Ideas on Hydration System/Loop

[Wykd]

I am drawing up a new habitat on paper and in this process I am thinking about the water sources/drainage. The crude picture below is what I currently considering. I used to run something similar on my reef tank top off/refuge/sump setup.

Any thoughts or questions are welcomed

This will be in a 2x2x4 screen cage.

1. Seal the bottom section of the habitat up to 3 or 4 inches with lexan and silicone (mold resistant/food safe silicone) seal it to the screen so no feeders get between the screen/lexan.

2. Habitat drain into charcoal/media filter as it enters into the sump. Filter media can be easily cleaned/replaced regularly to prevent bacteria build up and such.

3. Filtered water from sump would drain feed your misting & fogging systems. Depending on your system you could have a sealed water container or use a mechanical float to prevent overflowing the containers. The water would feed the systems via gravity (the same principle as a drip system, but with greater water flow)

This would basically create a loop and allow me to conserve more water which is vital in water drought times of the year and its just a good habit to conserve where possible. The filter will remove particulate, bacteria, and help clean up the water if you use tap water not distilled/bottled water.

The mechanical float would prevent the water from the sump from gravity feeding the containers. If you measure the water volumes used in the misting/fogger and size of the filtered sump you could control the water level and prevent overflow of the systems and onto your floor.

Thanks
Jeff

 

[myshed]

Seems a lot of effort when you could just fill your resevoir from the mains water supply via a filter and drain your habitat like normal. Although i guess if you're habitat is far away from your mains or you aren't able to change the supply then this would work.

Dave

 

[theAfamily]

Not sure how your filter will deal with bacteria, you may still get something passed on thru via fecies or dead feeders. Just my thoughts

Chris

 

[Wykd]

Glad you mentioned the bacteria topic.

Actually the filtering process is pretty close to the process using by water treatment plants.

1. seperate large particulate via screening
2. fine particulate seperation via gravity or membrane pass thru
3. biological/chemical cleansing thru charcoal, in larger systems its coal.
4. water is then enhances with chlorine/flouride/etc... and piped out.

The only thing I would not be doing is step 4, which are elements most want to remove from the tap water for simulation of rainwater. I have read of systems like this in use in dart frog setups, and they also drink from the closed system water.

There are a few simple diy water purification/filtering methods out there, bio-said/charcoal, berkley water filter, etc...

Not sure how your filter will deal with bacteria, you may still get something passed on thru via fecies or dead feeders. Just my thoughts

Chris

 

[ataraxia]

Dont take this as rude...just me being me.

Take your exact set up of filtration. You yourself...Piss over the top of your filters and then dump however many gallons your system will hold and DRINK. If you wont drink it..then it is not ok for your animal. Dont expect your animal to do what you wont.

 

[Wykd]

Yeah the location where I want to setup the habitats are not ideally suited for that. I stood in the rooms for 2 hours yesterday thinking about doing it how you suggested. I have my old reef ro water filtration system tied directly into the main still and its just sitting there valve off since I no longer reef keep.

Running the line over to the cages would be a pain to do it concealed. Then running a drain out would require holes in the drywall thru 3 rooms down, etc... I enjoy the challenge and reward of automation as much my pets themselves. I am making the habitat part of the family room not isolated to a pet room, so I have to hide the support hardware that distract from the display.

Seems a lot of effort when you could just fill your resevoir from the mains water supply via a filter and drain your habitat like normal. Although i guess if you're habitat is far away from your mains or you aren't able to change the supply then this would work.

Dave

 

[Wykd]

No offense taken, just take 2 sec and will do you one better go put a glass under your water tap and you can drink my pee along with your own and others. What all exactly do you think is done to create your drinking water? The only step I was not going to include is the chlorine, which is added for smell, taste, etc.. Urine is 95% water and non toxic hence they can turn it into potable water via treatment.

Its a rather simple process overall.

Dont take this as rude...just me being me.

Take your exact set up of filtration. You yourself...Piss over the top of your filters and then dump however many gallons your system will hold and DRINK. If you wont drink it..then it is not ok for your animal. Dont expect your animal to do what you wont.

 

[ataraxia]

WILL YOU DRINK THE WATER FROM YOUR CHAMELEONS SYSTEM>? After this animal has defecated...

You believe every water source is contaminated with piss or heck even shit? i believe that there is water sources that are contaminated believe me and i will not drink from them..I lived in Surf side , Tx for a bit and believe me i know. Now seriously dont recycle your water..i dont care how elaborate you think your filtration system is.

Btw - we can google search water treatment also

 

[Wykd]

I do not recall ever saying i would never change it out and use nothing but recycling of the water... you need to step back and breath brother.

ponds, lakes, etc.. anything with living organisms have waste in it, hate to break that to you. The more elaborate does not make it better, most often the simpler the better hence even in today's waste water processing the basic tenets remain the same.

I am not going to debate the filtration with you, if for no other reason than your approach to interacting with me. Did you think I was trying to pass the pretty gif of as my own? I am not hiding that i googled the subject, research is better than narrow mindedness. I hope you can google better than you can interact with people.

WILL YOU DRINK THE WATER FROM YOUR CHAMELEONS SYSTEM>?

You believe every water source is contaminated with piss or heck even shit? i believe that there is water sources that are contaminated believe me and i will not drink from them..I lived in Surf side , Tx for a bit and believe me i know. Now seriously dont recycle your water..i dont care how elaborate you think your filtration system is.

 

[ataraxia]

This is an open forum and if i have an opinion you will receive it. If you want to be sensitive..so be it.

 

[DekuScrub]

save yourself some time and stress.

run a hose to a float switch in a resivoir for you mist/fog.

have your cage drain to a basin that pumps it into your drainage (plumbing) or dispose of it yourself.

unless you have some serious RO filtration system hooked up (not just charcoal or fish filters) dont bother.

or just do it and let us know how it goes.

 

[myshed]

I understand the desire to conceal it all, I recently finished off my cham display viv in the lounge, and in the process had to drill through a 2 foot thick wall (I live in a victorian house in the uk), run new electric circuits, channel and then plaster cables and tubing in, etc etc! If possible I would still attempt to do it this way in your setting but if it isn't practical then forget it
Your filtration system would be ok though, I'm assuming you would be monitoring water quality and nitrate presence very closely. And for some of the other people replying, if you ever go swimming in a pool or the sea, you're basically jumping into far worse than this system will produce. Taking urates, nitrates and faeces out of a water source is a lot easier than removing the microbacterial organisms that cause illness but with the correct filtration used will probably produce better quality water than most tap water

 

[Wykd]

Not sensitive, just not impressed with those who know how to interact but choose not to due to the anonymity of the internet and as such preface comments they would would not make in real life usually to someone they don't know by "me just being me". Your not special the Internet is full of ppl like you. /shrug

This is an open forum and if i have an opinion you will receive it. If you want to be sensitive..so be it.

 

[Solid Snake]

Hes just talking to you straight.

This is not a good idea, because bacteria and parasites will still be in the water, which the chameleon will drink, inevitably causing health problems.

 

[myshed]

Hes just talking to you straight.

This is not a good idea, because bacteria and parasites will still be in the water, which the chameleon will drink, inevitably causing health problems.

How will the bacteria and parasites still be in the water? Thats the whole point of filtration, to remove it all. Hence the charcoal, which is in effect a carbon filter. I guess I may be missing the point here but with regular water changes i fail to see much of a difference between this system and someone having a waterfall in their viv.

 

[Wykd]

Thanks for the replis, as I said earlier I have to keep the supporting equipment hidden and was not wanting to tear into walls etc... This was my 1st/preferred method and was how I ran my tank room.

I do have what was top of the line RO/DI filtration (kent marine) from a cpl yrs back,when I used to keep a 120gal reef tank and several coral frag tanks, and clown fish breeder tanks. However I lost the tank room as my daughter got older and wanted a bigger playroom.

I was not sold on my water loop idea, hence I posted on here for input, and appreciate discussion but not absolute positions with out thought/research.

I did have another possible solution come to mind this morning over coffee. I heard the AC kick in and then I thought... "ac condensation pump". So I will look into a ac/heater condensation pump. I just did not want to tear into the walls again, I just redid those rooms over the last year. I guess I could take that small drain hose and possibly run it down to the baseboard and drill thru a cpl walls in the baseboard area then down to drainage piping in the garage. I could get some larger quarter round and it protect the drain line/hide it from site.

 

[Wykd]

I expected many to have concern with the idea, thats good. I also know that the principle has been used in dart frog keeping and is the backbone behind all aquatic keeping. Fish pee/crap also you know and without monitoring and constant fresh water added it to becomes unusable. If I automate the process you can bet it would automate the addition of new water daily as well. The water would evaporate as used/cycled and thus need topping off daily. If I ran it thru a humidifier it would evaporate even faster. My only concern with humidifiers is running anything other than distilled thru it. Because undistilled water releases metals and other elements into the air which is brought into the lungs and does affect the respiratory system. And on such a isolated footprint I would be more worried about that than the filtered water thru a mister.