Best way to cool a tank for new guinea species
 

Hello all,

I have a 100 x 50 x 70 cm orchidarium, 3x 39w lights up top and a mistking system.

I'm moving my collection more towards species from brazil and cool growers from papua new guinea, such as oxyglossums, barbosella, rupi laelia, lepanthes, miniatures.

What would be the ideal temps for these species? During winter i can keep temps down to 20 daytime and 18 nighttime roughly, but in summer it can get as hot as 30 degrees in the tank.

What would be the most cost-effective way to cool my tank? I was thinking about a small AC unit but that would require a exit hose, and if im correct they will be expensive to run all year around.

I also thought about a small home made evaporative cooler but it wont be enough i believe.

Any ideas to do this properly?

jeff

I would have to look it up again (think it was on a french forum) since I don't remember the exact details, but I do remember reading somewhere that it's possible to cool a tank by cycling the air through a small fridge/freezer. Certainly cheaper to run than an AC unit. I'll try to look it up for you.

Yes i've seen it before but it seems a little "unconventional" approach to do it.

It might be even more intresting to buy a 2nd hand wine cooler with decent volume and rigging it with lights and misters.
Not sure if that will work tough.

Thanks alot

I think there was once a thread here where someone got fridge that had a glass door (sort of like those fridges that bakeries display cakes in) and installed lights/misting system/plants in there.

Unfortunately I think that if there was an easy way to cool a terrarium, we would know about it.

Have you considered thermoelectric cooling?

I know some people have built small ones with Peltier-effect modules and small fans, but you might be able to improvise with a food- or beverage cooling one intended for car use.

I've tried one of those Peltier Aquarium coolers, and they have far too little cooling power. It may work for a 1-2 gal bell jar, but not much more, unless you want to add a battery of those coolers.

I have a swamp cooler in my 90 gal. Water flows over a vertical rock, air is blown over running water with computer fan, and the water is actively cooled with a aquarium chiller. I supposed you could run some hose through a fridge/wine-cooler. The specifics on whether it works depends on temperature gradients in surrounding room to terrarium, heat input (lights etc.), and also efficiency of cooler with respect to external room temperature. In my system, I need about a 15F temperature gradient, so to get 80-85F, the temperature of the water needs to be set at around 65F.

Have you seen Karma's blog?

Orchid Karma :: An orchid blog

She set up an amazing 'cool' tank for her masdies and other cool growers with incredible results. Hers is quite a bit more involved than anything I'd be able to put together (eco web drip wall!), but it might be worth checking out to see how she rigged the cool air flow in and out of the tank.

-Tristan

A thermoelectric chiller meant for use in water would have to be modified to be at all effective in air. Since wine chillers and portable refrigerators are made using thermoelectric cooling, and can even make ice cubes under the right conditions, it should just be a matter of having the right system for the job, and possibly adding some insulation.

I just bought a Peltier unit with heat sinks attached off eBay ($48 including shipping) and will be trying it with a 23 gallon acrylic terrarium. I still need to purchase a power supply and some kind of controller. It will take a few weeks to get it set up. I will post when I know if it works.

Thank you for this thread. I have been considering a terrarium for my cooler growing orchids as well!

I came across an intresting cooling method today, called "Phase change cooling" google it.

Heres some information about it Computer cooling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems to work with a compressor and some other intresting parts.

I wonder if maybe Ray or someone else can enlighten us if it would be possible to make a small scaled down less powerful version of this to work with air cooling ?

The commercial ones of this equipment cost 800$ and can cool to -50 C overkill of course.

But a small homemade version cooling to 1C would be very effective