Owning a crested gecko requires careful care and attention. Geckos are reptiles and are used to specific heating, humidity, and lighting which you need to provide in order to ensure that you keep your reptilian pet happy and healthy while living in an enclosure in your home.
Ideal Humidity Levels In Crested Gecko Enclosures
It’s recommended that you vary the humidity within the enclosure, rather than keeping it at a constant level. Nigh time can climb as high as 80% humidity with daytime levels dropping to between 50% and 60%.
Note that you must not keep humidity high all the time as this can result in unwelcome health issues for your crested gecko.
What Happens When Humidity In A Crested Gecko Tank Is Too High?
It’s not uncommon after a rainy spell for the humidity to increase for a couple of days, this isn’t anything to worry about. But do not allow it to remain high for more than a week. Otherwise, you may be left with a sick crested gecko.
Pay close attention to humidity levels to reduce the risk of bacterial infections in the skin, along with parasites, which can cause lethargy, weight loss, and death.
How To Monitor Humidity Accurately?
Regular and ongoing monitoring of humidity levels within the enclosure is essential, so you can make adjustments as and when needed. A digital hygrometer is the best option. It offers an easy-to-read display.
Ensure that any hygrometer you purchase has a waterproof or water-resistant probe, due to the misting within the enclosure.
Zoo Med Labs digital thermometer humidity gauge is a reliable choice, offering a digital readout, quick and easy display, and a waterproof probe. It saves time when providing your reptile with the best care. The remote probe enables you to measure humidity in different areas of the enclosure. The hygrometer is ready to use.
The Govee smart hygrometer thermometer offers smart app control, which enables you to monitor the humidity and temperature levels within the enclosure in real-time using a smartphone app. This hygrometer has been made with a Swiss-made sensor to provide accurate temperature and humidity with precise data offered every two seconds. It comes complete with the convenience of a twenty day on board data storage, enabling you to capture reporting and graphs. This is a space-saving design that is lightweight. When the humidity gets too high, you receive a notification for immediate attention, ensuring your reptilian pet remains happy and healthy.
6 Ways To Lower Humidity
If you live in an area where you experience high humidity levels, then you may be struggling to maintain optimum humidity in your crested gecko enclosure.
The good news is that there are a number of ways you can quickly and effectively lower the humidity in the enclosure.
Improve Ventilation
Keeping excellent ventilation and airflow within the enclosure can help to lower humidity levels effectively. By increasing ventilation, you can see a big difference in your humidity levels.
The first way to do this is to add a mesh screen to the top of the enclosure if you don’t already have one. Mesh screens allow for excellent airflow, ensuring ample ventilation
If you already have a mesh screen on your enclosure and you’re still struggling, then you may want to consider a small USB driven computer fan which can blow air around the enclosure, helping improve ventilation and reduce humidity.
The Amazon Basics 3 Speed Small Room Air Circulator Fan is a cost-effective, energy-efficient, and small USB fan that can help to circulate air with ease. It comes with three-speed settings, a ninety-degree variable tilt head, and is very energy efficient.
Reduce the Humidity in the Room
Living in a humid area can make it more difficult to provide your crested gecko with optimal humidity levels.
If you have tried lowering the humidity in the enclosure without success, you may want to consider lowering the humidity in the room where you keep your reptile enclosure.
You can achieve this by allowing natural airflow by opening up all the windows in the room, or you can consider using a room dehumidifier, such as the SEAVON Electric Dehumidifiers.
This is a highly efficient dehumidifier with a 1000ml capacity tank which can remove 450ml water from the air on a daily basis in environments with an eighty percent humidity level.
The SEAVON Electric Dehumidifiers improves air quality to provide a clean-living environment with quiet operation and energy-efficient savings. Enjoy peace of mind with the auto shut off function. It is fast, effective, portable, and compact.
Substrate
Before you brought your crested gecko home, you probably read up on what substrates to use for your pet. Many sites recommend cypress mulch, and coconut fibers.
The problem with all these substrates is that they help to improve humidity, so when you are struggling with constant high humidity, removing any moisture holding substrate is essential to lower levels.
The best substrates to help lower humidity levels within your crested gecko enclosure includes:
- Newspaper – readily available, quick and easy to remove and replace
- Paper towel – buy anywhere, easy to identify dirt and feces, quick and easy to clean
Reduce Misting
Crested geckos enjoy a humidity of between 50% and 70%. To achieve this most households will mist twice daily for thirty seconds each. But when you live in a humid environment, misting twice daily is probably too much.
Consider dropping your misting to once a day to see if you can reach optimum levels, otherwise to every second day.
Remember many geckos won’t drink out of a water bowl and rely on the water droplets on the leaves to drink.
Remove Live Plants
While a bio tank setup with live plants seems the most natural habitat to provide for your crested gecko, the plants and substate used can boost humidity levels, making it dangerous for your reptilian pet.
Removing the live plants and replacing them with fake plants is your first step to reducing humidity.
Be careful in your selection, as some plants come with silk leaves, which can fray and disintegrate over time due to the regular tank misting. These pieces can then be accidentally consumed by your pet.
Choose plants that are plastic and easy to clean, such as the Fluker’s Repta Vines-Pothos.
Use A Low Wattage Ceramic Heat Emitter
Using a low wattage ceramic heat emitter enables you to heat the enclosure without raising the humidity, as you would get with a normal bulb.
The Fluker’s ceramic heat emitter is a safe and effective solution for radiating infrared heat without the light. This can be used as a 24 hour heat source. Use the heat emitter to reach optimum temperatures with confidence.
Summary
In order to keep your crested gecko healthy, you are going to want to pay close attention to the humidity levels within the enclosure using a reliable digital hygrometer with water resistant probe.
Try a few different methods of reducing humidity to ensure that your reptilian pet remains happy and healthy moving forward.