# General Topics > Vivarium, Terrarium & Enclosure Discussion >  Anyone know how to do a DIY Misting/fogger system

## eric048

I want a fogger or a misting system or both for my project in the works, anyone know a cheap, and easy DIY way to make one?

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## Martin

I actually talked about this with Royce (Poly) yesterday. He had a quite smart (and cheap) misting system, which he build himself. If he does not respond here, send him a PM and I'm sure he'll gladly help you out.

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## eric048

is it a forum? or was it just the two of you? and thanks, I don't feel like spending $60 on a fogger.....

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## thadmy

I know you can use a cool humidifier that you put a hose over where the mist comes out and put the hose into the tank. I have seen posts about this before but I am interested in a way too. I know a lot of people are always weighing the option between the mistking and making your own

Some swear that making your own isn't worth it cause of all the hassles but I'm sure there is a easy and cheap way to do it.

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## Kristen87

I bought a buy one get one free mister for $8 (plus $8 delivery) off ebay, so far its working fine. Not DIY but cheap!! Might be worth keeping an eye out?  :Wink:

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## thadmy

what kind of mister was it

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## Poly

> I actually talked about this with Royce (Poly) yesterday. He had a quite smart (and cheap) misting system, which he build himself. If he does not respond here, send him a PM and I'm sure he'll gladly help you out.


Hehe, thanks for letting me have this one Martin...  :Stick Out Tongue: 

Take 1/8" or 3/8" plastic line, carefully all on the same side of the line, puncture it with a pin. Run the line over your Vivarium, and insert a plug into the end of the line. Use a repti-flow 200 or 300 submersible water pump (or something similar) to pump water through the line, at first, the fast flowing water won't fall through the holes, but once it hits the plug at the end of the line, the water "pressurizes" in the line, and is forced out the small pin holes in a very fine mist.

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## S13

That's awesome! About how many pin holes would one make to make this effective?

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## eric048

Lol seems like my thread got hijacked  :Stick Out Tongue:  but that is a great idea, I have two submersible pumps so one will power my waterfall an the other will power my mister thanks!

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## S13

Who thread jacked? D: as far as I can see, everything is still on topic.  Also, what are your thoughts on using a "T" connector and using a double sided hose for misting.  For example:

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## eric048

I was thinking about that, I was going to have one pump power the mister and the waterfall....

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## S13

^ that's a good idea too.  I might just do this for misting purposes, the T connector idea I have though is to have two sides misting at once.  In other words have the two sides plugged and punctured to be able to mist each side of my viv evenly.

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## eric048

Just out of curiosity how do you connect the hose to the viv?, tape or what?

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## thadmy

Could you adapt that method to a vertical tank like mine that only has a small screen sitting vertically. Its kinda hard to see but on the top of the door I made a 6 inch screen to allow air flow for my tree frogs.

Would I be able to run the hoses along the screen at the top and still get the desired effect or would the water not have enough pressure to spray the mist into the tank?

Thanks Thad

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## S13

> Hehe, thanks for letting me have this one Martin... 
> 
> Take 1/8" or 3/8" plastic line, carefully all on the same side of the line, puncture it with a pin. Run the line over your Vivarium, and insert a plug into the end of the line. Use a repti-flow 200 or 300 submersible water pump (or something similar) to pump water through the line, at first, the fast flowing water won't fall through the holes, but once it hits the plug at the end of the line, the water "pressurizes" in the line, and is forced out the small pin holes in a very fine mist.


Ok so did I do something wrong? I'm not getting the fine mist, or anything at all.  Using 3/8" tubing, rept-flo 200, pin size punctures at the end of the line which is also plugged up...

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## eric048

so i have two pumps one is a 750gph the other is a reptiflow 350 which one is better for the misting, and or the waterfall

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## J Teezy

probably the 350,  750 is alot for a small terrarium

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## eric048

I was thinking of doing the 750 for the misting (its a 3 foot tall tank) and the 350 for the waterfall, or splitting the connection and doing the 750 for both the waterfall and misting

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## J Teezy

the only way to truely know which to use is hook them up and see what kind of water pressure you get

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## eric048

that is true only issue I have is that I don't know how to make it so only one is on (the waterfall) if I connect both items to the pump

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## J Teezy

misting system seems pretty simple to me as described above.  Put some holes in some hose and connect the hose to the pump

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## eric048

ill start the set up sometime next week, I still need to get paid before I start

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## J Teezy

should be able to plumb the pump with well under $20.  Some hose, couple fittings to make it fit on the pump and you good to go.  Home Depot and Lowes sell tubing by the foot

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## eric048

yeah, I also plan on getting GS and silicone for the background/water feature, plus the little plastic pots for the plants to go into the gs

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## thadmy

Can this method be used on a vertical tank where the screen isn't horizontal but vertical

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## J Teezy

i think what you are asking is how to get the tubing inside the tank because the position of the tank don't matter a mister is a mister, you just have to figure out how you are going to attach it inside the tank.  If you can't go through the top of the tank sounds like you are going to have to maybe make a hole in your screen as close to the top of the tank as possible and put the hose through there your only other option really is to drill a hole in the glass on the top to put it through that and with drilling glass come risks of cracking / breaking it

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## eric048

the exo terra tanks come with convienient little black bars in the shape of a + so im going to put a 4 way splitter and have the hoses extend from the middle. how do you cap off the hoses?

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## J Teezy

just plug the end with something.  Look around at Home depot or Lowes in the pvc plumbing section, they have caps for pvc ends, just find something that will fit over your tubing.  I'd probably silicone the cap onto the end of the hose

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## thadmy

Omar the reason you weren't getting the mist is that your holes weren't big enough there was too much air pressure for the pump to push the water up. I just tried and used a pin but there wasn't any water being forced up the line so I made the holes a little bigger and then used a knife I cut slits into the hose. This worked the pump was pumping the water up the hose and it was trickling out so now I have to make the holes a little smaller so that it is a mist and not a rain effect haha but it was a good first attempt.

As for caping off the end I just filled the end with a 1" of aquarium silicon I had left over from my tank that worked fine after drying for 24 hours

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## eric048

I set up the system, it works great, more like a light shower than a mist but whatever, it works... too bad the tank is still in progress.

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## thadmy

What size pump did you end up using.

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## eric048

i used the 760 gph, it trickles in places and shoots a small arc stream of water in others but it covers the whole tank with H2O

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## thadmy

Yeah I was looking at a 160 GPH pump for hydroponics, I figure its cheap and should give me enough power for what I need.

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## eric048

my tank is about 20inches tall plus the tubing around it is another 4 feet, so it's 6 feet of water to push it makes a nice drip wall and some times it will mist/spray

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## thadmy

Mine is about 4 ft of tubing maybe I will get a larger pump

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## S13

> Omar the reason you weren't getting the mist is that your holes weren't big enough there was too much air pressure for the pump to push the water up. I just tried and used a pin but there wasn't any water being forced up the line so I made the holes a little bigger and then used a knife I cut slits into the hose. This worked the pump was pumping the water up the hose and it was trickling out so now I have to make the holes a little smaller so that it is a mist and not a rain effect haha but it was a good first attempt.
> 
> As for caping off the end I just filled the end with a 1" of aquarium silicon I had left over from my tank that worked fine after drying for 24 hours


Nice I might try it again this weekend then.

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## eric048

It pumps a lot of water but it still trickles a d drips

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## Froggy style

I had the opportunity to  go behind the scenes in the Amphibian house at a Chicago area zoo (don't want to get anyone in trouble) and they had a cold water humidifier on a timer that mists on and off through the day and night for short time periods.  They attached pvc tubes to where the mist would come out and then the pvc tube went up into a T then split to multiple tanks. They said it needs to be filled with reverse osmosis water everyday.  I was going to rig this up but found a pet store going out of business and purchased  the "repti-fogger."  I set it up on a timer during last summer when I was traveling and I had a friend feeding for me.  My tank ended up really really wet, but it worked.  Either method works well.

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## eric048

the good thing about this set up though is that it doubles as a rain chamber...

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