HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hello.

I have had my current set up for about two years now and when I first set up the tank the humidity was at 70-80% hovering more at 70%, but now the tank seems to only maintain about 40%-50% hovering more at 45%. The screen lid has box tape on it with the sticky side facing out of the tank as suggested, the sand is sand castle consistency, and I have plenty of moss that I re-wet every so often. Both the salt water and fresh water dishes normally stay wet and very rarely dry out unless the little crabbies knock it over. I'm not sure what else to do besides maybe adding more moss and lowering the gauges as I put them up higher then the hermits are, so I was wondering if there were any other suggestions to up my tank humidity. When I upgrade the tank I was thinking bigger water pools and maybe an air stone in one of them.

Thanks,
Emmers

Adding bigger pools and bubblers will definitely help. Have you calibrated your gauges lately? Some tend to get wonky after a bit. The type of gauges you have matter too. Digital tends to be a little more accurate than analog

Calibration link: http://www.hermitcrabassociation.com/ph ... hp?t=92540

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I was thinking that maybe they have slowly gone bad, though they read the temperature the same way they did before. I currently have analogue gauges, how much do digital gauges normally cost? Unfortunately I am working on a college student budge right now.

I personally like these two brands:

*TH-100 Digital Thermo-Hygrometer by vivarium electronics is $8-20 depending on where you buy from.
*Acurite from Wal-Mart or any hardware store for around $10.

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Glass tops, pools large enough to fully submerge in and safely get out of with air stones hooked up in them, moss pits...You can also add a layer of moistened eco earth to the top of your substrate (1 inch every 24 hours), or add more eco earth to your substrate if there are no crabs down. I moisten mine with dechlorinated marine salt water.

I prefer the Acurite Digital Thermometer. You can also get it off of Amazon. Good luck!

After calibrating my current analog humidity/temp gauges yesterday I found that the one was reading 23% low and the other 13% low, I even double check by leaving them in the salt container overnight. Which means my tank was actually sitting at around 63% humidity most days, still low but now as bad as I had thought. Before calibrating the gauges I did add more even more moss (I mean they love it), made deeper pools with what space my tank allows, and went back over the screen lid with more clear tape. The front panel of the tank now has condensation on it so I think it worked! I will try and pick up a new gauge today but I have a wedding to attend to today and go back to college tomorrow.