Hey guys, Heather here from Tye-Dyed Iguana and today we're gonna talk about how to set
up a humid hide. So first off we'll talk about why a humid hide is such a good idea when you've
got geckos like leopard geckos, or African fat-tail geckos, sometimes they need a little extra
help when they go through a shed. They need a place where they can go that is nice and humid, to kind
of help loosen the skin. It helps them go through a much more successful shed, than they would if
they didn't have any of that humidity available. Especially for leopard geckos, because they live
in a desert environment and if you don't have any type of humid hide in there they could have a lot
of trouble with shedding their skin, wouldn't get as much moisture as it needs to kind of
loosen up and everything. So you can use it for a wide variety of geckos. We've used it before
for our panther geckos, or African fat-tails, and our leopards, of course. So this is just one of
the, uh, this is just one of the humid hides that we have available here at our store. They can come in all
sorts of shapes and sizes. You can even make like, I think people sometimes make homemade ones,
like little Tupperware containers, but we think these look a lot more natural and they just seem
to work a lot better. Now as far as what material we use in our humid hides, we prefer the sphagnum
moss, Now we sell it in kind of a big brick like this, that's our New Zealand sphagnum moss, and we
also have like a smaller pack right here. Now this moss we found does a really great job, because it
holds a lot more moisture than other kinds of moss, and it's nice and natural, and it's very
soft once you wet it down with water, and it lasts a long time. So you do have to replace it over a
period of time, but this stuff doesn't break down as quickly as other stuff does, so. Yep, we go with
this stuff. Now we're gonna show you an example of how we set up our humid hides. All right, so
here we've got our empty humid hide, the cover is removable, it's empty inside, we've got some of our dry
sphagnum moss right here, then we have a little cup of water to use. Now the first step, so we get this
sphagnum moss, the dry sphagnum moss, and sometimes it has the little pointy sticks in there sometimes,
that you just gotta take out, but just kind of break it up a little bit. Okay, so this is gonna be
really easy. So what we're gonna do is, next step is, all you gotta do is add water. Now we're just gonna
add water slowly. Now the purpose of this is not to get it soaking wet, where it just drips and
drips and drips, you want to get it nice and damp. So, I'll kinda show you the consistency. So you mix the
water in, you just kind of mix it up like that. So, it is absorbing the water like crazy, and we kinda do it
in a different container because it uh, so we don't get any excess water in the humid hide itself.
Okay, so actually that was the perfect amount of water, so you can see it's nice and damp. All right,
so now that we've got our damp sphagnum moss, I can go ahead put it in here. So yeah, all you gotta do is line
the bottom, don't fill it up all the way or else it won't be able to fit in there. We just kinda line
the bottom, make a nice little nest in there. Okay. So yeah, that's basically it. We didn't use this
stuff and you see there's a little bit of excess water, actually there wasn't any excess water in
the bottom, so we use the perfect amount. That's basically how you do it it's really simple. And
then when you notice it start to get kind of kind of really broken down, really fine and everything,
that's when you would replace it with new sphagnum moss. If it gets too dirty or stinky or smelly, that's
another good, another good sign. And then you'll notice that, and maybe after a few days it kind
of feels dry to the touch, all you gotta do is add just a little bit of water back in and kind of
remix it up in here. Just don't add too much water so you don't like, flood out the bottom of this
thing. So yeah, all you gotta do is add water every few days or so if it gets dry, and that's about it.
All right, and then right here we've got little leopard gecko to try out our humid hide, and see
he would be a good candidate for it because he's got a little bit of stuck shed. So that's the kind
of stuff this helps with. Well you like our humid hide? Go in there, it's okay. I wonder if he'll like it?
See? And they just kinda go up and in there, there's a little ramp. What you think bud? Hi, you like it? Is that
a good place for you? Yeah? I think he approves. The last thing about humid hides is, is for
your leopard geckos, since it gets so hot in the tank and you need a hot dry spot for them
to bask in, we make sure to put their humid hide opposite the heat lamp. So you can see
we got it on the cool side here, and the same for this one we've got it by their water dish.
We do that for the babies as well, you can see that we've got a few different types of humid
hides here. And then one more thing about the humid hides is that your gecko will probably
poop in there, so daily you'll want to open it up. You kind of have to root through the
bedding, to make sure they haven't pooped in it, and if they have just go ahead and pick
out that poop and throw it away, so. That'll also help make your sphagnum moss last
longer too. So yeah, it's a good idea to check it every day. So yeah, humid hides they make
a great little addition to your tank, helps them shed, and it's really easy to maintain.