# Hand misting vs mistaking and fan?



## oldlady25715 (Nov 17, 2007)

I've been hand misting 1-2x daily a few 18x18 exos and am planning to switch to automated misting and a small fan. Wondering how it will affect the plants and moss. Will there be a dye off of some stuff but perhaps make it more suitable for some plants? Will it improve conditions for orchids but kill some of the moss?

I kinda like the flora as they are, relatively humid (90%) without a fan. But it's a hassle to always mist them.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

My experience has been that automating misting is not the panacea that I and hoped it would be. One one hand, yes, the misting will occur the same way every day. That's good. On the other hand, it will not be a substitute for the encyclopedic knowledge you don't even know you have about how to keep your plants thriving. Misting happens the same way every time. It happens from the nozzles and sprays from there. If your plants are far away from the mist or blocked by other plants, they won't receive as much water. This is true until you set your misting system to spray way more often than is good for your plants that like it drier. What I have learned is that the misting system is a great supplement for my manual misting. I don't hit every tank manually every day, but I do come along with the hand mister and hit the tanks (and spots in tanks) that I know are under-served by the automated misting. Automated misting saves me time and it gives me backup for days that I don't feel like misting, but I find that treating it as part of an overall hydration system is a better way to look at it. There is always the possibility that I am not good at calibrating the number, type and location of the nozzles on my system, too  I bet it can be done a lot better than I have done it.

I will say that I don't for a second regret buying the Mist King system. I would just say that it is only as magic as your ability to dial it in  Be ready for the possibility that some manual misting may still be needed.

Good luck!

Mark


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## knutiguti (Apr 2, 2012)

I prefer to hand mist. I always worry about the mister running out or overflowing and flooding my tank. It's part of my daily routine so it doesn't really impact my life significantly. However, if I had multiple (>5 tanks) on a rack I would probably invest in it as it becomes more cumbersome at that point to hand-mist 


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

This is spot on! There are always plants that need a little more water and others that need a little less.



Encyclia said:


> My experience has been that automating misting is not the panacea that I and hoped it would be. One one hand, yes, the misting will occur the same way every day. That's good. On the other hand, it will not be a substitute for the encyclopedic knowledge you don't even know you have about how to keep your plants thriving. Misting happens the same way every time. It happens from the nozzles and sprays from there. If your plants are far away from the mist or blocked by other plants, they won't receive as much water. This is true until you set your misting system to spray way more often than is good for your plants that like it drier. What I have learned is that the misting system is a great supplement for my manual misting. I don't hit every tank manually every day, but I do come along with the hand mister and hit the tanks (and spots in tanks) that I know are under-served by the automated misting. Automated misting saves me time and it gives me backup for days that I don't feel like misting, but I find that treating it as part of an overall hydration system is a better way to look at it. There is always the possibility that I am not good at calibrating the number, type and location of the nozzles on my system, too  I bet it can be done a lot better than I have done it.
> 
> I will say that I don't for a second regret buying the Mist King system. I would just say that it is only as magic as your ability to dial it in  Be ready for the possibility that some manual misting may still be needed.
> 
> ...


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## ryanuuy (Sep 11, 2016)

It all depends on how you set up the vivarium and what plants you are using. With a mist king you can still adjust the nozzles to point a certain way to target certain plants.


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## MikeL. (Jul 19, 2007)

Even with a misting system I still use a hand sprayer to flush out broms.


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## Broseph (Dec 5, 2011)

Encyclia said:


> My experience has been that automating misting is not the panacea that I and hoped it would be. One one hand, yes, the misting will occur the same way every day. That's good. On the other hand, it will not be a substitute for the encyclopedic knowledge you don't even know you have about how to keep your plants thriving. Misting happens the same way every time. It happens from the nozzles and sprays from there. If your plants are far away from the mist or blocked by other plants, they won't receive as much water. This is true until you set your misting system to spray way more often than is good for your plants that like it drier. What I have learned is that the misting system is a great supplement for my manual misting. I don't hit every tank manually every day, but I do come along with the hand mister and hit the tanks (and spots in tanks) that I know are under-served by the automated misting. Automated misting saves me time and it gives me backup for days that I don't feel like misting, but I find that treating it as part of an overall hydration system is a better way to look at it. There is always the possibility that I am not good at calibrating the number, type and location of the nozzles on my system, too  I bet it can be done a lot better than I have done it.
> 
> I will say that I don't for a second regret buying the Mist King system. I would just say that it is only as magic as your ability to dial it in  Be ready for the possibility that some manual misting may still be needed.
> 
> ...


I agree with Encyclia- auto misting makes permanent wet spots and permanent dry spots in a viv. But you can also take advantage of these micro climates and just grow different plants in different places.

If you have a really good eye for design and composition, these unexpected micro climates might hinder your plans for where you wanted each plant. But for brutish morons like me, you can just throw clippings all over the place and it's fun to see where each plant ends up thriving.


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## wolfeingtons (Nov 2, 2012)

Really love the Mistking system. Its super flexible and you can add and attach heads to your hearts desire. However I still go over certain spots with the hand mister to make sure I get everything I want to. I have orchids on one side of my tank and usually do them by hand. Might be harder to keep a dry side with a smaller space but if you mess around with the nozzles you can get it somewhat. The automated system is really nice to have on incase you forget or are just too busy to do it sometimes. You know everything will be basically covered.


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## FlyFishRI (Jan 15, 2017)

I am building my first viv and planned on hand misting for a while. I decided today to add a mistking to an order I am picking up from NEHERP on Saturday. I plow snow in the winter and when we get a decent amount of snow I can easily be on the road for 30+ hours straight so I decided it would be much better for my future plants and frogs for me to go ahead and get it right off the bat.


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## Pubfiction (Feb 3, 2013)

One thing that I do different than a lot of people is that I mist with automated misting 1 time per day for a longer period, IE 1 minute. 

I have never found that my tanks dry out too much for the frogs. 

The upside is that it tends to soak the tank more and this results in water getting to more places than it would other wise. 

Imagine a leaf, and you mist it for 5 seconds. The leaf is hit with water, and some of that water forms larger droplets, and some of that may even run down to another leaf, however I think most will agree that not much would make it to the bottom of a well stocked tank. So if you mist for 15 - 30 seconds in some areas of the tank you will not get enough water for it to run down along the plants and drip to some places. Likewise you may notice your bromeliads do not over flow, and the same with any tadpole deposition sites. 

IMO running your misting system longer is a better approximation of what happens in nature. However it costs more to do this and you will want drains as well after all you installed automated misting to do less work, not spend your time siphoning the drainage layer.


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## evolvstll77 (Feb 17, 2007)

The automated misting systems are great. Mist king is a god send. I found that it helped with misting and reduced my misting by hand, so it is a labor reducer. Some tanks would need to be done by hand a few times a week or more. It also depended on the fact if the pairs in the tank were in a wet or dry cycle.


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## rulzunivrs (Nov 15, 2014)

I have a mistking. They are really handy. You will find that you'll be making a bunch of adjustments to your plants and mist heads until things are neither too wet nor too dry. It is part of the fun, but be careful about standing water on leaves/stems. Things rot quickly.


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## ice19d (Jan 17, 2017)

i use mist king. works great. but i stillhave to keep an eye on the plants at the far end of the terrarium. they dont alway get the right amout of water so i use a hand mister every so often.


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## chin_monster (Mar 12, 2006)

like everyone one else is saying automated misting is great but it is not set and forget.


conditions inside the tank change as the plants grow, decline and what not -the plants themselves require more or less water at different times of the year, they grow which them physically impacts where the "rain" can land and then there's the things that are just unexpected . . . at least in my system the amount of water consumed a misting cycle is hugely dependent on the head pressure (how full) of water reservoir -the bottom quarter to third is just about perfect currently but when it's topped off suddenly it's spraying a whole lot more water with each cycle.

I keep a hand sprayer at hand to "adjust" conditions rather than constantly fiddling with the nozzle positions but all and all auto misting is waaaaaaaaay better than constantly hand spraying the tank

and let's not dismiss the benefits of active air circulation for plant health either


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## OrangeD (Oct 8, 2015)

I do both hand misting and use a mist king. I find the mist king much better than the Monsoon.


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