Misting system heater?

[Kerickson978]

Hey, i am hopefully installing my misting system from Marty tomorrow. (when it arrives) right now i use a 1 gallon hand pump sprayer but i usually use new water when i mist things so i can use warm water, otherwise the water is always rather cold to the touch.. does anyone use aquarium heaters in the reservoir's for their misting systems? or would that even do anything??

 

[pssh]

It doesn't really do anything. Plus i've been told you should use warm/hot water in the pump. I've been searching around too

 

[Kerickson978]

It doesn't really do anything. Plus i've been told you should use warm/hot water in the pump. I've been searching around too

Should? or should not?

yeah, Ive been kind of stumped on this because well if the water in the reservoir is stable at a cooler temp than what the animals like say the water temperature is 68f (and the vivarium or enclosure temps are in the 80s) then every time the misting system turns on the entire enclosure temperature would drop by 5 to 10 degrees or so.. and if its an open airy enclosure like for chameleons it would drop even more because of the evaporative cooling thing.. for dart frogs it is at least contained in a pretty insulated box so it warms up quick again..

that would really be interesting to watch with a thermal video camera...

 

[jessica]

My computer wont let me post links (sorry ) but if you search "inline heaters" tons of info will pop up.

 

[Kerickson978]

Hey thanks, your right there is alot of info.. time to do some digging.

 

[SS4Luck]

hit up summoner12 and see what he says to do. I was going to make a thread about this right now then i saw yours lol

 

[pssh]

Sorry, I meant should not.

 

[TRohr]

I wouldn't use an aquarium heater in your reservoir.... I tried a 60watt or 100watt- can't remember- for awhile. Bumped the temperature of the water up to about 90 which was nice, but produced waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too much algae. More work than it's worth, and might ruin your pump.

Instead of trying to mist my entire cage I have the mister-head angled towards a schefflera that catches all the water~

 

[Hoj]

no to sure just a quick idea what about putting your water conainer on a small tank heating pad i use them for my hermit crabs and creates about 70-80 degrees of heat might be just enough to take the chill out of the water.

 

[summoner12]

There are a couple of things to consider when trying to make warm mist... It isn't impossible, but there are some challenges.

1) A heater in the reservoir can help, but bacteria can grow This is not a problem if you clean the reservoir and system out with a mild bleach solution every few months.

2) You have to limit the heat to what the pump can tolerate; My AquaZamp pumps are rated at 35*-115*F. You could put the heater after the pump, but then it needs to be able to withstand the pressures the pump is creating. I don't think fish tank heaters are meant to have very much pressure pushed through them.

3) The fittings in the system are pressure rated based on the temperature of fluid flowing through them. The higher the temp the lower the pressure rating.

4) Warm mist is a serious competition with the ambient air temp. We are contending with physics here. Water that is atomized will naturally cool. In order to get warm mist, you need HOT water. Again, you are limited to the hardware's specifications on how hot and how much pressure you can operate.

Personally, I don't use heaters in any fashion. I have my cages set up so my chams can be in or out of the mist if they wish. It doesn't seem to bother my chameleons to have water that is room temp (70-75*F) sprayed on them.

I realize some people want to pursue a heating solution, I can help however I can, but currently am not really working on any solution.

 

[Kerickson978]

There are a couple of things to consider when trying to make warm mist... It isn't impossible, but there are some challenges.

1) A heater in the reservoir can help, but bacteria can grow This is not a problem if you clean the reservoir and system out with a mild bleach solution every few months.

2) You have to limit the heat to what the pump can tolerate; My AquaZamp pumps are rated at 35*-115*F. You could put the heater after the pump, but then it needs to be able to withstand the pressures the pump is creating. I don't think fish tank heaters are meant to have very much pressure pushed through them.

3) The fittings in the system are pressure rated based on the temperature of fluid flowing through them. The higher the temp the lower the pressure rating.

4) Warm mist is a serious competition with the ambient air temp. We are contending with physics here. Water that is atomized will naturally cool. In order to get warm mist, you need HOT water. Again, you are limited to the hardware's specifications on how hot and how much pressure you can operate.

Personally, I don't use heaters in any fashion. I have my cages set up so my chams can be in or out of the mist if they wish. It doesn't seem to bother my chameleons to have water that is room temp (70-75*F) sprayed on them.

I realize some people want to pursue a heating solution, I can help however I can, but currently am not really working on any solution.

Thanks for that info, when i was reading through the other threads i quickly came to the conclusion that those inline aquarium heaters would not be what i was looking for, about the only thread that looked promising to me is the one where Beeze used a coffee heater with a modified thermostat.

Plus after reading through all the different threads and seeing how high the water temperature has to be to keep the mist warm, and comparing that to my own experience using a hand mister ive decided that if i ever was going to make a heated misting system it would have to be dedicated only to large enclosures, like for the chameleon, my frilled lizards and quince monitor.

anything "close range" to the nozzle for lack of better terminology would get way to hot especially dart frogs.. the temps in the small glass vivarium's would launch.. it would just plain become a sauna, and end up killing them.... so i am going to keep the system unheated for now and just roll with it and watch the animals individual responses, and move misting heads if need be..

I understand the bacterial growth, but gotta question the algae.. how the heck does algae grow in a dark sealed container? or are people with algae issues keeping their water reservoir in clear containers?

 

[summoner12]

I came up with design today for making a instant 'hot' misting system.... It wouldn't be cheap, but at least you'd have hot water and it would be instant....

 

[Kerickson978]

Oh really? would it be a mod you could attach to any point on a mist line? so you could run say 4 cool mist heads and 3 hot ones? =)

 

[radstusky]

I built my own inline heat misting system. I haven't yet posted about it. I don't think it really works quite as well as the one posted by Beeze. I will however make a separate post about it soon. It definitely does work to raise the temperature, i'm not sure by how much however since I find it difficult to measure the mist temp.

 

[summoner12]

Oh really? would it be a mod you could attach to any point on a mist line? so you could run say 4 cool mist heads and 3 hot ones? =)

Yeah I suppose you could do it like that... If you have misting for animals other than your chameleons you might want to hook up valves so you can mist them separate.

 

[HecticZ]

It doesn't really do anything. Plus i've been told you should use warm/hot water in the pump. I've been searching around too

Are you speaking from personal experience?

I use a heater in my 5gal jugs when I do a water change for my saltwater tanks, keeping a close temperature to the one in the fish tank. Is very important. It does raise the temperature especially in the winter months where the ambient room temperatures are around 69F and the water stays around 74F.

This is from personal experience if you clean out the mist container for your water you should be fine.

I use these kind of heaters, they are shater proof and shut off.

http://www.buy.com/prod/marineland-.../q/sellerid/25209263/loc/67447/204564751.html

 

[summoner12]

Are you speaking from personal experience?

I use a heater in my 5gal jugs when I do a water change for my saltwater tanks, keeping a close temperature to the one in the fish tank. Is very important. It does raise the temperature especially in the winter months where the ambient room temperatures are around 69F and the water stays around 74F.

This is from personal experience if you clean out the mist container for your water you should be fine.

I use these kind of heaters, they are shater proof and shut off.

http://www.buy.com/prod/marineland-.../q/sellerid/25209263/loc/67447/204564751.html

I think she is referring to the point, that even though using a fish tank heater, the water isn't warm enough to make a difference when the water comes out of the misting nozzles. Yes, fish tank heaters warm fish tanks, but they don't warm water warm enough to make a very large difference in the temp of the mist.

 

[HecticZ]

I think she is referring to the point, that even though using a fish tank heater, the water isn't warm enough to make a difference when the water comes out of the misting nozzles. Yes, fish tank heaters warm fish tanks, but they don't warm water warm enough to make a very large difference in the temp of the mist.

Okay but I would rather use a fish tank heater and warm up my water especially right now in the winter to about 80 degrees instead of it being around 65 degrees. I could test it out with the 2 5gal jugs I have with RO water.

Now that is a 15 degree difference that is pretty significant if you ask me.

 

[beeze]

I made an inline water heater from a Bunn Coffee maker

Link to the heater that I made a couple years back and it's still working great.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/misting-system-heater-29698/

 

[summoner12]

Okay but I would rather use a fish tank heater and warm up my water especially right now in the winter to about 80 degrees instead of it being around 65 degrees. I could test it out with the 2 5gal jugs I have with RO water.

Now that is a 15 degree difference that is pretty significant if you ask me.

Yes, in a condition like that you are right. But the aim for some people is to raise the temp so that the mist comes out warm. Getting 'warm' mist isn't as easy as we would like.