What do you consider "extremely wet" vermiculite? Do you have a visible water level (say) halfway up? What is the typical height of your vermiculite level?
Why does the container lid need to be air tight? I haven't been doing that with my CTS eggs and maybe that's my problem. My thinking was by maintaining 90% humidity, that more accurately represents their natural environment. I had previously been thinking that my eggs were getting too wet, but maybe that's not the case.
I do have a visible water level about halfway up the vermiculite. My vermiculite depth is between 20mm-30mm. My water level doesn't drop during incubation, as the water can't escape.
The reasoning behind this method needing to be air tight, is the eggs are using the humidity from the air, instead of taking it directly from the substrate. So if the tubs not air tight, then you're loosing humidity, meaning the eggs are exposed to lower humidity levels and
could dry out. That's the theory behind it anyway. But by the sounds of it, "The Devil" doesn't have any problems incubating with non air tight tubs.
By the way, I open the tubs once a week for air exchange and every 1-2 days during the last 2 weeks.
An exception to using non air tight tubs with this method, is having holes in the lid, but covering the holes with gladwrap, by placing gladwrap over the open tub, then closing the lid on top.
The "gladwrap" allows for gas exchange, but doesn't allow moisture to pass through.
@ "The Devil", is this by any chance the method you use? Also, do you add water to your incubator? or only in the tubs?
I use to use the gladwrap method, but changed to fully air tight tubs, because one year, I didn't have the gladwrap tight enough on one tub (the eggs were due to hatch in a week, so they were loosing a lot of moisture). Humidity built up on the gladwrap, gathered at the lowest point and started to drip water droplets on one egg. All eggs were healthy with strong veins and I could see the pythons moving inside every egg, but by the time I noticed the dripping, that egg had swollen back up again, drowning the python inside.
"NicG", If you're having problems using the non air tight method, then what extra harm could you cause using the air tight method? You never know, it could fix what ever problems you're having?
If there's one thing I've learnt during 13 years of keeping reptiles. It's if you have a problem, don't continue doing the same thing, thinking it will go away on its own. It doesn't. Keep changing what you're doing until the problem is fixed.