Home made misting system for $30+tax

Hey everyone I just thought I would share with you! I recently joined the forums, and don't yet have a chameleon, but I do have my enclosure set up for when I get one, hopefully in about 8 eight days. I looked for a thread on how to build your own mister, but couldn't find one, so I figured I'd try my hand at making one. I have read a ton of great reviews on Mist King, and I may end up getting one in the future if I get more chameleons, however right now, I only have one enclosure.

I wanted to try to make a misting system myself, to see if I could do it successfully for a low cost, and I did! I wanted to share with those people on a smaller budget, or those who just enjoy building things for their chams!


The system uses a fountain pump for the garden section of Lowes for around $25, as well as a Length of micro irrigation tubing for $2, and a micro irrigation sprinkler type head that has an adjustable range of spray up to a 3 ft radius for $2 a pack.

After hooking everything up and and testing it out, I was very pleased. The sprinkler type head that I chose will it the entire enclosure without spraying through the screen,and it leaves the water in droplets, instead of a super fine mist. It is also high pressure enough to get everywhere, but does not at all seem like a power washer that could scare a chameleon. The best pert to me is that after reading these forums, I got the feeling that some chameleons know to drink from getting sprayed, and some know to drink from drops of water, or a dripper, and because the head on my system, it's almost the best of both worlds. The cam will be getting sprayed, but in droplets that mimic a dripper, or rain.

I have only had this set up a few days, so I don't know how long it will last, but all of the materials used are for permanent underground irrigation systems and generally used with tap water, with that in mind, coupled with the fact that I will be using purified water, I can't see this deteriorating very quickly. Also I do not have a chameleon yet, so I have no way of knowing if he will like the system, but I don''t see why one wouldn't. I will keep the thread updated about how it ends up working for my chameleon and plants, and how it holds up over time. Please keep in mind that as of yet, this has only been tested for a short time, and there is no guarantee it will work long enough to be worth the money. If you decide to build one also, please keep that in mind

Sounds awesome. Post some pics!

DeviousMike said:

Sounds awesome. Post some pics!

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Once I get it mounted in the enclosure I definitely will! I tested it out at the right height but haven't mounted it yet, just in case i needed to make any alterations. It should be mounted today, and I can put up some pics!

sounds awesome...definitely keep this thread updated

Sounds like the system I built for my chameleons. I got the pond pump from Lowe's, irrigation tubing, mist nozzles etc. I've had it set up for well over a year now and it still works great.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/new-drainage-system-45871/

jdog1027 said:

Sounds like the system I built for my chameleons. I got the pond pump from Lowe's, irrigation tubing, mist nozzles etc. I've had it set up for well over a year now and it still works great.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/new-drainage-system-45871/

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Sounds like basically all the same materials. Good to know it has lasted so long for you; hopefully I will have the same results. How many enclosures do you have it set up for? I am wondering how quickly the water pressure deteriorates with multiple outlets/nozzles.

I really couldn't justify spending $100 for something I could make so inexpensively, especially with only one enclosure to water.

Kenidi said:

Sounds like basically all the same materials. Good to know it has lasted so long for you; hopefully I will have the same results. How many enclosures do you have it set up for? I am wondering how quickly the water pressure deteriorates with multiple outlets/nozzles.

I really couldn't justify spending $100 for something I could make so inexpensively, especially with only one enclosure to water.

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I am currently running this system over 5 cages. True, the more mist nozzles you add, the weaker the spray becomes, but it is ample enough to provide a good soaking in each cage. It also depends on the size of your pump. I had a smaller one at first (155 gallon per hour I think), but there wasn't nearly enough pressure, so I bought a larger capacity pump. I bought the Smartpond brand pumps which are the ones Lowes carries and I'm sure that is what you probably have. The one that I use on 5 cages is about somewhere between 250-300 gallons per hour, which is alot of output. That's why I built the elaborate drainage system in the video. You need a good timer to limit the amount of time each cycle runs to about no more than 5 minutes each. Mine has 8 cycles ranging from 60 seconds to 8 minutes in a 24 hour period from 8:00AM to 9:00PM. I go through about 8 gallons of water a day, which requires me to dump the catch bucket twice a day. I'd like to figure out a way to create more pressure using one of these pumps, but I'm stumped.

That is absolutely brilliant, I think I will totally do that this week. I have all the mistking nozzles and tubing but the actual pump seems to have burnt out (my fault, my mistake with the timer had it running dry for a whole long weekend I was out) and I've been waiting to replace it for weeks now until I could find a free $100. But this is fantastic, I will go check out the pumps.

Since I have the nozzles that produce the very fine mist, what size pump do you think I might need? I have 4-5 nozzles and go through quite a few gallons a day as well. I'd see if I can find how many gallons the mistking pump can move per hour but the site seems to be down.

Pond pumps are low pressure, high GPH (Gallon Per Hour) pumps. So they can move a lot of water, but do not create much psi in the system. Mistking nozzles, in order to work properly, need around 100psi. These nozzles allow a flow of around 2 GPH. The pond pumps operate at psi's ranging from 5-15, or sometimes lower depending on the size of tubing and other factors. The point is, you can't effectively use those cheaper pumps to run fine mist/fog nozzles. High pressure diaphragm pumps like those used in the Mistking or Aquazamp are expensive and hard to find with power supplies which is what accounts for the high prices that they sell their pumps for. I have been researching this for weeks trying to decide the best way to do a DIY system. I still am not able to find a good coarse, high flow nozzle that would work well with the high flow pumps. Could you maybe post a link to a picture or webpage that has the nozzle you are using? Is it just a sprinkler head?

jdog1027 said:

I am currently running this system over 5 cages. True, the more mist nozzles you add, the weaker the spray becomes, but it is ample enough to provide a good soaking in each cage. It also depends on the size of your pump. I had a smaller one at first (155 gallon per hour I think), but there wasn't nearly enough pressure, so I bought a larger capacity pump. I bought the Smartpond brand pumps which are the ones Lowes carries and I'm sure that is what you probably have. The one that I use on 5 cages is about somewhere between 250-300 gallons per hour, which is alot of output. That's why I built the elaborate drainage system in the video. You need a good timer to limit the amount of time each cycle runs to about no more than 5 minutes each. Mine has 8 cycles ranging from 60 seconds to 8 minutes in a 24 hour period from 8:00AM to 9:00PM. I go through about 8 gallons of water a day, which requires me to dump the catch bucket twice a day. I'd like to figure out a way to create more pressure using one of these pumps, but I'm stumped.

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Try using a bigger feed line then down size it that should create more volume and then give more pressure

JFodera said:

Pond pumps are low pressure, high GPH (Gallon Per Hour) pumps. So they can move a lot of water, but do not create much psi in the system. Mistking nozzles, in order to work properly, need around 100psi. These nozzles allow a flow of around 2 GPH. The pond pumps operate at psi's ranging from 5-15, or sometimes lower depending on the size of tubing and other factors. The point is, you can't effectively use those cheaper pumps to run fine mist/fog nozzles. High pressure diaphragm pumps like those used in the Mistking or Aquazamp are expensive and hard to find with power supplies which is what accounts for the high prices that they sell their pumps for. I have been researching this for weeks trying to decide the best way to do a DIY system. I still am not able to find a good coarse, high flow nozzle that would work well with the high flow pumps. Could you maybe post a link to a picture or webpage that has the nozzle you are using? Is it just a sprinkler head?

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Aww what a shame. Thanks for the info, I guess I'll scrape together the $100 anyway.

I am trying to find my camera, but once I do, I will post pics of the nozzles and the whole system, as well as my enclosure.

just sayin

JFodera said:

Pond pumps are low pressure, high GPH (Gallon Per Hour) pumps. So they can move a lot of water, but do not create much psi in the system. Mistking nozzles, in order to work properly, need around 100psi. These nozzles allow a flow of around 2 GPH. The pond pumps operate at psi's ranging from 5-15, or sometimes lower depending on the size of tubing and other factors. The point is, you can't effectively use those cheaper pumps to run fine mist/fog nozzles. High pressure diaphragm pumps like those used in the Mistking or Aquazamp are expensive and hard to find with power supplies which is what accounts for the high prices that they sell their pumps for. I have been researching this for weeks trying to decide the best way to do a DIY system. I still am not able to find a good coarse, high flow nozzle that would work well with the high flow pumps. Could you maybe post a link to a picture or webpage that has the nozzle you are using? Is it just a sprinkler head?

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The nozzles you'll see in AquaZamp and mistking systems need about 30psi to overcome the check valve and to work nice will need at leas 80 psi.... it all depends on how much you want to flow droplet size.

at 100psi AquaZamp nozzles flow at .9 gallons per hour.

summoner12 said:

The nozzles you'll see in AquaZamp and mistking systems need about 30psi to overcome the check valve and to work nice will need at leas 80 psi.... it all depends on how much you want to flow droplet size.

at 100psi AquaZamp nozzles flow at .9 gallons per hour.

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Well my estimations were pretty close, right? And I wasn't saying anything negative about the Aquazamp, in fact I am planning on buying one! Just that pond pumps aren't going to cut it.

JFodera said:

Well my estimations were pretty close, right? And I wasn't saying anything negative about the Aquazamp, in fact I am planning on buying one! Just that pond pumps aren't going to cut it.

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I didn't think you were saying anything bad. haha I just wanted to be clear about some of the numbers.

You were very accurate about the pond pumps. I use them for drainage and even stepping the tubing down from 3/8" inside diameter tubing to 1/4" REALL affects these pumps ability to flow water... they just have no strength.

could anyone please tell me how i can workout how much water will pass through a standard mistking sprayer in 1 minute? (not yet having one)

Well, as Kevin said, the nozzles run with .9 GPH @ 100psi. So, assuming you are running at 100psi, you divide .9 into 60 minutes and you get .015 gallons per minute. Convert that to fl. oz. and you get 1.92 per minute. Thats 3.84 Tbls per minute..... In other words, not much water.

JFodera said:

Well, as Kevin said, the nozzles run with .9 GPH @ 100psi. So, assuming you are running at 100psi, you devide .9 into 60 minutes and you get .015 gallons. Convert that to fl. oz. and you get 1.92. Thats 3.84 Tbls..... In other words, not much water.

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Exactly why a seconds timer is kind of silly in IMO

Although.... .9GPH may not be what marty uses.... I think hes made a new chinese knock off of the tefen brand with his name on it... and i have no idea what those flow.

What kind of timers do you sell with your equipment?

JFodera said:

Well, as Kevin said, the nozzles run with .9 GPH @ 100psi. So, assuming you are running at 100psi, you divide .9 into 60 minutes and you get .015 gallons per minute. Convert that to fl. oz. and you get 1.92 per minute. Thats 3.84 Tbls per minute..... In other words, not much water.

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Thankyou