Confused about Humidity

[tignish99]

I am confused about humidity for a Merauke. The room she is in a room that is consistently 50 - 55% humidity and hence so is her tank. I have a humid hide inside her tank. Does she actually need the humid hide? The substrate of the tank is an aspen and Carefresh mixture. Inside the humid hide is moist cypress.

Thank you

[donkeybuff]

The humid hide is always a nice thing to have for the Indos and Meraukes. If you are seeing that she has shedding problems without a humid hide, then the hide should be in the cage. It is not really necessary if she sheds fine without it. I would just leave it in, since there is really no downside to having it in there.

[tignish99]

Thank you for your reply. I actually do not know how she sheds yet. We have only had her a week.

[Bluish]

It's almost time to turn the heat on up here
Soon you'll find your house humidity drop drastically and if you have a herp room same thing. A humid hide will definitely come in handy soon.

[Jeff]

A merauke will do fine in 50=55% humidity. I would suggest switching to all cypress mulch though, instead of the aspen and carefresh. Those are both very dry substrates that will actually seem to suck the moisture out of your skink's belly. Cypress is very easy to keep moist if you mist it occassionally.

I have found that as long as the substrate is not allowed to dry out completely, the ambient humidity doesn't matter too much. I live in the desert, and the humidity is frequently in single digits here. I never have any issues because of it as long as I don't let the substrate dry out.

[Toria Dawn]

I agree with Bluish tho it depends we're you are in Canada. Winter is coming tho… There really is no downside of a humid hide, though. Aspen and care fresh are both pretty dry substrates. The humid hide gives him the option, at least. If he goes in the hide, then he probably likes it.

[Dakota]

Yeah, care-fresh sucks the life out of your skink.. (figuratively!) Maybe something worth trying, trying to simulate the dry-season, though.

[BerserkApe]

Looks like I need to switch back to Cypress.

[sdraiders619]

Im using aspen right now but I'm thinking I might switch to a mixture of eco earth and cyprus mulch but I'm concerned it might be too humid/moist if I do that which could cause a URI

[Dakota]

Well, Halmahera is a peninsula on the island North Maluku. North Maluku is separated by the equator, meaning half the island is the Northern Hemisphere, and the other is the Southern Hemisphere.. which means it is VERY humid if you have a true Halmahera locale. The Halmahera locale skinks found in West Papua and PNG are southeast of the island of North Maluku.. and it is a couple hundred miles away from the equator, and this is not far if you think about it.. and this means it is still very humid during the rainy season there. I have done research on only the Merauke which is south Papua.. and it is around 95% during the rainy season, and during the dry season, if I remember correctly is was around 30% or so..

If I weren't trying to breed, I would keep my ambient humidity around 60%..