New Guy & His Humador

Just started getting into Cigars. I live in Colorado and love the outdoors and there is something magical about smoking around a campfire. Anyways, I got a 150ct Humidor to keep my sticks in. It came with the black plastic green sponge humidifier inside and an analog hygrometer. I only carry about 20 sticks at a time in the thing (realizing the 150ct box was overkill, but it looks nice). Anyway, I'm struggling to keep the thing between 70-80 humidity. I bought some of those drymistat tubes to help. So right now I have 2 of those, and the green sponge, but the thing is still around 50. A friend of mine told me that I'm probably wasting a ton of humidity with so few cigars and possibly could fill up the space to help with humidity by getting some cedar blocks. Have any of you done this? Also, I've been reading on here about putting a bowl of water in my humidor to help the wood get it's moisture up. My sticks are very dry would it kill them if they stayed in the box with the bowl of water in there? I have a big camping trip coming up in 2 weeks, not sure I can nurse the sticks back to health in that time. I've heard 6 mo's at constant humidity is what it takes to get them back. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

The hygrometer could be off- most are adjustable. There is some mixture of salt test to determine that, but I can't remember all of it. Odds are that the hygrometer is off but you could try the flashlight in the humidor test (move into near total darkness to check for leakage indicated by escaping light). 70 should be high enough to keep your cigars- 80 might cause problems.

Use the search function. There is a ton of great information on this forum about setting up and maintaining a humidor. Chuck the sponge and what ever else your usung and buy some Heartfelt beads. Everything else is SHIT.