My small tank (img heavy)

[SaraJean]

Here are some pics of my small 12"x12"x24"tall terrarium and I will post some closer up photos of some of the orchids in the comments bellow. I put this together in March and it has filled in nicely since then. I have shifted some things around and pulled some orchids out (some were not doing well, some were doing too well lol). There is a 9watt and an 11watt Jungle Dawn LED in the two hoods that run on a 12hr cycle, humidity runs about 90%-98%, there are two small Infinity fans at the bottom running 24/7. Average summer temps are around 88F days and 70F nights, and average winter temps are 75F days and 60F nights.

Where it started in March. This was me working on the background, trying to figure out which orchids to put in there, and the best spots for everything. Also worked on figuring out the best fan placement to try and keep temps down. It took about 5 months to figure out where I wanted everything and honestly, I am still moving orchids around occasionally. You can kind of see the Dendrobium laevifolium in the second picture in the upper back corner, behind the stick. I'll post a current one bellow, it has exploded with growths this year!

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And where it is now. This has filled in rather quickly and I am really liking how it looks. Most of the orchids are pretty happy with a few issues. On the bright side- the Scaphosepalums have gone crazy and quickly became my favorite genus for terrariums. They are not for people who need tidy, well behaved plants; law and order types... There are Scaph spikes EVERYWHERE in the tank and I love to see those little rams head flowers bobbing around in the breeze (or bird eggs for my Scaph. ovulare). They have taken over and it’s great. On the down side, my Pleuro grobyi grows well and hasn't been out of spike or bloom since May. But for every 3 growths it makes, one older growth drops off. It should be much bigger by now but I just can’t find it’s sweet spot. I also had been giving my Platystele way too much light and now its yellow It wont stop blooming though.


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Macroclinium bicolor and Mediocalcar decortum. The Macroclinium might be getting too much light but its growing well and has two spikes

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Platystele umbellata. So fricken adorable and those flowers are incredibly long lasting for a Pleuro type. I just wish i hadn't yellowed the darn thing

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Specklinia (Pleurothallis) grobyi. Not in bloom right now, but there are a few spikes coming along. Now if I could just get it to stop losing growths

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Some sort of Ornithocephalus in spike. This got fried in transit last spring by a heat pack and lost two fans. It started to rot a few months ago, too. I just flipped the mount upside down and stuck it by one of the fans for some extra air movement. Problem solved.
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Lepanthes telipogoniflora. This arrived with 1 and 1/2 good leaves, a bunch of dead stems, and no viable roots. I tossed it on the bottom of the tank on top of the spagnum moss and promptly ignored it for 7 months. It is now mounted and getting ready to bloom for the first time

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So. Many. Scaphs. If you look closely, you can see a rogue scaph spike in nearly every single picture in this thread

I have a Scaph. swertifolium, Scaph. digitale, Scaph. rapax, and a Scaph. ovulare in here. The spikes droop down, head north, loop around, and weave in and out of the other orchids. Plus they are never out of bloom. I think it looks pretty cool

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If there are two orchids that I never thought I would get the culture down for, but kept hanging on by a thread, it's these two. Den. laevifolium and Dracula lotax. I have nearly killed the Den more times than I care to admit and all but once it was my fault. Didn't water it enough, repotted in a small clay pot that dried it out too quick,I used too dry of a media, kept it too bright and too hot, let it get too cold, got spider mites one year which destroyed the few leaves it had, and then there were the cutworms the next year which demolished all the newer pseudobulbs... Now there are a dozen growths

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The Drac has spent a year through New Orleans summers, a year on a bathroom windowsill in a shot glass, and 8 or 9 months in a rotisserie chicken container before I FINALLY made a proper home for it. It was cleaned up, chopped up, and I mounted the biggest/best piece on a boot shaped cork tube. This is the first time its blooming and I see at least 5 more spikes starting. I'm kind of obsessed with how cute this one is

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[neophyte]

Wow, that's amazing!

[SaraJean]

Originally Posted by neophyte

Wow, that's amazing!

Thank you. It was a fun project to work on and I haven’t gotten tired of starring at it yet

[wisdomseeker]

Agree with neophyte... very eye appealing and well done. It has filled in nicely within a fairly short time. There is just something that I really like about a terrarium dedicated to orchids.

Schaps are truly great choices for a terrarium, and yours appear to be very happy. Good job with dialing in your set-up.

[Ray]

Nothing short of fantastic!!!

[Dusty Ol' Man]

Nicely done, neighbor. I wonder if I'm the only one who understands the significance of the boot-shaped cork? LOL. I'd love to see this up close some day, since we aren't very far apart. I have questions about your heating and lighting, as well as your water and humidity control. Also, are there vendors local to us in Louisiana?
Again, very nice job.

[Dollythehun]

Amazing! The intricacies! Hats off to you , SaraJean!

[WaterWitchin]

SaraJean, that is a work of art. I am speechless. So much going on, in such a small space.

[SaraJean]

Thank you all so much. It’s been a work in progress and I’m sure I’ll have to rethink what’s in this tank (or just get a bigger one) in another year if things keep growing like they do!

I forgot to add the orchid list on the original post so here it is:

-Bulbophyllum thiurum
-Dendrobium laevifolium
-Diodonopsis erinacea (hasn’t done well since I bought it, it just now stopped dropping leaves and started growing. Probably a temp issue)
-Dracula lotax
-Haraella retrocalla
-Lepanthes sp. (sold as calodictyon, I’m not so sure)
-Lepanthes telipogoniflora
-Lepanthes sp. (sold as lucifer, definitely mislabeled)
-Lepanthopsis astrophora
-Leptotes bohnkiana
-Macroclinium bicolor
-Maxillaria sophronitis (not sure if this will bloom, grows like a weed though)
-Mediocalcar decoratum (same thoughts as Max. sophronitis)
-Ornithocephalus gladiatus
-Platystele umbellata
-Pleurothallis grobyi
-Pleurothallis tribuloides (another one that has not done well, new leaves keep getting watery and dropping)
-Pteroceras semiteretifolium
-Scaphosepalum digitale
-Scaphosepalum ovulare
-Scaphosepalum rapax
-Scaphosepalum swertifolium

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Originally Posted by Dusty Ol' Man

Nicely done, neighbor. I wonder if I'm the only one who understands the significance of the boot-shaped cork? LOL.

Originally Posted by Dusty Ol' Man

I'd love to see this up close some day, since we aren't very far apart. I have questions about your heating and lighting, as well as your water and humidity control. Also, are there vendors local to us in Louisiana?
Again, very nice job.

Honestly, my set up is pretty simple. The terrarium is in my first floor living room in a poorly insulated old house. The only heating it gets is the heat output from the LEDs. Side note: I removed the heat reflectors from the hoods so that the heat from the LEDs wouldn’t bounce directly back onto the lightbulbs and burn them out. When it’s gets too hot outside for my home’s AC to keep up (aka. all summer. You know how it is...) the it really heats up inside the tank and still then stays hot at night. When it’s like that, I will toss an ice pack on it before I go to bed to help bring the temps down to 70F and give my orchids a little breather. I don’t need to do anything in the winter, my living room gets pretty chilly and the night temps in the tank stay around 60F-62F. But then it warms up when the lights come on.
I use R/O or distilled water in a little handheld pump sprayer. It gets sprayed once every morning, and a second time in the evening on my way up to bed during the summer. That keeps the humidity in the range it’s in, I don’t have to do anything fancy. The two hoods on top are over the screen top that came with the terrarium, so it is not sealed with a glass top. I’ll add about 1/4 teaspoon of K lite or MSU fertilizer to every other gallon of water that I use. I also use KelpMax and a probiotic once a month.

Edit: forgot to mention the fans. There are two Infinity usb fans at the bottom of the tank. The two at the bottom seems to work better at keeping the tank cooler than hanging the fans up top. And two fans works better than one in my tank since it’s so heavily planted and has such high humidity. It keeps the air moving off the bottom, in from the vent where the door is, and up out the top. Most of the orchids are pretty happy. The Dracula foliage is nearly spot free (only has some left over spots from its days in the rotisserie chicken container ). The couple that I am having issues with, I’m wondering if it’s more of a temps thing than an air issue. Not sure

For local vendors: the guys at Louisiana Orchid Connection are awesome and have some really great stuff. Lots of miniatures, some really rare things, and some cool hybrids. Their greenhouse isn’t open to the public but they always go to the local shows and many of the orchid societies try to arrange a visit once a year

[SADE2020]

Oh My God! This is so amazing. Congratulations!!