# Too humid?



## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

I've been thinking about how humid we keep our emersed setups - near 100%. I think it may be TOO humid.

Observations:
1) Leaves are not thick - cannot withstand lower humidity and wilt quickly.
2) Leaves resemble submersed growth
..an example of #2 - my C. wendtii leaves look almost like submersed growth. Whereas emersed grown
wendtii from Florida is very different.
3) If my crypt leaves touch each other, they melt.

I think, lowering the humidity should help keep mold / fungus at bay, get more robust growth.
Kai has mentioned this before - you need some evaporation on the leaf surface to help
nutrient transport. 

I've been thinking about putting a guage in there to see how humid it really is in there and then
try to slowly, over a period of weeks, to get the level down to 80-85%.

Opinions?


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

I do not keep _Cryptocryne sp._ but I would agree that transpiration is vital to the health of terrestrial plants (it is their form of mass nutrient transport) and keeping humidity at a constant 100% would hinder this process.


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## Freemann (Mar 19, 2004)

I always keep my pots with crypts during the three out of four seasons with no humidifier or anything of that sort, just in an enclosed tank with 1-2 cm water under them that surely makes for really healthy looking crypts with thick leaves and lot of growth, thrips and such do not like this dry condition as well so leaves are much healthier. Now during the summertime when I keep my crypts out if the sun hits the tank then they can get dry really easy and I need to add the humidifier and turn it on for 5 min a day to help keep them a bit wet and reduce the amount of time the sun falls on them. It can get really hot and dry here during the summer. By the way the same applies to lot of other plants in the emersed state, I think that the more you train your plants to been dry the better they will withstand really dry hot spells around them.


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## andrew__ (May 18, 2007)

I keep my emersed crypts at between 70 and 80% humidity (exactly 80% right now) and that is high enough that plants I move from submersed to emersed generally don't melt or wilt and I've seen no indication from them that they need higher humidity. I've only managed to get them to _grow_ emersed at this humidity though, no flowers or anything (but they've only been planted about a month and a half so I don't expect any either).


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

I've wondered this too. I just don't have the guts to lower the humidity unknowingly. I'd love to hear from more people with a lower humidity like Andrew's.


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## Khamul1of9 (Oct 25, 2005)

Would the addition of a small computer fan help? Is it evaporation you guys want or just air movement? If the later, then just put a fan in your closed environments/tanks. This will keep humidity high, stable, but the gas exchange will continue.
I think I will do this and see how things go.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Khamul1of9 said:


> Would the addition of a small computer fan help? Is it evaporation you guys want or just air movement? If the later, then just put a fan in your closed environments/tanks. This will keep humidity high, stable, but the gas exchange will continue.
> I think I will do this and see how things go.


The fan would have to be water proof though wouldn't it?


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

Its the lower humidity that I'm after I think. Aaron - I've on occasion, accidentally left the lid open all day. The plants were a little wilty but didnt suffer any permanent damage. I know Sean's made the same mistake atleast once with no permanent effects to my knowledge. I'm going to try with a small gap - see what happens over the next day or two and report back.


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## Khamul1of9 (Oct 25, 2005)

AaronT said:


> The fan would have to be water proof though wouldn't it?


I actually use a small computer fan in my vivariums were they reach 100% humidity. No rusting. All parts are plastic and the wiring withstands it. Go with Coralife aquarium fans.


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## rs79 (Dec 7, 2004)

I had more to say than I could easily type into this little box here so I wrote it down at

http://aquaria.net/articles/plants/Crypts/emersed/

Bottom line: use bigger tanks and improve circulation.

Plus, as to the size and shape and thickness of leaves, if you want plants to look more like how they look under natural sunlight you're going to have to give them more light.


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## Xema (Mar 24, 2004)

My opinion,

There are few plants the would live in relatively low humidity (always over 60% RH), but there are another ones which does not use to grow emerged, so to keep them in emerged try you should supply high humidity.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

Xema said:


> My opinion,
> 
> There are few plants the would live in relatively low humidity (always over 60% RH), but there are another ones which does not use to grow emerged, so to keep them in emerged try you should supply high humidity.


I agree that there may be some crypts that will need the higher humidity - I just don't think 100% humidty is the
number we should be shooting for though.

I cracked open two of my 4 tanks yesterday. As of this morning everything seemed ok.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

Humidity is down to 82% - everything still looks good.


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## DelawareJim (Nov 15, 2005)

I had to take the dome off one of my trays in my grow chamber because some of the plants were all jammed up against it and melting.

It has various Echinodorus and C. pontederiifolia , moehlmannii, noritoi, and some wendtiis. The Echinodorus are totally unaffected. The Crypts show dessication around the leaf margins with about 50% of the leaf dried. I put a thermometer/hygrometer inside the chamber since I removed the dome and humidity ranges between 50-60%. The plants are still healthy and growing but the newest leaves edges all look burned.

So, asthetically, I wouldn't go below 60%. Probably wouldn't go below 70% if I could seal the chamber a little tighter.

Cheers.
Jim


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

How are you measuring humidity? Is there a new toy I need?


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## DelawareJim (Nov 15, 2005)

I bought a digital thermometer/hygrometer at my local hardware store.

http://www.acehardware.com/sm-bemis...ometer-price-27-99-digitally--pi-1273943.html

If you really want to go crazy with the toys...
http://www.ambientweather.com/products.html

Cheers.
Jim


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

AaronT said:


> How are you measuring humidity? Is there a new toy I need?


I bougth mine from Radio Shack. Something similar to this:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...atId=2032060&kw=temperature&parentPage=search

Mine's got 3 channels - can measure temp/humidity/trend from 3 sep locations.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Cool, a cheap toy, even better.


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## Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 27, 2004)

Humidty has dropped to 73%. Everything still looks good - but I'm getting nervous now. I hope it doesnt drop any further. If it does, I'm going to close up the gap partially.


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## andrew__ (May 18, 2007)

I found my tank at 50% earlier today (hadn't closed the lid properly - no impact on plants (aside from a leaf on a wendtii & another on a pontederifolia - submersed leaves that were still on the plants). Don't know how long the lid was like this and probably wouldn't recommend such low humidity for the long run but it does show that plants that are used to lower humidity are not as sensitive as the plants others in this thread describe (leaves melting if they touch each other?  ) Tank is back up to 70% now.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Perhaps cracking the lid a bit and running an airstone would keep it closer to 80% humidity? Of course all of this is going to lead to another problem, evaporation. Both of my setups only have about 2-3 gallons of water in them.


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## Khamul1of9 (Oct 25, 2005)

I still say circulate the air rather than air exchange. Try it first at the very least to acclimatize your plants before shocking them into low humidity regimes.


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