HCA: Hermit Crab Association

Hi All,
Just found and purchased this cheap digital thermometer/hygrometer by Vivarium Electronics and sold by Reptile Basics.

Seems to be a great purchase at $12! The hygrometer calibrated right on the nose, and the digital display sits up by itself OUTSIDE of the crabitat; JUST what I was looking for! The probe lead is 4 feet long. I have the display unit tucked down safely in my cabinet stand along with all my supplies, and the probe just hangs in the tank wherever I want to move it.

Runs on a watch battery (included). Converts from Fahrenheit to Celsius at touch of button, also has button that lets you toggle between maximum reading and minimum reading so you can chart your extremes.

Thumbs up!

I don't know how to post photos here so here is the link to the product on the Reptile Basics site:

http://www.reptilebasics.com/thermometers/TH-100/

It's the Vivarium Electronics TH-100.

Sounds good! Let us know how you like it after a month or two. I love the Acurite digital combos (under $10 at Walmart) but, as they have to sit in the crabitat, the humidity eventually affects the unit, causing parts of the readout to disappear. I'll have to keep this Vivarium one in mind when the current Acurite starts to fade.

I like this but I have a very tight lid and would have to make a special hole in it.How are you getting the wire in the tank?

I broke 2 of the acurite ones in 2 months. Lol the first one...I dropped in my salt water pool...that was my fault. the other just did what you said with the display not working. I bought this one as a replacement and it works great. Only the sensor is inside and it is wireless. You can mount the monitor on the wall if you'd like and it is portable. When I am waiting in my tank to get back to temp after maintenance or a deep clean (due to flood) I take it to bed at bedtime and sit it on my nightstand. I can keep an eye on it that way. I love it! https://youtu.be/Hznkw4GEiVQ

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IBlab crab wrote:I like this but I have a very tight lid and would have to make a special hole in it.How are you getting the wire in the tank?

I have a Marineland/Perfecto glass lid, which has just the tiniest amount of space at the seam where the lid opens (on the plastic part); that's where I'm feeding the wire. You only need a small hole along an edge of your lid, and can then feed the wire in wherever you want it.

But if you have a custom, totally fitted single glass sheet, I'm not sure how you would do it. But the wire IS fairly tiny: maybe a couple MM diameter.

Crabinski wrote:Sounds good! Let us know how you like it after a month or two. I love the Acurite digital combos (under $10 at Walmart) but, as they have to sit in the crabitat, the humidity eventually affects the unit, causing parts of the readout to disappear. I'll have to keep this Vivarium one in mind when the current Acurite starts to fade.

Yes, I will monitor it and give an update in a month or so. So far it's such a VAST improvement on the Petco one that I had that I'm optimistic, but given that it's lightweight, plastic fare from China (although, isn't everything?) I'll let you know how it's doing a month from now!

Quick update in case anyone is seeing this and considering buying this:

The display went flaky on it (lines disappearing, etc). Quickly figured out that if I pressed on the back, the display would come back. Some sort of loose connection with the board.

It was no trouble to pop it open (3 tiny screws in back) and shove in some layers of cardboard and screw it back together. Display numbers are showing correctly now, and it's still measuring right on the money.

I absolutely LOVE the fact that it's not taking up inside-tank space!

Out of curiosity is it still going strong? I haven't had issues with mine so far...but it's been less time.

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I recently received the same product from reptile basics. Mine calibrated 6 % over - I did this 3 times to make sure. That said, I love that the probe is inside the tank and that I can clearly read the temp and humidity since the display sits outside of the tank and the numbers are large. That in itself is worth the money for me! I was really struggling to see the little numbers on my old one sitting in The tank. The hermies occasionally climb on the probe but no damage done