Temperature gradient?

[Andora]

Ok my incubator is up and running, doing a good job of holding fairly steady temps. (Eggs aren't in yet.) I have a pc fan and a water heater thermostat in a plastic cooler. I tried a styrofoam cooler first, but the temp swings were too big and it cycled really fast. When I moved everything over to a plastic cooler it was much more steady.

It cycles very slowly from 98.0 to 99.9, but that is based on the air reading with the thermometer near the light. The water wiggler is over by they opposite wall from the light and it reads lower, 95-97 degrees.

I'm not sure what to do. It seems like the eggs closer to the light will be too hot and the ones on the far side will be too cool. I put a piece of foil in front of the light to deflect a little, but it hasn't made that much of a difference.

What should I do? Should I turn up the thermostat so it's closer to 99 inside the water wiggler? Then the air thermometer will be several degrees higher, probably 101-104 or so...

I'm hoping to put the eggs in tomorrow evening, so I need to figure out what to do! I've never hatched anything before, so I'm a bit clueless...

 

[panner123]

You didn't say where the fan was located. You may need to reposition it or move it closer to your heat sorce. Try moving the wiggler closer to the light and see what the temp is there in the wiggler. Go with the wiggler temp. But you should have more water volume in the bator for your test. The temp will drop when you put the eggs in. It will take some time to get the temp back up without the volume.

 

[Andora]

I forgot to mention that I have a jar (well actually an empty whiskey flask lol) with the lid on filled with water up against the middle of one wall, and I also have a tupperware dish with a very small amount of water in the bottom away from the light. It's humid where I live, so with just enough water covering the bottom of the tupperware dish the humidity stays around 31%. I had a little more water in there but it shot up to 75%!

The temp is too cool in the wiggler I think. I had the fan sitting to one side of the light, diagonal in the corner. I just moved the fan to directly above the light on the wall and turned up the thermostat a little. I also moved the water wiggler closer. And I put in a 60 watt bulb instead of the 40 watt.

Right now the air temp is staying between 99 and 102 and the wiggler is at 97.9. Maybe I should wait a few hours and see if the wiggler temp comes up and stabilizes since I just adjusted the thermometer?

I never realized getting the incubator regulated was so tricky!

 

[Panther Creek Poultry]

Yes wait a little bit for things to stablize since you have moved and adjusted things

 

[Andora]

I think it's too hot now...the air temp gets up to 103.6 and then cuts off, and the water wiggler gets up to 100.2 and cools to 99 when the light is off.

Should I turn it down very slightly?

I'm wasting my day watching a light bulb inside of a cooler.