Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I don't have a mister for my cham, but I have thought about getting one. Orion drive's me NUTS with her drinking habits... I think she is water retarted. If she SEES her dripper she'll do the drinking motion thing.. but she won't go over to it and DRINK from it. Or, sometime's she'll shoot her tounge at the drops. THe best i can do with her dipper is have it set up over a branch, move her to the branch, and wait for it to start drippig on her head. Sometimes she'll get a bit out of it, other's she'll raise her head and the drops will run down her chest.
When i mist her she won't drink much either. She'll wait for the mist to stop, THEN start drinking. BAH!!! I have to sit and mist then stop and when her mouth is open spray her mouth.. then mist and stop and so on. It drives me mad. I run her dripper every day just in case, but she never gets enough water. Her urates are rarely white. They rarely get deep orange, but are still a creamy peach colour not white. I shower her a few times a week, and if she is reall thirsty she'll dirnk in there, but usually she waits until the shower stops then starts to drink... so i sit with her for 1/2 hour with an eye dropper and give her water that way. This seems to work.. but she still doesn't get much in and i am getting worried about her (not to mention that it woudl be really nice not to have to do this...)
So... i ask... I live in an apt so i need a reliable mister. If it breaks and gets water all over i'm dead. What kind(s) do you recommend. I live in Canada, so there aren't a lot of reptile supplies available. There is a mister at a store nearby but i can't think of what it's called offhand.. .i'll find out.
Also, how long should it run for? With her i'm thinking a small amount of time more, b/c she'll likely only drink a min and maybe she'll lick the leaves after. What do you use for cleanup? My cage is mesh bottom, but i have boards to support her plants.. If the mister goes off for a short time will it leave a lot of water?
I was really hoping that I could avoid getting a mister... I have SO many things for her already (lights, foggers, humidifiers) that i will likely have to revise her whole set up. i am willing to do it, but i want to do it right the first time if i can (i have a fogger and 2 rarely-used humdidifiers in my closet -oops lol).
Thanks for your help everyone!!
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~Lindsay
0.1 panther chameleon (Orion)
1.2 r. brevicaudatus chams (unnamed)
0.1 leopard gecko (Acadia)
1.0 pictus gecko (Raine)
1.1 parakeets (Bongo/Citron)
1.1 cats (Tigger/Bonzai)
1.0 dwarf hampster (Chico the monster)
someday will have 1.1 great danes (will be Osiris and Solaris)

She has been doing this for about a year. Ever since i bred her last sept she has been really strange with her eating/drinking habits. It's getting worse lately though, she'll still eat the same but she used to drink in the shower, now she hardly does. I'm having a more difficult time keeping her hydrated now... I don't want you all to think she's been dehydrated for a year and i've done nothing!!! I just don't want to see it keep getting worse. I bet she still holds it against me that i let Shrek ravish her!
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~Lindsay
0.1 panther chameleon (Orion)
1.2 r. brevicaudatus chams (unnamed)
0.1 leopard gecko (Acadia)
1.0 pictus gecko (Raine)
1.1 parakeets (Bongo/Citron)
1.1 cats (Tigger/Bonzai)
1.0 dwarf hampster (Chico the monster)
someday will have 1.1 great danes (will be Osiris and Solaris)

Funny I have a female veiled that does the same thing...lol
You said:>>""My cage is mesh bottom, but i have boards to support her plants.. If the mister goes off for a short time will it leave a lot of water?"">>In my oppinion most definetly!!!
I spray the whole Enclosure down with a hand mister making sure to leave drops of water everywhere (they like to drink from leaves)
I have pothos,ficus,mini palm, and umblella Which i think is the best
I had to put plexiglass on the back of the screen cages all the way up and about one foot high on the front and sides so the overspray doesnt ruin the walls and carpet and some still gets through...lol
the cage has a glass bottom and i got tired of emptying a tray to collect water everyday so i just drilled a hole in the bottom glued a hose in there and ran it to a milk jug...lol
I am curious to see what other people do to remedy the water problem!!!
Because between a dripper, A humidifier and frequent misting it can get very messy quick
And all i can tell you from experience is dont get the habba mister its a waste of $60
There is another post about misters below and im going to buy that one Its over $200 But i think its worth it

It depends if you want a automatic one, or a easier hand one, I've made one that's manual that sprays like 5 cages at once, and as long as you hold the trigger down it sprays, I recently bought the mr.moisture, I've been happy with it, its affordable, just dont buy the nozzles from there because they are expensive there's another place to get them cheaper.

My veiled also was a pain in the ___ to get him to drink untill i got him an automatic mister. Originally i was using a hand mister and I think it scared him, he would always run and hide in the bushes.

with my homemade mister it sprays a very fine mist without a big creature pretending to be a little cloud attached to it. also 5 minutes is a long time to mist by hand and my critter won't drink for about the first 2 or 3. another benifit is that you can spray for a minute every now and then just to give a shot of humidity, something that we need to be thinking about now that winters dryness is coming.

as far as the extra water goes, yes you will have it. what i had ben doing up till last night was paper towles, sopping it up every evening. Don't do this!!! it's nasty and expensive. My cage has a plastic tray that was "acquired" from a pizza shop that has about 4 inch high walls. I didn't think ahead and thought only of containing the water not about getting rid of it. My solution now is to go to Home depot and they had these stackable plastic drawers that come in variouse sizes. I ended up putting two of these under his cage. one will be used for storage, and above the other i drilled a hole in the tray liner, water goes in tray and then into drawer, i pull the drawer and empty it nice an neat.

hope some of this was of interest
scott

Hi...I bought a Mr. Moisture a while ago at a local shop. The pump that comes with it works great but the hose i got with it kept poping and spraying water EVERYWHERE. I talked to a few other people with the same mister and they have had no problems with the hose bursting but had recieved braded high pressure hose insted of thin clear plastic like i had received. When you decide on a mister make sure that it comes with HIGH pressure tubing just cuse its a pain when you come home to a cracked MVB and a pissed off chameleon and a supper pissed off room mate not to mention the extra money and time it takes to buy new braded hoses. Besides my little incident with the hose i love my mister though.
Link

My MR. moisture came with some baby zip ties, those are tightened around the barbs on the mister heads, ever since I put them on I have no more problems, but I did have a full cage bottom of water before hand..

Further down there was a post about chams not liking red shirts. My cham always tries to hide when he sees the spray bottle I use to mist him. I didn't put it together until today that the bottle is RED! He may also just not like getting wet, but I'm sure the fire-y bottle isnt' helping.

Lindsay that's too funny that your cham doesn't drink until after the water has stopped flowing. I was laughing as I read your message. I wonder what she's thinking? Not so funny for you though, having to work extra hard to keep her hydrated. She won't drink the water off the leaves after you've misted the cage?
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~Melissa
1.0 Ambanja Panther (Diesel)
0.1 African Hegdehog (Kaimah)

She will a bit. right now all she has in there is a big bromeliad and 3 mini palms or whatever you call them. She is lazy she just sits and drinks the air. I'm sure there is some moisture in the air after misting, but not NEARLY enough. She drives me mad... She also will ONLY eat mealworms and superworms for a staple. This drives me mad too (that, and she needs extra hydration to help her digest these not so easily digestables... and they have a lot less water per bug than juicy crix). She will eat crix and others occasionally. I'm going to see if i can get her onto silkworms more now... i have a few other lizards, so if she doesnt' eat the ones I order at least they can...
How do you make a homemade mister?
I'm going to have to wait a few weeks to do this b/c it sounds like i'm going to be doing al to of modifying to her cage... She is in a 3 sided wood cage with screen front. I might look into getting plexi pieces to line the inside wood walls (they are paint, but only good quality indoor paint and i don't want to ruin them too much). I am going to be sooo broke thism onth. My poor kitty is sick and going to the vet mon (blood work the works for him i'm afraid ) and i have to get snow tires this week. SNOW!!!EEEEEEKK!!!!
BUT, next week i'll use my extra cash to get someting started. She really lcould use it i think. And, if she doesn't drink well still i'll just scream and save it for another cham another day
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~Lindsay
0.1 panther chameleon (Orion)
1.2 r. brevicaudatus chams (unnamed)
0.1 leopard gecko (Acadia)
1.0 pictus gecko (Raine)
1.1 parakeets (Bongo/Citron)
1.1 cats (Tigger/Bonzai)
1.0 dwarf hampster (Chico the monster)
someday will have 1.1 great danes (will be Osiris and Solaris)

the idea is stolen fair and square from :

http://www.trix.com/binx/mister/

with some substitions...
A) for the solenoid valve i am using a water control valve from a washing machine
B) for the mist nozzle i am using a .5 gph humidifier nozzle.

those two parts where easier to find without having to pay shipping than the ones listed in the article sited above

scott

mr. moisture is only 100 from wetworksms.com. you should check it out.

The only problem with the mr. moisture for $100 is you will burn up the pump if it runs dry
I guess that old addage applies " you get what you pay for"

Depending on how many cages you mist and the number of time a day it holds 2 gallons of water, and if needed can be rigged for a 5 gal bucket. I mist 3 cages 7 times a day and only fill it up once a week or so, it's pretty easy to maintain, and if worse comes to worse hand a note to fill up on fridge door...

"I live in an apt so i need a reliable mister. If it breaks and gets water all over i'm dead. What kind(s) do you recommend."
Um, don't get teh HabbaMister... it's loud, uses a ton of water, and leaks every time I fill it up... Tho it is the cheapest I have found so fr ($20 on sale at the pet store)... Good Luck.