Automatic misting systems: Love them? Hate them? Tell me your experience...

[olstyn]

I'm encountering a situation where I may need to set up an auto-mister for my crestie, and I need some advice on which, if any, of the systems out there are good. The basic deal is that I may have to leave her where she currently is when I move soon, and I'd prefer to minimize the burden on the people I'd be leaving her with. I'll be back every few days to feed her (and refill the auto-mister if we go that route), and I'd prefer to just let the people I'd be leaving her with not have to worry about doing anything with her if possible. Cost is a consideration, but if you have to pay a lot to get a good system set up, then I'll just have to bite the bullet on that and do what's right for my gecko.

Anyway, if anybody has had any experience with this sort of thing, I'd love to hear about it. Thanks.

[TheWinWizard]

I have 2 set up, 1 for my Ball, the other for my Boa. I use a Zoo Med Repti Fogger Terrarium Humidifier. Here's a link http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-Reptil...2835154&sr=8-1 and a Zoo Med HygroTherm Humidity and Temperature Controller. Here's a link http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-HygroT...2835154&sr=8-3. Works great, no shed problems or feeding issues.

[mainbutter]

I love the Mistking systems I've seen set up and am waiting for the finances so I can rig up all of my vivs.

[olstyn]

I love the Mistking systems I've seen set up and am waiting for the finances so I can rig up all of my vivs.

That's one of the systems we're looking at pretty seriously. (Exo Terra Monsoon and AquaZamp Raindome systems are the others on our radar.) They all seem pretty similar, so it's good to at least see a positive review of one of them from a source I know I can trust.

[EverEvolvingExotics]

I have always been hesitant to use any type of automatic watering system with reptiles or rodents. I haven't heard any bad things with misters but plenty of horror stories from massive rodent populations dying to drowning because of automatic watering malfunctions.

Mainbutter, have you heard of anything similar regarding misting systems? If not, a Mistking sounds like an economical way to have a semi hands-free way of keeping the geckos hydrated.

[olstyn]

eel588, I wouldn't be too worried about that scenario in my planned application - the gecko in question is in an 18x18x24 Exo-terra (almost 34 gallons) and would have a mister hooked up to about a 1 gallon reservoir, so even if it misted continuously until empty, she'd basically just have to stay a couple of inches off the ground, which she does more often than not anyway. Yes, it'd be annoying to deal with, but unlikely to actually be hazardous, especially since any water that made it past the first few inches would flow out around the edges of the doors. I'd actually be more worried about wet carpet than a hazard to the animal.

[mainbutter]

If you want more info on Mistkings, I'd hit up dendroboard. The dart frog people use misters a LOT and you can get responses from first-hand users.

[olstyn]

Thought I'd update the thread with what we ended up doing. We went with the AquaZamp Raindome. So far, it seems like a pretty nice system - the pump is quite obviously big enough to run many cages, and is quite quiet in operation, and it seems to work well. The only gripe I can come up with is that the tubing wants to shake back and forth when it's running, which meant that we had to secure it to something in order to prevent it being noisy. The big reason we chose that instead of the MistKing is that the whole system is made in the USA and certified food safe, which seemed like a nice touch for a fairly small price difference. (Most of MistKing's parts are made in China, which is fine, but not the route we wanted to go.)