Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Make one yourself and save $$$$

The vent cut in the tube helps keep the water from dripping when the unit is turned off. You put it at the point where gravity takes over and moves the water down.

iv tried much the same and it sucked because my cage is 8' tall, the tubing has to go up al least 5', with a fish tank on a stand filled with water and the tube going to the top of the cage. at the top, i use a 5 way split with small plastic tubing with drilled holes for water to drip all over to make it look like real rain. well the problem was the the pumps that i bought werent stromg enough to pump water up 5', so i bought one for 40$ at homedepot that pump 350 gph and pumped 5'6". the only timers that i could find were at wal- mart and would only go on a hour increments, needless to say that the first time it went off, if flooded my cage and porch, so i shot that idea straight to h377
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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)

The 'timer' is a simple 24 hour timer (like the kind you use for vacations).

it goes on at 8am and drips all day about 1 drip every other second and goes off at nite. Theres a collection bucket under my cage of course.

I'm not sure I see the big advantage. I use a 2 gal plastic "pretzel barrel" that sits on top of the cage. It drips for about 5-6 hours/day. Low tech but effective. You can see a version of it at http://mywebpages.comcast.net/epollak/drainage.htm
Ed

agreed, i'd say with all that effort, you aren't far from an automatic misting system. That would be far more valuable, or atleast in my opinion anyways. The misting nozzles are like 25 cents, i'd do it.

Geoff

My drip system is good because it turns itself on and off with the basking light. Its simple but good because it dosnt drip at nite when my cham dosnt drink, so i fill it less often and dont have to turn the spigot on and off every day which can get hard to adjust just the right way to drip good.

how much did u spend on all that stuff, with the pump and the refill water tank, the tubing, the valve, the three way splitter and so on.
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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)

Water pump $15
Tubing $10
Timer $9.99
3way valve $4

I only have to fill mine once a day so for me, that's not such a big advantage of your system. The big advantage I see in your system is when you want to go away for a weekend....... or even longer if you used 32 gallon plastic trash cans as reservoirs & catch buckets. But then I'd need a different set up for each of the 3 rooms in which I have chams. Of course, that would triple the chance that something could go wrong and cause a flood. So I think your system's great for e.g., a cham room in a basement or someplace else that wouldn't cause a disaster if/when a malfunction occurred. And for a weekend it would be great. I don't think I could trust it for much longer than 2 days without someone coming in to inspect it regularly. Maybe one day I'll convert my basement to a cham room and your system would work for me. Of course, as long as I'm dreaming, I should be thinking about that big greenhouse with free=ranging chams, finches, a turtle pond, etc.... (sigh).
Ed