Help with water collection please.

[YoshiTheVeiled]

Just looking for some ideas for drainage or water collection. I have a 4x3x2 cage. The top front and sides are screen back and floor are solid. I have a schleffera that is sitting on on top of a few old weights(temporary until I can get this drainage situation figured out). I'd like to set my dripper to drip through the schleffera but I have nothing to collect the water. The cage plus legs are all combined. I think I'd like to have a tub or something under the plant which could easily be removed to dump. I thought of a cooling rack like for cookies but it wouldn't raise the scheff high enough(basking spot). The weights probably lift it a a foot if not more. I'd be a horrible engineer so I thought I would post to get some thoughts. Any questions just let me know.

 

[Syn]

Put the plant on something like that, and put the cooling rack underneath the stool. Should run off the stool and go right into the rack.

Any plastic stool would work.

 

[Sang]

the problem with creating any kind of of internal watch catch pan, is that now you have this open base of water, i suppose if you set it up on said stool syn mentioned, and if you choose to use a plastic tote container, hot glue mesh to the top, so that it is tight, and doesn't allow any kind of dipping .. that way you can let it fill, and dump it as needed. also it will keep any kind of feeders and what not out.


ideal, you'd set things up on a slope.. like maybe 10degrees angled back/forward. using something similar to a rain gutter you attach it to the frunt to allow water to slide out and collect into a bucket that the rain gutter feeds into.

 

[YoshiTheVeiled]

No worries, I plan to hot glue some screen over the pan don't want my little guy drowning. Sang I'm not really sure what you are saying. What should be tilted? And where would a rain gutter be placed?

 

[Syn]

Think of it as a house roof.

Most houses have a triangle top, so rain slides off one side and doesn't collect in a pool on the roof.

Some houses have rain gutters which direct the water to a designated area.

Some just let it slide off onto the dirt which collects in pools randomly all over the yard and it's harder to clean up.

Comprende?

 

[Sang]

if you tilt the entire enclosure. so basically it has a slight slope, enough to make water roll torwards a specific direction. it doesn't take much of a angle to do this..

depending on the lower side of the slope, you'd but a catch pan or rain gutter for water to pool in and then be moved torwards another bucket.

 

[YoshiTheVeiled]

lol, yes I understand how gutters and roofs work. Is it that I should tilt the entire cage?

 

[Syn]

Excuse the shtuffy drawing, I'm using my touch pad.

 

[Sang]

well there are numerous ways to create drainage for your enclosures.

tilting the cage sightly by off setting one side using something no thicker then 1/3 an inch thick. just enough to help pools of water flow into my drainage set up..the cage is suspended over a plastic tote.

my other method is a water heater over flow pan *wouldn't work in your scenario*. because i have a large plant it make the center of the cage a focal point for water, i have several holes *very small* in order to let the water drip into the pan i have placed under neath. when it fills i vacuum it out with a shop vac, takes a while to build up given the surface area.

 

[Titan]

Ok here is an easy one for ya. Use your dripper (this is what I imagined you were doing) to drip down into the plant soil. Go out and buy yourself an extra big plant water catch pan. Much larger that the plant pot itself. This way it can catch any water that missed the plant pot. Next purchace enough aquarium rock to fill the plant catch pan, after the plant sits in it, fill in around the rim. (this way your guy or feeders cant get into the water). Last get some aquarium air tubeing, drill a hole in the side of the plant catch pan, near its bottom edge. insert tubing and rout it down and out your cage & into an easily accessable water waist container that you dump as needed.

 

[YoshiTheVeiled]

Nice drawing! I don't know if I like the idea of water all over the floor though.

 

[Syn]

That's what the detachable gutter is for silly.

 

[Sang]

you don't even really have to detach it, you can set the gutter angled so that it flows into a drain pipe/bucket.

 

[YoshiTheVeiled]

Thanks for your help everybody, I decided to go with this.

The legs interlock and it does the job for cheap. And no modding to my cage needed. Again, thanks for your help. Oh and no worries, I'm putting screen over the tub.

 

[Syn]

Hopefully there isn't a hole you missed in the plant pot that will make it leak all over your cage!

 

[lbesok]

Titian: Sounds like a nice way to get your plant water logged
Yoshi: IMO the standing water in the cage should be avoided if possible.