Don't get the two purposes confused. Dessicant packs are designed to absorb moisture, as in humidity. Condensation is just the humidity in the camera coming together to form larger droplets. If these droplets get large enough, it can cause small rivulets of water to drip down the inside of your housing. If these droplets come in contact with your digital camera, it does the same damage as a flood! The dessicant packs will not absorb these droplets. That's what the mini-pad will do.
Your first concern needs to be eliminating the condensation. It's caused by the heat buildup inside the housing reacting to cooler temeratures outside the housing. The moisture in the air inside the housing will condense. Setting up your rig in a cool, dry room, ie. A/C room, will help. (Although I don't always get an A/C room and I haven't noriced a big difference.) Making sure you don't leave your rig sitting in the sun, the inside will heat up just like your car does with the windows rolled up. Rinse buckets on boats, being shallow, can absorb heat from the sun too so if you leave your camera there, it's heating up. Keeping your rig wrapped in a wet towel be tween dives will not only keep it out of the damaging rinse bucket, the evaporation will keep it cool.
Set up your housing with 1 or 2 small dessicant packs, turn your camera off when you won't be using it for several minutes or longer at a time, protect it on the surface and you shouldn't have any more problems.
BTW, smaller housings, like the Canons, heat up quicker than the larger ones, like the Ikelite.
