Question: Tiger Salm. absorbing water?

[Arwen9]

This may be a dumb question, but forgive the newbie to caudata care. :happy:

Anyway, I've had my Tiger Salamander, Smaug, for about 4 months now. He morphed two months ago and I've been encouraging him to gain weight since he was very skinny when I got him.

I mist him every other day or so, keep the temperature around 17-18 C. Well, I've noticed lately that when I fill up his "pond" (it's a bowl deep enough and wide enough he can crawl in and soak with just his head sticking out) That the water level drops dramatically.

I fill it up in the morning, and by the night it's half-empty. I know they absorb "some" moisture through their skin, but surely not that much. Right? Am I crazy?

 

[Kaysie]

How full do you fill it? If your tiger's 'hefty' and the tub is full, he can be displacing some of the water out of the bowl.

 

[spendday]

I seem to have a similar problem but it turned out it was the substrate (coco coir) or drainage layer (hyrdoleca) somehow absorbing the water. They don't touch anywhere just seems to magically happen.