Humidity in Tank

[Dexter_Dragon]

I'm having a bit of trouble the last few days keeping Dexter's tank humidity down. I live in a very humid state so keeping it down is a task anyway, but it's been very warm and raining quite hard here the last three days which has increased the humidity. When the rain started a few days ago I hid rice socks in his tank and I have a dehumidifier running near his tank (I have to constantly anyway) and I added another small heat lamp to try and get humidity down. At this point I'm not leaving a water bowl in his tank. Only putting it in here and there for a short periods of time. I've closed all my windows and started a small fire in the wood furnace. Now that he's more comfortable with me I'm misting him a little outside his tank. His basking side is reading at 108 degrees F. His shady side is at 88 degrees, but his humidity is at 56 right now. Does anyone else have any other suggestions on ways to get it down?

 

[Dexter_Dragon]

Update: Now that's it's stopped raining humidity is coming down and so is the humidity in Dexter's tank. Phew! It did sit at about 56-60 for those 3 days despite my best efforts. Dexter is just a baby so about how long can they be ok in too much humidity? He doesn't look or act like he has any trouble breathing. He's still active and going about his normal routine. I did notice he hung out in the shade of his rock on the basking side more then normal these last few days, but I attributed this to the addition of the smaller heat light I added to try and decrease humidity. His basking side never got to 110 F, but was close and may have had him hanging to the shade more. I turned off the additional light this morning and he's back to hanging on his log.

 

[Dexter_Dragon]

Well, I learned a neat little trick today that might help keep Dexter's humidity down on rainy days. I use the excavator clay in Dexter's tank right now. Might change when he's older, but it seems to work well now . . . it has very little crumble. I mixed up a tad bit so I could apply it around the base of his rocks so those quick lil crickets couldn't get under them before he had a change to nab them. Poor guy really tries, but some of them are quicker and I have to move his rocks to get them and it stresses him a little. Sweet thing is that once I shaped the clay it hardened so if I need to move the rocks I can . . . if I'm careful setting them back I don't have to fix and it will still prevent crickets from getting under them. Anyho' because you're supposed to make sure it's dry before you put beardy in (Dex was in a container hanging in a sun spot while I did this . . . yes it had a screened top) I ran up and grabbed my hair dryer to quickly dry the little bit I'd put around his rocks. I noticed while it was drying it that his humidity reader went down fairly quickly to below 20. Well huh? Neat. I had to wait a bit with both front doors open to bring temps back to normal, but for a quick way to keep his humidity down I think I'll use my hair dryer periodically on those really rainy, humid days. I'll make sure Dex is not in his tank when I do it. lol Thought I'd share in case others may have trouble with humidity.