How to collect misting water/dripper water?

[JasonSinger]

I am struggling right now to find an effective way to manage the water in my enclosure.

I use paper towels that I change out daily to soak up misting water and a container that the dripper drips into that I empty at night as well.

Are there any other methods besides a drainage system that would not require daily attention?

 

[GavinSTAN13]

Well what i do for my babies cages is get some of the like white and clear plastic droors and drill some holes in them and set cage on top, i empty it out once a day, but it could go about 3 or 4, and i also run my dripper like 14 hours a day (its on a timer) so thats alot of water

 

[carol5208]

Jason, go into search above and type in drainage system for your keywords. It will bring up numerous previous threads on other members drainage systems. As far as for me, I have a large plate under my shefferlera that collects the water. I soak up the water with a towel. I aim my dripper so it trickles down on a branch and then it drips into a shallow tupperware bowl which I empty as it fills. There are other more sophisticated ways and you will probably find some answers you are looking for in the old threads! My cham is 10 months old so there is no chance of him drowning in the container. He could crawl right out of the bowl. If you have a baby obviously you have to be careful incase they fell, or crawled into the container and could not get out.

 

[Elizadolots]

I like the drawer idea and use a variation of that myself. If the cage is too big for an available drawer, all you need to do it get a box or table that will hold the cage, cut out a large hole that will fit under the cage bottom. Put a tub under the hole. Put the cage over the hole and drill a few holes in the center of the cage bottom. Voila. Yes, it is a drainage system but if you're at all handy, you can do it for practically nothing.

 

[JDH]

I've been struggling with this one for a while. I'm on my first home made system (1.0) and have utilized some of the older post as inspiration. I have a aluminum mesh cage and replaced the flimsy foam board in the bottom with a single ceramic tile. The ceramic tile supports the weight of plants and egg laying bins better so you don't have water pooling around them due to the depression from the weight of the container. You can get your hardware store (Lowes) to cut the tile the exact size as the original foam board for a couple of dollars. I have my cage sitting in a large concrete mixing pan (home depot) that has a hose attached to the bottom for drainage. The hose goes to a 3 gallon container so only need to dump it one a week. I have the cage and the pan sitting on a shelf that is intentionally out-of-level to allow the water to run off the tile floor an into the pan. This allow the floor to dry quicker between misting to avoid mold growth, but still provides good humidity since it collects in the pan before draining into the catch bucket. The dripper also runs about all day and after hitting the tile runs off in to the pan preventing any pooling.

I'm not sure that really clear in text so here is a pic that should help. I'm very happy with the system for now, but have started building for cage (2.0) from what I've learned from this one. Also my girl friend isn't real happy with the lab experiment look, but has not said anything about it yet.

 

[summoner12]

I use Coroplast and make trays under the cages to catch the water. I also use automated drainage pans to pump the water to a sink drain when the pan is full.