enclosure once every so often and have perfectly heatlthy animals that can shed their skin without problems. I'd still recommend misting at least occasionally, but they really don't need a constant high humidty. I personally recommend cycles, allowing the enclosure to thoroughly dry out before misting again. These geckos are fine being lightly sprayed once a day or every couple of days, and you can always up it during a shed, but a week without being misted will not harm them as long as they have access to fresh water in a bowl. This will be the #1 thing to ensure you have while you are away: fresh water is vitally important. If the humidity factor really bothers you, you can try covering part of the top with plastic wrap or something like you tried to do earlier. I'd say you can safely cover 50% of the ventilation. You'd be quite surprised how little ventilation a single gecko needs, and even covering half he will have a plentiful supply. I've shipped much larger reptiles in bags or cups in a completely sealed box overnight (layered with styrafoam) and absolutely no ventilation holes anywhere on the box, and the animals always have adequate supply of air even in a seemingly airtight environment. I'd be sure to provide at least a couple of water dishes while you are away that Zuri can access, and you can really spray the cage down good before leaving. Go ahead and try to cover up some of the enclosure, but don't fret too much over it. Humidity needs for this species are very misunderstood and exaggerated in my opinion. Make sure she has had the opportunity to fill up on food before you take off for your trip, and a week without food won't phase her much. As for the burrowing - this is a strange behavior that I've only seen a couple of times. While the only times I've noted my colony ever digging in the substrate was to lay eggs, I've heard of other geckos doing this as a regular activity. I wouldn't be too concerned about it - she's likely just a unique gecko who doesn't mind acting slightly out of the ordinary. I don't see any way that she could physically harm herself with this behavior unless she can manage to get underneath something that is heavy and could crush her.
for my cresty who is in a tank i just have a wide water dish, plastic all over the screen top and only mist her and my other cresty once or twice a week, never had any shedding issues
Thank you so much for the detailed reply. I just have one question: If I leave a couple of wide water dishes in her tank while I am gone will she be okay if they are not changed until I get back? Right now I also have a watering dish that is encase in a fake rock and has an upside-down water bottle in it so it releases water into the small pooling area as needed. I have only ever seen her use it once though and then I started misting her cage. I have been a little concerned about the water in this contraption going stagnant, but it is made for reptiles. What do you think? (I guess that was two questions.) Thanks again!
It's always best if you could find someone to change the water while you are away, even if its only changes once after a few days, but I understand that sometimes things just don't always work out as planned. I would say with a couple of water dishes and ensuring that she is well hydrated before the trip with a good misting, she will be just fine. The water feeder couldn't hurt - I'd wager the water will be no less stagnant than water in any of the other dishes and at least it would have a supply for her to drink from during the whole trip just in case the other water dish dries out. I would go ahead and use that along with the other dish and ensure she is well hydrated with a good misting before heading off. Best case scenario is to have someone come a few days in to change water and perhaps give a light mist, but if this cannot be done and you will only be away for a week then I wouldn't stress out too much about it. Reptiles are extremely hardy animals = )
