Quote:
Originally Posted by mremensnyder
I actually tried Peltier cooling a number of times and could not make it work well for any length of time. I had a terrarium consisting of a bottomless 10 gallon fish tank on top of a thermoelectric cooler with the top removed. The two were glued and taped together. It actually worked ok but I had to replace the whole cooler every couple months since it would burn out from having to run so inefficiently with the top off.
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That was a problem with your setup, not with the cooler...
As was stated in another thread, temperature variation is far more important on a seasonal basis, as it relates to blooming, than it is for diurnal cycling. Worrying this much about it for paphs is a waste of time and money, and I'd bet that if you had a representative population of the same plant to split between cycled temperatures and not, you'd see little- to no difference.
On the other hand, if your goal is to grow species that require lower temperatures overall, definitely go for it.
There was a gentleman in the Delaware Orchid Society (Dr. Rau) who grew Andean species. He purchased a 40' refrigerated shipping container and outfitted it with lights and water, creating the ideal environment.