# Mist king reservoir filter



## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Fyi, mist king has started producing a reservoir filter for their misting systems. 

MistKing Reservoir Filter - Jungle Jewel Exotics


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## RyanD (Jul 18, 2006)

Is that really necessary? I just started using a MistKing and use a 2.5 gal aquarium as the reservoir. Glass lid witham a handle. I wouldn't anticipate the water getting very dirty. Not sure how reservoir water would have much debris. 

Unless.... is it okay to re-use water? I have my three tanks plumbed with bulkhead drains to another 2.5 gal tank. 

Interested in the general opinion on it.

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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

I just bought a new mistking (version 5) starter system. It comes with the filter and an all metal bulkhead for the reservoir which is pretty cool. I think the filter is there because if anything does get into the system it can pretty easily clog a nozzle. I would not reuse water though. The whole point of using RO or distilled water is to keep out the extra stuff that waste water will have in it.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I would recommend that you do not reuse the water.

My mist king reservoir doesn't have an air tight lid, so fruit flies have gotten in an drowned in the water, and bits of dirt too. I'm buying a filter. Better than clogged nozzles.


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

That filter has been around for a bit now. All it really is is a particulate filter to keep stuff out of the pump and nozzles like @minorhero said. 

What I'd like to see offered are more plumbing solutions, specifically a solution with a solenoid for those of use with existing RO units so we don't have to run reservoirs and can just go direct off the feed line if we wish. I know Zach from Josh's Frogs covered this before, but a product set I could just order with a kit would be a nice to have!


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Tihsho said:


> What I'd like to see offered are more plumbing solutions, specifically a solution with a solenoid for those of use with existing RO units so we don't have to run reservoirs and can just go direct off the feed line if we wish.


MK offers an NC solenoid:



MistKing Misting Systems by Jungle Hobbies Ltd



Wiring harness is the same as on MK pumps, so plug and play.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

I believe I got a settling filter of some sort with my original kit, but it didn't come in 3/8" so I was never able to use it. Even if I could plug my RO directly into the Mist King system without a reservoir, I don't think my RO system produces water fast enough to serve the system directly. I doubt it's very good to starve the pumps on the input side. I have a reservoir hooked up to a float valve connected to my RO system. That works _great _and it also gives me the ability to dip water out to put in my hand mister.

Mark


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

I have a vat of RO that I have constantly being filled as I use it for aquarium water changes in my reef, but with 150GPD (6.25GPH/.10GPM) I'd have to check to see if that feed is enough for the pump.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Yeah, that's a nice RO. I think that equation totally depends on how many nozzles you feeding. At one point, I figured out that my 40ish nozzles needed roughly a gallon a day. I was misting for less than 1 minute. So, my demand was maybe a gallon per minute? That seems like it would need to be a pretty beefy RO unit to keep up with that. I think it maybe easier to just tap into the vat  

Mark


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

Yeah not a bad option, I'll have to look into the pump specs to see what the longest run of hosing could be before needing having to plumb in a booster. Having 100 gallons of RO on hand is always nice 

Funny enough, when my well pump went out, having 100 gallons of water on hand was helpful, but at the same time I don't think people realize how much water we use day to day.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

If it gives you any gauge, my reservoir is in the basement and the pump is on the main floor. There is probably 9 feet of head and maybe 20' of 3/8" tubing (including the 9 vertical feet). My pump seems to have no trouble pulling water to that extent. Also, I have tubes drilled through my main floor and across the ceiling of the basement to a few different locations. So the water goes upstairs, then back downstairs, then back upstairs in a couple of places  

Mark


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## Hylomantis (Mar 20, 2014)

I'm not sure how sediment would even get in mine .The reservoir is closed off only to my RODI feed line.

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## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

My system is kind of clunky but it works well enough for me. I've learned about water damage the hard way so am unwilling to hard-plumb my herp room:

I have a pretty low-end RO unit (RO Buddy) in my laundry room (next to my herp room) and just "make" about 7 gallons per week - straight into heavy-wall gallon jugs that used to hold vinegar. The RO unit has an in-line sediment filter.
I hand-pour those jugs into a pair of 10-gallon aquariums that each serve their own Mistking pump and distribution circuit. The aquaria are spray-painted matte black to retard algae growth; I used a vertical stripe of masking tape when painting, to leave a clear viewing slit to monitor water levels. Each aquarium has a glass cover to keep dust and bugs out. Note - flat-sided aquariums make the Mistking bulkhead super easy to use; some folks have a hard time with cylindrical buckets.
Between each aquarium and its attached pump, I have an inline sediment filter.
All my vivs are drilled and drained into individual collection buckets. Every weekend when I'm making my seven gallons, I also dump my drain buckets (and prune, fidget, and fuss in my vivs). My desert air is thirsty; while I import a gallon a day, I export less than a gallon a week. That tea-colored shit goes down the toilet.
I change the RO Buddy filter every 4 months (100 gallons) or so. I change the filters down by my pumps much less frequently - maybe annually. The aquarium water is really quite clean, but still, a little crap - spider turds or whatever - still does manage to get in there from pulling off the glass lids to pour the 3-4 gallons a week into each aquarium. Pull the lids off and put them back on 50-odd times over a year and yeah, sure, a little tiny bit of crap gets in there. So it's worth it, to me, to have that second set of filters.

So:


> Is that really necessary? I just started using a MistKing and use a 2.5 gal aquarium as the reservoir. Glass lid witham a handle. I wouldn't anticipate the water getting very dirty. Not sure how reservoir water would have much debris.
> 
> Unless.... is it okay to re-use water? I have my three tanks plumbed with bulkhead drains to another 2.5 gal tank.
> 
> Interested in the general opinion on it.


I don't mind a little redundancy, it's cheap insurance. I'd hate a have a mist head clog on me while I'm out of town for a couple weeks.

As for re-using water - no. *Hard pass.* Institutional collections do it with e.g. marine water, but they take great care to maintain water quality. And they only do it because the damn salt is so expensive. And, for certain messier parts of their collection (e.g., the penguins) - they just throw away that water too.

Good luck!


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

jgragg said:


> heavy-wall gallon jugs that used to hold vinegar.


Such gold, there. I never thought of the difference in vinegar and milk jugs. The latter always end up caving in somewhere and leaking. Heavy-walled vinegar jugs would resist that much more effectively. Thanks!

Mark


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

Encyclia said:


> If it gives you any gauge, my reservoir is in the basement and the pump is on the main floor. There is probably 9 feet of head and maybe 20' of 3/8" tubing (including the 9 vertical feet). My pump seems to have no trouble pulling water to that extent. Also, I have tubes drilled through my main floor and across the ceiling of the basement to a few different locations. So the water goes upstairs, then back downstairs, then back upstairs in a couple of places
> 
> Mark


I could be wrong, but I swore that somewhere in the MistKing documentation it says that the pump needs to be on the same level, or below the reservoir as the pump isn't designed to create a vacuum pressure with air when it comes to priming the pump.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Tihsho said:


> I could be wrong, but I swore that somewhere in the MistKing documentation it says that the pump needs to be on the same level, or below the reservoir as the pump isn't designed to create a vacuum pressure with air when it comes to priming the pump.


That is what they say in their manual.


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## braydens (Sep 13, 2011)

I just use the shrimp filter screen tubes and silicone it to some tubing and into the inside bulkhead.









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## ruairidh_ (Feb 9, 2016)

Sorry if I'm reviving an old conversation  

This may be a little off topic, I'm not sure, but I just have a couple questions with regards to the mistking filter and water used in the misting.

Theoretically could you use a small planted aquarium as a misting reservoir rather than just plain water?
Would this add beneficial nutrients for the plants you're misting, almost like a fertilizer? 
Would there be too much water coming out of the "aquarium" to make it viable?
Are the chances of clogging the filter too high? 

Sorry for bombarding you guys with all these questions, thanks for any answers in advance 

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## SimonL (Aug 29, 2020)

I think any benefits you may or may not get from the water source would be offset by the damage you would cause to the spray nozzles. Why not just use a bucket of distilled or RO water?


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

SimonL said:


> I think any benefits you may or may not get from the water source would be offset by the damage you would cause to the spray nozzles. Why not just use a bucket of distilled or RO water?


I would agree with this^^^


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## ruairidh_ (Feb 9, 2016)

SimonL said:


> I think any benefits you may or may not get from the water source would be offset by the damage you would cause to the spray nozzles. Why not just use a bucket of distilled or RO water?


So even putting the water through the filter wouldn't prevent everything from getting into the nozzle? Or would it restrict the flow of water into the pump too much? 

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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

What you are suggesting would remove particulates from the water but it's the dissolved Ca and Mg (at least, maybe other stuff, too?) that I would worry about in that scenario. The water would go through the nozzles just fine but then the calcium, magnesium, etc. would come out of solution as the water on the nozzles evaporated and build up over time, clogging the nozzle. Fertilizing plants is not usually needed in a tank that has dart frogs. Frog waste usually does this job. If you absolutely have to use water from a planted tank, I would just put it in a squirt bottle and use it from there. I still wouldn't suggest it, though, because it will leave water deposits on your glass, too. RO/distilled is the way to go for misting setups, as has been suggested already in this thread.

Mark


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## ruairidh_ (Feb 9, 2016)

Thanks for the responses guys, I was just curious as to why I hadn't seen people doing this with their setups. Now I know 

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