Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am a new baby vieled chameleon owner, and trying to refine my set-up. Icurrently have an 8 week old in a 20 gallon vertical "Reptarium" which is all screen- I use a dripper from zoo-med to administer water while Im at work and I spray by hand when im home. I dont like the dripper at all, its messy, inconvienient, and i cant get it to drip at a steady rate without pouring out too fast, so he actually goes 4 to 5 hours without access to water before i get home. I was looking into the automatic misters that sell for 75 bucks or so at common pet shops, but noone I know has used them or can tell me anything about them, can anyone give me some insight on them? Im willing to spend the money to inshure a convienient,healthy watering for my little dude.

I recently bought the ZooMed Habba-Mist, and it's ok. It's loud, but that doesn't bother me. It does mist, but doesn't put out an ultra-fine mist.
It actually kind of "sprays". The main complaint I have is that it only holds around 28 oz of water. So, you have to refill it every other day or so.
I have it set to mist for 45 seconds every three hours. For the money (I paid $40 at petguys.com) it's not bad at all. It's well-made and I have't had any major problems.

Does your mister spray alot of excess water outside of the cage?

There is no rule that says you have to use a dripper. I hate them too for many of the same reasons. The valves on mine were fussy and inconsistent after some use. I finally gave up on them. If you can spray (hot water) thoroughly at least 2 times a day, regulate the humidity in the cage with lots of plants and a humidifier if needed (dry air will dehydrate him fairly quickly in a cage so check it), you don't necessarily need a dripper. Dense dripping plants do the same thing, so as long as he can get a long drink a couple of times a day he should be OK. If you decide to build or buy a misting system I would wait until he's full grown and in his largest final cage setup. If you don't have an odd work schedule, travel much or usually have someone around who can spray you may not really need it.

The "Habba-Mist's" spray radius is about 20 inches. I have a 24"x24"x48" cage, so no water gets outside the cage. Almost all of the water drips down into my ficus tree pot, so it works out. My tree gets watered too!

The Habba Mist sprays at set intervals, right? So how do you keep it from spraying at night? Do you have to plug it into a timer?

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

thats what i did for mine, had it on a timer that so it only sprays during the day. but i dont recomend buying one, mine broke after a few months of use and its just too much to buy another and take the risk.

What i did, if u dont mind spending some money and have time: i bought a sprinkler timer at homedepot for $19.89, and a valve for $10, and all the pvc and connectors for about $6, a hose $5-10(depends if u want a 15' or 25') and then the mister $10-15. a total of about $60, which is how much i spent on my habba mist.

and if u plan on having more chams, u wonthave to have a habba mist for each cage, just get a spliter at the end of the hose and hook up two mister going to seperate cages. the best thing is, u dont have to refill anything all u gotta worry about is feeding!!!

if u like this idea just let me know and i can give tons of pics with more detail on how and the brands b/c i bought almost every one and took back and continued till i found the cheapest and best one of everything. and tried all kinds of drip, habba mist, and hand mister and the sprinkler is the best.

Yeah, post up some details, I've been contemplating buiding an auto-mister for my cage so my cham gets a little consistency in his life.
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Scott Dunlap

n/p
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1.0. Vield Chameleon(Jessy James)
1.1.3 Sugar gliders(Bonnie & Clyde)
2.0 Ferrets(Butch & Sundance)
1.1.3 Parakeets(Prettyboy,Sassy)
1.0 Doberman (Aries)
1.1 Cats(Riley, Zoe)

Heheh, that's exactly the same kind of system I'm setting up right now for our veiled and one of our igs, except we've attached it to a pump-up sprayer. I was asking about the Habba-Mist because I was thinking of including it in our online store, so I was curious as to how useful it really was.

I've noticed in your later post that you will be posting the details; looking forward to it! I've only finished setting it up today and would love to know how I could expand it later.

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

the habba mist sucks. had to fill it up every other day and of course i would forget all the time and the sprayer, yea that was just about the other suckiest part about it. it has the tip like a hair spray bottle but not the fine mist of it. it just shot out water. then u had to clean the tubing and clean out the sprayer alot if u have that tap water that sucks and has mineral build up.

so yea, i also tried build my own pump( fountain pump) and that whole idea sucked as well, because i have a 7' cage and the small pump wouldnt push that high, so i bought the biggest one home depot had at worked ok but it was 50$. the thing with that was it pumped 350 gph(gallons per hour) and the timer i got from wal-mart was for hour increments so i flooded my porch with water with the first watering.

so i did the sprinkler timer thing and i have to say " This is the best thing in the entire world, for me and my cham"

so yea, ill have pics and detail asap
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1.0. Vield Chameleon(Jessy James)
1.1.3 Sugar gliders(Bonnie & Clyde)
2.0 Ferrets(Butch & Sundance)
1.1.3 Parakeets(Prettyboy,Sassy)
1.0 Doberman (Aries)
1.1 Cats(Riley, Zoe)