Misting system

[NickHubbell]

I have been thinking about a misting system for a 6'L x 4'H x 2'W Nepenthes chamber. I am thinking between a greenhouse type misting system or a ultra sonic mister. The greenhouse like system would not actually include an electric pump or the computer control (a timer and ac adapter would be used instead), but would be similar to the setup this fellow made for his Chameleon. Automatic Misting System.

The Ultra Sonic misters are cheaper, but feel that one would take up a bit too much room for the output it would produce. The sprayer could be as large as 3 gallons and be hidden away with the misting nozzles above the plants.

Has anyone tried to use a manual pump sprayer in this manner? If so, would it produce a fine enough mist? I guess all I want is for it to produce fine water droplets that don't just run off the plant leaves.

Thanks,

Nick

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Nick - My first question, what are you trying to accomplish? Cooling? Humidifying? Watering?

Is this an indoor chamber that won't be exposed to hot sunshine? If it's indoors only. How are you lighting it? What temperature range are you shooting for day/night?

Tony

 

[superimposedhope]

I general I would say the ultra sonic is going to produce the finest fog available. The clouds off of ultra sonic stay in dead air for several minutes before falling. They will build droplets after 5-10 minutes though. This is assuming you just want the best humidity.

Joe

 

[NickHubbell]

I guess I forgot a few things...

This will be indoors and lighted with at least 3 lighting fixtures, possibly 4. Each fixture will house 2-4ft flourescent bulbs. Currently, I am able to maintain day temperatures in the hight 80's with lows down into the high 70's during the night. The temperatures will be lower in winter, but I currently use heating pads to help keep the chamber above 70°F at night.

The chamber will get some sun between 5-8 depending on the season. This light comes from my back porch and has to pass through two sets of windows. It doesn't warm things up much, but since the back porch is enclosed, it can really heat up the room the chamber is in. I have my computer in this room as well and I work up a sweat just sitting here sometimes. I currently have no way to put in an air conditioning unit to help cool things.

The chamber will have a fan for air circulation. My current chamber has a evaporative humidifier in it that does an ok job of keeping the humidity above 80% but the wick has to be changed every few months. I now mainly use the humidifier's fan for air circulation now and manualy mist the chamber two times a day. This wil change once I find a replacement wick. The water on the leaves in gone in a couple of hours, less if I don't mist as much. Without the humidifier (or my current misting), the humidity stays in the 50% range.

I am wanting something that I can use to help maintain the humidity level for the plants. I will probably have a section that will open to let in fresh air from time-to-time. I may leave this option out since the chamber will not be totally air tight as it will be constructed of pvc pipe and poly. I know there are at least a few people that pull this air past an ultrasonic mister. However, I want to mist the leaves as well. I may end up using a combo of each system.

I do hope to accomplish some cooling with the mister. I also realize that I maybe planning on overkill here.

 

[Spectabilis73]

I would go with the ultrasonic humidifyer, since it wont waste nearly as much water, plus your getting fog, not large droplets of water (which might create fungus problems for smaller plants, in an enclosed environment like that... And also droplets arent going to raise humidity much unless they evaporate) Keep in mind that with large droplets getting on your plants via the spray system, you are going to get cooling through evaporation... Not to mention spray systems are pretty expensive unless you custon make one.

-Spec

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Spec and Joe covered alot of it. But deffinately ultrasonic humidifier. An external one that can be placed outside and a tube plumbed in to send the output into your grow chamber would do fine.

Water on the plants is deffinately a concern and a major drawback of a mister system. As well it won't do as good a job with humidifying because the droplets are considerably larger than an ultrasonic humidifier.

Don't expect alot of cooling if at all.. your humidity will be naturally fairly high within the chamber so the ultrasonic fog will not vaporize much. You may find that it doesn't run that often anyway.. a nearly enclosed grow chamber shouldn't really need much additional humidification. If you were to be pulling outside air into it then that would be a different story (or the lid was open alot)

Tony

 

[Clint]

Quote[/b] (Tony Paroubek @ Oct. 03 2004,1:21)]An external one that can be placed outside and a tube plumbed in to send the output into your grow chamber would do fine.  

thats what i do and it really saves a ton of space for plants.