Mistking with solenoid

[Kaizen]

Thought I’d share something I use with my mistkings. First, let me preface this that my water is fairly soft, and therefore clogging nozzles isn’t a concern. And one more thing: I generally don’t worry about tap water for chameleons.

Here we go: Tired of filling a reservoir? Consider hooking up a 24v solenoid valve to your misting system. All you need is a 10$ solenoid and you can splice it into your mistking timer, so that when your mistking turns on, the valve opens. Your mistking timer can control the valve without any additional electronic components.

Indeed, the mistking “zipdrip” is a very similar setup. The only difference is that the zipdrip is not meant to have constant pressure behind it. If you buy/bought a mistking with the zipdrip solenoid you can simply replace it with a 24v normally closed, 1/4” solenoid.

If you want to know more, just ask.

 

[DocZ]

Are you connecting directly to your home water supply with that?

 

[Ruthless]

Sounds interesting but maybe a tutorial would be helpful.

 

[HankeyPoo]

Thought I’d share something I use with my mistkings. First, let me preface this that my water is fairly soft, and therefore clogging nozzles isn’t a concern. And one more thing: I generally don’t worry about tap water for chameleons.

Here we go: Tired of filling a reservoir? Consider hooking up a 24v solenoid valve to your misting system. All you need is a 10$ solenoid and you can splice it into your mistking timer, so that when your mistking turns on, the valve opens. Your mistking timer can control the valve without any additional electronic components.

Indeed, the mistking “zipdrip” is a very similar setup. The only difference is that the zipdrip is not meant to have constant pressure behind it. If you buy/bought a mistking with the zipdrip solenoid you can simply replace it with a 24v normally closed, 1/4” solenoid.

If you want to know more, just ask.

So with tap water are you supposed to put a conditioner in it or some sort of water treatment to remove the chlorine or what ever is in the water? It would be so much easier to just use tap .. I currently buy gallons distilled water .. I’m scared to put treatments in tap cause I don’t want to over do it ?

 

[Kaizen]

Are you connecting directly to your home water supply with that?

Yup

 

[Kaizen]

So with tap water are you supposed to put a conditioner in it or some sort of water treatment to remove the chlorine or what ever is in the water? It would be so much easier to just use tap .. I currently buy gallons distilled water .. I’m scared to put treatments in tap cause I don’t want to over do it ?

My experience has always been that if we can drink tap water, so can chams. Chlorine is not all that problematic, unless your municipality uses heavy amounts for sanitation reasons. Obviously, I can’t speak to the main’s supply everywhere, but it takes a quick call to the municipality to find out what they put in the water. Here, it’s just chlorine, and once you (almost) atomize that through a mist nozzle (chlorine really wants to be a gas) it’s really not an issue here. You could certainly run the line through a carbon filter like a Brita, but RO and distilled water has the negative aspect of removing good things from water as well. Dissolved calcium, magnesium, and other beneficial trace elements are effectively removed in these processes.

I certainly recommend checking with your municipality about what goes into your water, but the biggest issue with main’s supply is that it is sometimes hard, and will clog nozzles.

 

[HankeyPoo]

My experience has always been that if we can drink tap water, so can chams. Chlorine is not all that problematic, unless your municipality uses heavy amounts for sanitation reasons. Obviously, I can’t speak to the main’s supply everywhere, but it takes a quick call to the municipality to find out what they put in the water. Here, it’s just chlorine, and once you (almost) atomize that through a mist nozzle (chlorine really wants to be a gas) it’s really not an issue here. You could certainly run the line through a carbon filter like a Brita, but RO and distilled water has the negative aspect of removing good things from water as well. Dissolved calcium, magnesium, and other beneficial trace elements are effectively removed in these processes.

I certainly recommend checking with your municipality about what goes into your water, but the biggest issue with main’s supply is that it is sometimes hard, and will clog nozzles.
[/QUOTE
Thank you for clearing this up for me! Your guys knowledge just amazes me! ?

 

[Kaizen]

One more thing. Unless your plant fertilizer has all 13 macro and micronutrients, your plants will eventually suffer from a lack of chlorine if using distilled/ro water.

Plants need:

Macro nutrients:

nitrogen
Phosphorus
Potassium
Calcium
Magnesium
Sulfur

micronutrients:

boron
Copper
Chlorine
Molybdenum
Manganese
Zinc
Iron

 

[HankeyPoo]

One more thing. Unless your plant fertilizer has all 13 macro and micronutrients, your plants will eventually suffer from a lack of chlorine if using distilled/ro water.

Plants need:

Macro nutrients:

nitrogen
Phosphorus
Potassium
Calcium
Magnesium
Sulfur

micronutrients:

boron
Copper
Chlorine
Molybdenum
Manganese
Zinc
Iron

?

 

[kinyonga]

All the years I've kept reptiles I've used the tap water. its never caused any problems that I know of. I always thought the minerals in it did the chameleons and other reptiles some good. Just my. Way of doing it.

 

[DocZ]

All the years I've kept reptiles I've used the tap water. its never caused any problems that I know of. I always thought the minerals in it did the chameleons and other reptiles some good. Just my. Way of doing it.

It’s been suggested that some of the mineral ingestion of wild animals comes from their water sources, and I agree with @Kaizen that RO, DI, and distilled water will remove this source. Do we need it with all of the gut loading and frosted feeders we feed? I don’t know, but it does remove a “natural” source of minerals in their diet

 

[kinyonga]

Keep in mind that they usually drink dew and rainwater and other natural sources that would have picked up minerals (and sadly, pollutants) from the atmosphere....so it's not natural to use distilled or RO water anyway.

 

[HankeyPoo]

Keep in mind that they usually drink dew and rainwater and other natural sources that would have picked up minerals (and sadly, pollutants) from the atmosphere....so it's not natural to use distilled or RO water anyway.

I may just start trying to collect rain water... and raise my own insects and start my garden like I have always wanted to gut load ... my husband thinks I’m crazy! ? I wish my veiled loved me like I love him ??? and I don’t know if it’s just me but I bought a whole bunch of crickets thinking I could start breading them since they currently live in my house where it’s warm and get food and water BUT the pet stores only sell males! ? are females not available??

 

[kinyonga]

How do the pet stores only sell males?
Any time I buy crickets there are always males and females.

As for rain water...remember...it might contain pollutants you don't want your chameleon to ingest too depending on where you live.

 

[HankeyPoo]

How do the pet stores only sell males?
Any time I buy crickets there are always makes and females.

As for rain water...remember...it might contain pollutants you don't want your chameleon to ingest too depending on where you live.

So pet smart is right outside my development I swear they only sell males ... I was joking (sorta) with my husband to mate them because for some reason where I live (Syracuse ny) they are on high demand and limit your to 20 a day which is super annoying cause when he was about 3 months he was almost eating them all in a day... so I was constantly going to pet smart .... so fast forward to me telling my husband for months later I’m just going to start mating them because why not I already have to feed them keep them alive give them water why not just raise my own crickets ... so this past three times probably in two weeks since he’s gotten older that I’ve had to make visits to Petsmart they literally have given me not one female no joke... so I don’t know if they’re just not selling females so you don’t bread them and then don’t buy them since they get them from some kind of cricket breeder farm I don’t know it’s crazy..... we don’t have many exotic animal places around here in Syracuse New York but the ones that we do have I’m definitely going to try and see what they have.

 

[Klyde O'Scope]

My experience has always been that if we can drink tap water, so can chams.

I think it depends on what else (besides treatment chemicals) is in one's tap water, and when most folks find out, it does blow their minds. ?

For example, the tap water where I live is claimed to be "safe" for human consumption, yet when I found the actual analysis, I found that it contains:

Contaminants That Exceed Guidelines

• Bromodichloromethane
• Chloroform
• Dibromochloromethane
• Dichloroacetic acid
• Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs)
• Trichloroacetic acid

Other Detected Contaminants

• Barium
• Bromoform
• Chlorate
• Chromium (hexavalent)
• Dibromoacetic acid
• Fluoride
• Haloacetic acids (HAA5)
• Molybdenum
• Monochloroacetic acid
• Nitrate
• Nitrate and nitrite
• Strontium

The report ended with the admonishment (in part):

Always take extra precautions, the water may be safe to drink when it leaves the sewage treatment plant but it may pick up pollutants during its way to your tap.

If you'd like to check what's in the drinking water where you live...
https://www.canyoudrinktapwaterin.com
(But remember I warned you above... ?)

Is what's considered "safe" for human consumption safe for small animals like reptiles? ?‍ IDK.

Long story short, I use distilled for the mister, mostly because that's what MK recommends to keep the pump & lines free of deposits. The mister provides enough to wet everything down, but not enough for plant watering, so for watering the plants, we do use tap water.

We have a filter in the house for drinking water.

Also, by the time the distilled water gets to where a chameleon can drink it, it's been in contact with—and rolling all over—the surface(s) of the plants, branches, planters (in some cases) and whatever else is in the enclosure, so I imagine it picks up whatever there is to pick up that way.

Keep in mind that they usually drink dew and rainwater and other natural sources that would have picked up minerals (and sadly, pollutants) from the atmosphere....so it's not natural to use distilled or RO water anyway.

But it's "natural" for dew & rainwater to contain all that crap?
Let's remember, we've only messed up the planet really badly in the last 150-200 years or so. Before that, wild chameleons pretty much had pretty clean drinking water (as far as pollutants go) for millions of years.

I may just start trying to collect rain water...

Like drinking water, rain water depends partly on where one lives (and what's upwind); it's going to form around whatever pollutants are in the air. Just sayin'... ?‍

 

[kinyonga]

You said..."I swear they only sell males"...do you know how tedious and time consuming it would be to separate the males from the females? I can't believe that they would bother. You do know how to tell a mile from a female, don't you???

They're easy enough to breed... as long as you have one male and one female!

 

[HankeyPoo]

You said..."I swear they only sell males"...do you know how tedious and time consuming it would be to separate the males from the females? I can't believe that they would bother. You do know how to tell a mile from a female, don't you???

They're easy enough to breed... as long as you have one male and one female!

Yes I know how to tell a male from a female and if breeding crickets is what they do I doubt they care how tedious it is or time consuming when it what they do! You said “it’s easy to breed as long as I have one male and one female “ is that how it works?? ??‍ I don’t appreciate how your coming at me ... damn you have to sound so ignorant...

 

[kinyonga]

I was joking/being sarcastic with the comment "as long as you have one male and one female". BTW...many people can't tell a male from a female cricket...so in a way it would be dumb if I didn't ask. I definitely wasn't coming at you....it's not the way I work.

 

[DocZ]

Yes I know how to tell a male from a female and if breeding crickets is what they do I doubt they care how tedious it is or time consuming when it what they do! You said “it’s easy to breed as long as I have one male and one female “ is that how it works?? ??‍ I don’t appreciate how your coming at me ... damn you have to sound so ignorant...

Definitely haven’t known @kinyonga to ever “come at” anyone
She’s helpful and quite literally a fountain of knowledge and experience around here.
I think there’s something lost in the online translation