controlling humidity in a 32oz cup

[PaxALotl]

Hi all - I have a chinese mantis ooth in a 32oz cup, with some coco fiber at the bottom of a 32 oz deli cup. The lid has ventilation holes, no fabric. Seems a common setup, but I can't seem to control the humidity. I have a little wireless humidity sensor in there and with the lid on it rises to about 90% right away. With the lid off, it reads around 60-70% even though the room is at around 35-40% most of the time (this week). 

So, I have just been leaving the lid off so keep the humidity in a good range - but obviously that isn't going to work for long since the ooth will soon be hatching. My question is, why is the humidity so high in there? I haven't added any water, so my only idea is that perhaps the coco fiber was very moist/wet when it arrived, and it's simply releasing water vapor as it dries out. If that's the case, it should eventually stabilize but it's already been nearly 5 days.

Any thoughts on this one? I gotta get that lid back on or I'll have an office full of nymphs! 

 

[River Dane]

Removing some or most of the coco fiber until it dries a little more might be the easiest solution. Alternately, if you have an extra container that’s larger and is just lying around, you could always use that instead. Another option is just to remove the lid completely and replace it with an open-weave fabric.

Good luck with the ooth, and keep us updated!

 

[Predatorhousepet]

When you mist a container humidity will sometimes shoot up to as high as 99% (especially if you accidentally mist the sensor) but it usually stablizes to a more reasonable percentage after a few hours. If it doesn't go back down then your substrate is probably too wet. Take some out and mix it with dry substrate.

 

[PaxALotl]

Maybe I wildly underestimated how much moisture the coco fiber could hold! I took out more than half of it, and stirred up the rest a bit to help it release some moisture. I could see that it was darker, i.e. slightly wet. The humidity went up to 99% for a couple of hours and is now slowly decreasing. It's at around 65% now, which is more like it.

But that's all with the lid OFF! If I put the lid on it still spikes up to 85%+ ! 

I'll give it one more day to dry out with the lid off. Hopefully this ooth doesn't hatch in the next 24 hours

 

[Predatorhousepet]

For an ooth the main concern about too much humidity is mold forming. If that is not happening don't sweat it if the humidity stays high. A lot of humidity will actually help the nymphs to hatch properly. 

 

[kwright]

Is there any concern for how high the ooth is from the ground? I have a couple butterfly mesh cages I want to put some ooths in but I'd be concerned with just how tall the cage is, if I have the ooth attached to the top.

 

[River Dane]

Height is only an issue if the ooth is too low. Being too high isn’t really an issue because nymphs crawl back up onto the ooth and surface upon hatching, and the few that fall kind of ‘glide’ gently to the ground.

This video show the process pretty well:

 

[kwright]

That's pretty cool! I've never really watched the entire process before.