temperature & humidity

[donjr721]

i am a heating and air conditioning tech, been doing it for 15 years, i have been having trouble getting the humidity up in my home built incubator. you would think this would not be a problem for me because of my heating and air background. i manage to keep the humidity around 30% from the get go, but it is the last week of incubation, day 17 is this tuesday.

i am going to put an aquarium air stone and pump in the incubator. my thought is that the bubbles produced by the pump in my container of water will cause the water to evaporate more quickly, thus raising the humidity.

i have got the humidity up to 50%, but only for a brief time. i havn't tried the pump and stone yet. what i did notice, when the humidity rises rapidly, the temperature goes down and is slow to rise, which makes since to me, evaporation is a method of cooling.

i really need to get everything right in the next day or two, my hatch is due November 12, if anyone has any more ideas for me, please help.

 

[rebel yell]

Probably don't know what you do about this but humidity is determined on how big the surface of water is, the bigger the surface of water is the more it evaporates, so say you got a shot glass full of water & its reading 25% you could put in a coffee cup full of water & it should almost double that. no matter how deep it is, i don't know about putting oxygen in it, rebelcowboysnb is really good at this sort of stuff, he would most likely know.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

You can use a air pump but the pump has to be inside the incubator or it will actually lower humidity. You then want to run the hose out of the incubator threw a valve an back in to the incubator an down in to a tall glass. That way with the pump off the glass has little surface area. Then you can turn the pump on an adjust the valve till you get the humidity you need. You may need to cover the glass some to cut down on splashing. You didn't say how big the incubator was? On big ones I would suggest using a humidistat an a frog foggier. http://cmfarm.us/humiditycontrol.html But only in bigger incubators.

 

[donjr721]

thanks for input. my incubator is 30" wide, 16" tall, and 16" front to back. i thought about using a fogger, but not yet. i can make any house the perfect temp, and humidity, but this incubator is frustrating me. i will get it though. i will put in a honeywell humidistat and fogger if i have to, gonna ride this out and modify before next time. part of the humidity problem is we have been so dry here lately, averaging just above 20% outside, not much better inside. no substantial rain for a while either.