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Who uses those ultrasonic pond fogger thingies?

TheFury

Oh, the humanity!!
So I'm looking at upgrading my humidifier. Right now I have one of those portable ones that you stick a water bottle on top of. It's alright but it's annoying refilling it so often and I'm also expanding out onto a second shelf in my grow rack and I don't think this little thing has the oomph to cover two shelves.

I'm checking these things out. I'm thinking of putting one into a 5 gallon bucket, mounting a fan to the bucket, and having it push the mist out of a tube or hose feeding my grow rack.

Question is: who here uses a contraption like this as opposed to a regular Walgreens (or similar) ultrasonic humidifier? I'd like to know whether you think the single-disc model will pump out enough fog for my needs or if I should spring for a 3-disc model?

Thanks in advance for your opinions!
 
Those look like the type of things my buddy and I used to decorate his house for halloween. If it's what I think it is, there's no way that 1 would produce what you want. I'm also using one of the portable waterbottle humidifiers, and it produces way more fog than those. I may be wrong about the product, but I don't think so.
 
one disk effectively cools my tank down to 65F (weather has been 90F as of late) during the day for my 20 gallon tank. shouldnt be a problem for you...that being said, if you're gonna place it in a five gallon bucket, you might need a buoy to keep the mister at the appropriate level so it functions properly.
 
I just got my first one today. Doesn't work in water over 2" deep.. doesn't fog up a 55gal. worth a crap. Haven't checked temp changes. But the splashing water from the fogger does more than the fog it produces.
 
I used those ultrasonic misters for a while in a 55 gal tank. Had between 3-4 of them on a timer. Gave up due to: poor build quality (replacing too often), needing to keep the water level w/in a pretty tight tolerance in order to produce decent mist, and they splash a good deal of water around which had to be managed. I ended up sending them down to Joe (seedjar), maybe he's had better luck.
 
I use one single disc fogger in my orchid rack.
It keeps the humidity around 91% when running. I have it on a timer as well, every two hours for 15 min run time. The rack is a standard 32" x 24" x 60".
The splash was an issue, so I covered the unit with a plastic bowl upside down over it, suspended on wooden skewer legs, set in a plastic tote (about 8 gallons of capacity) on the floor of the rack. I only need to fill the tote once or twice a week at most.
It works fine for my application, but it would not keep up in a larger enclosure. IMO
 
Hey, thanks folks! I had exhausted the 'forum search' tool and at the end of it, I thought I had a pretty good understanding that these pond foggers were the bees knees! Interesting change in perspective.

Yeah, if I got one/three of these things I would definitely buy the accompanying buoy. That way I could put 3-4 gallons of water in the bucket at a time and the fogger would always stay at the right depth. But for $85 for a 3-disc unit, plus the cost of the buoy, a five gallon bucket, and a little fan, we're talking $110-$120 for a humidifier that may or may not accomplish about as much as a $50 CVS-brand humidifier.

Riddle me this: the standard drug store humidifiers that many people have here... if I ran the output of one of those through a T-junction and fed half of the fog to one shelf and half to the other by injecting it into the air intake on each shelf, would the stream be too wimpy to keep Neps (and maybe a Heli or two eventually) happy? I'll preface that by saying that in the winter, humidity can drop down to the low 30%'s with my fans running.
 
Those look like the type of things my buddy and I used to decorate his house for halloween. If it's what I think it is, there's no way that 1 would produce what you want. I'm also using one of the portable waterbottle humidifiers, and it produces way more fog than those. I may be wrong about the product, but I don't think so.

No that's totally different
Smoke machines superheat a dilute chemical and spray it out a nozzle
It's not safe to touch for something like a foot, then it cools down
 
Hello there, just to add my experience based on your "Riddle me this"

I use the sunpentown su-2000 ultrasonic humidifier. Not sure of its cooling effectiveness but a nice 2gallon+ storage capacity. I plumbed the unit using 4-5ft of half inch tubing and used a T-junction to get it to the two grow racks I had been using. Worked like a charm at keeping humidity at 70% on average for both grow areas.
 
  • #10
Greg - perfect, that's exactly what I was looking for! Now if only they hadn't discontinued those su-2000s... bah! Still looking for something comparable. The 2 gallon tank is clutch; all the others I can find are 1 gallon.
 
  • #13
oh.. well I thought you were talking about those stupid little fogging discs.
I also use an ultrasonic fogging humidifier in my HL GH. Walgreens brand, $25.. been using it 12 hours a day for 6 years with no problems. Walmart also has a bunch of cool mist, and warm mist available for $32 and up.

Your status under your name reminds me of Tom Green in Road Trip. "UNLEASH THE FURY!!"
 
  • #14
Magic! Thanks everyone!

@Greg - funny, the base & tank components together cost more than the fully assembled unit, shipping included! Wonder how that works.

@Mass - I was talking about those stupid little fogging discs! There was chatter around here a while ago talking very highly of them; it seems as though opinion has shifted. But I'm probably just going to spring for this Sunpentown SU2000. It's spoken of so highly around here I feel like I can't go wrong... and the 2 gallon tank is convenient.

And my status... yeah, that Tom Green quote may or may not be a reference to Yngwie Malmsteen's famous outburst on a Japan Airlines flight a few decades ago. If you "get" the humor in flashy 80s virtuoso guitarists and their ego-driven, leather pant-strutting, permed hair-flipping antics, you'll have a good laugh if you Google "Yngwie Malmsteen unleash the fury." Might want to educate yourself by listening to some of his music first, though ;)
 
  • #15
yeah lol google wins again

someone trying to make a quick buck on ebay
 
  • #16
Well I happen to have made one of those 5 gallon bucket humidifiers when I started my HL tank. You guys obviously don't know about the float that you can buy so you can fill it pretty much all the way up.
http://www.amazon.com/PYTHON-AQUARI...WK/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1316965024&sr=8-10
There are other places that sells them, just google.

Since then I added an additional 8 inch pipe to the fan, just so there isn't any water splashing up that might hit the fan.
IMG_1664.jpg


I'm using it with a ZooMed Hydrotherm controller.
A slight snag happened, the power supply for the mister burned out after a month of use. I got a replacement and tried it on the same mister and did it again in 2 minutes. I suspected it was the mister its self and it was. Luckily I had a lower wattage power supply from a old laptop, it works but not as much mist comes out. Still keeps my HL tank at a decent humidity level. So I'm happy, and since it doesn't use a lot of water, I only filled it twice since I put it all together in July.
 
  • #17
dang.. build me one. So does the fun blow down into the bucket pushing the fog out of the other thingy mah jig it there?
 
  • #18
Hey, excellent. That's EXACTLY the kind of contraption I was talking about building. Thanks for putting an image to it!

I was definitely going to purchase a floater if I went down that road. Are you using just a single fogger disc in there or what? How would you compare the amount of fog you get out of it to other humidifiers you've used? Perhaps more importantly, how big is your HL tank and what sort of humidity levels can you maintain with this thing running?

Thanks!


EDIT: another plus of a big bucket setup is that during the hotter summer months I can load the thing up with frozen water bottles to create a chilled mist to keep temps under control in my rack... interesting...
 
  • #19
dang.. build me one. So does the fun blow down into the bucket pushing the fog out of the other thingy mah jig it there?
Maybe and Yes. Its a barb so you can connect the tubing from the bucket to the tank.

Hey, excellent. That's EXACTLY the kind of contraption I was talking about building. Thanks for putting an image to it!

I was definitely going to purchase a floater if I went down that road. Are you using just a single fogger disc in there or what? How would you compare the amount of fog you get out of it to other humidifiers you've used? Perhaps more importantly, how big is your HL tank and what sort of humidity levels can you maintain with this thing running?

Thanks!

Starting off, It is a 40 gallon breeder and I keep 90% humidity. I am using a single disk and when I had all the wattage it needed it was like a store bought humidifier. But since I'm using a low wattage powersupply you can barely see the mist coming out. But, it still keeps that 89-91% humidity in there.

Edit, just another little tidbit, the fan is always running. The fogger is the only thing that actually turns off and on via Hydrotherm.
 
  • #20
Paul, how often do you have to refill the bucket? Is it a pain with that stuff attached to the lid? Awesome, build, dude; nicely done.
 
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