Humidity and brinsea octagon 40

[inquisitivebird]

I have a second hand brinsea octagon 40 and I've never managed to get better than a 60% hatch rate from it. It's quite frustrating and to get to the bottom of it, I bought a little non digital hygrometer and a glass thermometer to check things out. It turns out that the temp reading was actually 1.5 degrees f too hot. (0.5 degrees c) I have adjusted it now so it should be at the correct temp. Could that throw things off to lower my hatch rate to 60%?

But the hygrometer really has me stumped. Currently I have 6 eggs in the incubator in lockdown and the incubator says humidity is around 65. There is condensation on the walls and I have hatched like this is the past, but most of my eggs that don't make it, die right before lockdown or during lockdown before they pip. People have told me that they think I have too much humidity but my new hygrometer says the humidity is around 45 which is 20% lower! I am shocked. I have calibrated the hygrometer by doing the salt test and it reads bang on 75%. I have no idea what to do. Any advice would be appreciated as I have fresh eggs being delivered this week and I'd love to get this sorted. I've read from other posts that this incubator is so good and it gets high hatch rates but I'm at my wits end. Do I need to replace the sensor? How would I even do that? The incubator has trouble getting up to the humidity it is currently at and I have all the wells full. Which hygrometer do I trust?

 

[casportpony]

It turns out that the temp reading was actually 1.5 degrees f too hot. (0.5 degrees c) I have adjusted it now so it should be at the correct temp. Could that throw things off to lower my hatch rate to 60%?

If your incubator was actually 101f, yes, that could be the problem. How many days do they usually take to hatch?

 

[inquisitivebird]

If your incubator was actually 101f, yes, that could be the problem. How many days do they usually take to hatch?

They were usually on time or early. I've been moving around my thermometer this next batch and it's hotter at the ends by a degree as well. There are 4 fans running along the length of the incubator. I think the two on the end blow harder than the two middle ones. I wonder if this is causing the temp difference. I wonder if maybe the fans were replaced at some point? Maybe that's why the are different. I'm curious is replacing them all with new fans will make them all blow the same and get a more even temp. My current batch in there are die to hatch tomorrow. We'll see how many fully formed by dead I get. There are about 40 eggs in there and I just candled two days ago.