Mistking reservoir... alternative

[tzap13]

I have been researching all week omg my eyes are so tired from reading haha.

I have looked at many ways to provide fresh clean, non tap water to my chameleon, and after sifting through so much stuff (RO systems, Linx commercial system, aquarium heaters in 5 gallon buckets and even coffee pot heaters mounted to boards) I have a question.

Could I setup a regular 10 gallon fish aquarium with filter and heater and drop a tube into that to use for my reservoir? I dont want a bacteria breeding grounds and I would like to get warm water to come out of the mist nozzles as opposed to cold water sprays.

If I topped it off at night, that should allow time for the freshly added water to filter the ickidies out of it before the first misting went off in the morning.

Am I over thinking this? I really dont think I will be satisfied with simply using cold or room temp water.

My aunt told me when she dies, she wants to come back as my chameleon, due to all the research / preparation I have done and still havent purchased my cham yet rofl

 

[ChuWuti]

If you're going to use tap water to fill the aquarium, it will need at least 24 hours to outgas the chlorine properly. The greater the surface area you provide, the higher the outgas rate will be. The greater the depth in proportion to the surface area, the lower the outgas rate will be.

If you have an aerator on the faucet, that will help improve the outgas rate for the chlorine.

Unfortunately, chloramines will NOT outgas in such a short period of time; they require a week or more to outgas with both good surface area and exposure to natural sunlight. Instead, you need to use an activated carbon filter with a slow filtration rate to remove chloramines, and you'll need to either reactivate the carbon in a kiln or replace it frequently if you want to remove the chloramines rather than add more chemicals to neutralize them.

On the other hand, chloramines are supposedly not dangerous to aquarium fish as long as the ammonia levels are kept low, so one might infer that chloramines wouldn't be a problem for chameleons.

Might. I don't know that I would feel comfortable with them without treatment myself, but you'll have to make your own decision on that.

There's some good info here on dealing with both chlorine and chloramines:

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/chlorine-chloramine

Good luck!!

Sandh

 

[tzap13]

reptisafe

reptisafe removes chloramines and chlorine so that should take care of that.

 

[spencer451]

I use a 5 gallon bucket and lid for my Mistking reservoir and distilled water. In the bucket I have a submersible aquarium heater that is adjustable, at its highest setting it keeps the water at 87 degrees. Before using the heater Buddy would run and hide from the mist but now he loves it.

 

[tzap13]

bacteria

spencer, do you have any issues with bacteria or algae growth? I like the idea of 5 gallon buckets because you can get the screw top lids for them and make them 99.9% spill proof.

 

[clarkrw3]

I use a large plastic bin, you can see it in the video tour of my Cham room I posted in the photo section. I go through about 5 gal of RO water a day. On my baby system I just use a square bucket like is provided with the Aquazamp systems, but I only go through about 32 oz in they system a day.