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If you do not feel like reading. Simple answer. This one
The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book "A Quick Guide to Poison Dart Frogs" (see PDF)
Connecting a misting system to a timer sounds very easy. Go to your local hardware store, purchase a digital timer and you’re done! Well not quite. We found out the hard way that digital timers available on the market have two major pitfalls that will eventually catch up with you.
One: The minimum cycle time is 1 minute. If you have a large enclosure with multiple nozzles then misting for one minute will add quite a bit of water to the environment. If the enclosure is drained, then this may not be such a big problem, but if your enclosure is not drained and you count on natural evaporation to take care of the excess water, then misting for 1 minute interval isn’t ideal. Other than adding 1 minute increments to your misting you do not have any options.
Two: the timer depends on watch style batteries that keep the time and also control the relay which turns the connected appliance ON and OFF. When these batteries are nearly drained, then the relay may or may not trigger and fail to turn the misting system on or off. Serious problems start when the timer does not turn the power off and allows the pump to run for hours, often draining the reservoir and possibly damaging the pump. Fortunately, our pumps are continuous duty pumps and can take the extra abuse.
What better timing solutions are available?
Repeat Cycle Timers (RCT) work by allowing you to set an “ON” cycle and an “OFF” cycle. For example, setting on cycle for 20 seconds and off cycle for 2 hrs will make the timer turn on the connected appliance (or misting system) for 20 seconds every 2 hrs. RCTs address the two pitfalls of the hardware store style digital timers. RCTs do not rely on watch style batteries and are therefore much safer. Misting cycles can now be less than 1 minute and are a much better alternative.
These timers have three annoyances of their own.
One: The timer will cycle ‘forever’ and cannot be turned off, unless plugged into another timer. A bit redundant, but has been used by hobbyists successfully due to a lack of a better alternative.
Two: Cycle times are identical. Every time the RCT engages the same cycle will take place. In other words, misting time is exactly the same every time.
Three: Price! RCT cost about 4 times the price of a digital timer.
Repeat Cycle Timers are a far better and safer alternative, but are not ideal solutions that hardly mimic naturally variable cycles.
We’ve perfected our misting system and it would be a shame to now downgrade its operation due to a weak timer. Once again, we needed to take matters into our own hands. We have partnered with a timer manufacturer and now offer a timer produced for MistKing.com that can have 8 timing cycle with a minimum cycle of 1 second. The timer does rely on a small watch style battery, but one that is rechargeable, greatly reducing or even eliminating problems associated with relay triggering. At last, it’s now possible to have your own, custom mist schedule. For example
- 45 second at 7 am to get the Vivarium re-hydrated from the night and to wake up the occupants with a refreshing morning shower,
- 20 seconds at 9am, 11:30am, 2:30pm, 4pm to maintain the humidity throughout the day.
- 1 minute 30 seconds at 5:30pm for a little afternoon drenching.
- Then 40 seconds at 8:30PM right before lights out to keep the enclosure nice and moist for the night.
Of course, depending on your level of ventilation, rate of evaporation and existence of drains, your misting schedule could be completely different. Also, whether you’re simulating the dry or wet season, the schedule would also be altered to suit the frogs better. Having a quality system, connected to an accommodating timer makes all the difference. This is practically impossible to accomplish with manual misting.
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