Ultrasonic Humidifiers: Which type?

[nepenthesmountain]

I assume this is the one people are on about:

[cpsinsc]

While the brand is different, the picture of the fogger looks exactly like the one I've been using for quite a while. There aren't any settings on mine either - just on and off. I have it connected to the cooling system so it only runs when the chamber is being cooled. Without the fogger, the cooling system drops my humidity to 30%. Without the cooling system running at all during the night, I have humidity of about 70% - with the cooling system/fogger it stays at 90-95%. It even looks like I may be humidifying too much. I get a fair amount of condensation in the chamber, but mainly just on the bottom two feet or so.

I know a lot of people run their fogger and have it pump the humidified air into the cooling duct. My fogger runs inside of the chamber directly in front of the duct, although I do have a pan in place to somewhat force the air to get humidified. I could go take some pictures if you have any questions.

[nepenthesmountain]

Yeah, loads of companies tend to produce the same product for different brands. I was thinking if I got one I could either put a nozzle on it to reduce it getting too humid and using water as fast, or put it on a timer for the same reason. Because my terrarium won't be a cool greenhouse that will probably produce even more unwanted evaporation, so like a nozzle I mentioned, a tea towel with some very fine holes would probably do the trick. I don't need much humidity, it is only a small (ish) terrarium compared to some of the grow rooms I have seen. I just needed something That could give some bursts of humidity through the day, before it all gets out of the leaks in the bottom.

[nepenthesmountain]

Now I finally have it. I am planning to buy some trays to store the immense amounts of water it needs. This has brought me to a new problem caused by something recurring again and again in my growing of CPs: holidays. Due to unavoidable ircumstances holidays just seem like hell to my CPs, because 1) my auntie doesn't have clean water (when I say not clean I mean the house is really old and when the water is running hot it is brown) and 2) nobody has a clue how to operate the systems. Firstly, I'd like to ask: would this strange water be ok to use for my ultrasonic fogger? It will be evaporated, so there won't be anything in it, right? Secondly, however much I write clear instructions, people fail to keep my plants from harm's way, but I suppose that is one for me to solve myself. I must say, it is very effective as a humidifier. It is supposed to be for reptiles and amphibians.

[PHaze]

Old thread I know, but the last post had an important but unanswered question. Ultrasonic humidifiers do not evaporate the water. They use vibration to break the water up into very tiny droplets. This means that any impurities in the water will be in the mist as well.

[gareth]

Just another bit of info- the fogger uses ceramic discs (replaceable)to pass the vibrations to the water, the cleaner the water the longer they last.

[rsivertsen]

Be careful with these ultrasonic humidifiers. They're great in atomizing water into small particles and pumping humidity into the air! I've used them myself. The problem is that ANYthing in the water also gets into the very air that you breathe, from minerals in the water to any bacteria of fungal growth that might begin to grow in them if they are simply refilled after they go empty. You need to use distilled or RO water, and after each use, they need to be cleaned and set to dry out before you use them again. If you have a few at a time, you can keep one aside after it's been cleaned and rotate them.

They are a little bit on the labor intensive side, requiring daily care, but very efficient. They also need to be protected from the high humidity to keep the electronics inside from shorting out.

Consumer Reports found out by accident (a serendipitous find) how dangerous they can be back when they first came out in the '80's. They were doing a study on various wood burning stoves, and measuring the suspended dust and dirt particles in the air given off by some models. They had several micro filters in several rooms where a small fan would blow air through a filter paper, and after a month they would check the particles on the paper under a microscope.

In one instance, they were shocked to find the filter paper loaded with so much mineral dust that is was WAY off the scales of their measurements instruments! The ONLY thing this case had different than the others was the use of an ultrasonic humidifier, and a household with "hard water" loaded with dissolved minerals and salts.

They were banned briefly, for a few months, until they were repackaged and refitted with a cartridge that is supposed to absorb and/or filter out these dissolved minerals in the water, and a warning about cleaning them after each use and replacement filter cartridges.

Use them, but be careful, otherwise you may end up with some respiratory problems after some junk gets into your lungs!

In my terrariums, I spray the plants down with distilled water once or twice a day, and in one, in my basement, I have an aquarium heater in a lasagna pan set to 85F which keeps the humidity nice and high. The best part of this setup is that I can use tap water, since the evaporated humidity is pure water. I just have to clean out the lasagna pan and heater about once a month to keep the mineral deposits from accumulating too much. In this setup, you can even have a diurnal shift in temps by having the heater plugged into the same timer that the lights are on. In my case, the basement temps gets very cold during the winter, so I keep a second heater in the same pan which is set to the lowest setting, around 65-70F or lower, which keeps the diurnal shift, and prevents the plants from getting too cold. - Rich

[nepenthesmountain]

Does it matter if the water I have isn't hard? Our tapwater is soft. It it's going to be a problem though then I'll start replacing the water fully every week or so. And if I do switch to a terrarium heater, I'll have to do away with air movement, since I doubt they will refresh the humidity enough if fans are going to be on.