99% DIY Orchidarium Project

[kcpi3141]

Hi everyone!

I am currently in Manhattan trying to get through dental school and wanted something to keep me sane throughout my time here, as well as add some light and life in my apartment (I promise it's not an excuse ). I have been doing planted aquariums for a very long time (used to be a very active ThePlantedTank member), but since it is so high maintenance and requires at least weekly attention which college breaks do not afford, I stopped after high school and began slowly collecting orchids. 2 years prior to this project, I made a mini terrarium out of a 10-gallon aquarium (pics here) for fun, but also as a prototype. Many things I will show here, especially regarding automation and the circuitry/coding involved, I learned from that little project.

Feel free to ask me about anything I did or my thought processes for this build! Internal dimensions are about 40" wide, 20" deep, and 36" tall. The overall concept for culture is mounted orchids, high humidity, and daily watering of plants to mimic natural conditions. Water will come from an aquatic portion that may potentially have fish in the future which would also make this an aquaponic system, but that is for much later. Without further ado, here are the pics for the construction phase. Please pardon my phone camera quality:

Mock-up with TinkerCAD (first time using CAD software so wanted something easy to learn/use). Everything is to scale



Lighting is a 108W COB LED light I bought the parts for and assembled. I also constructed the stand out of mainly 2x3's. It is only going to have a little bit of water, (25-30 gallons) so does not need to be ridiculously strong. As for the frame, it is constructed out of 3/4" plywood that I pre-cut back at home in FL before driving up to NY. Also got some nice metal shelf brackets for help with supporting the canopy.



Sanding, staining, and applying poly over the wood by hand took a whole month by itself but was well worth it. I sealed the frame with Pond Armor and ordered glass online. Used curtain tension rods, some tape, and the weight of the glass itself to hold everything together while I siliconed it all.



More images coming soon!

[kcpi3141]

Water test and some plants in for scale. You can also see in the pic that I put a piece of thick cardboard underneath to even out the weight distribution. The tank holds about 25-30 gallons, and the glass is regular 1/4" thick.






Installed an AC relay system on the canopy to control lights, misting, etc. Also built my own little DC relay circuit for kicks for controlling fans, screens, sensors, etc. Don't worry I properly soldered everything eventually .






And this is where the 1% not DIY part comes from, as I do not consider buying a MistKing kit DIY . Researched extensively about finding my own parts and stuff, but it turns out it's still better, more reliable, and may even be cheaper to go with MistKing. I also had enough things to worry about so did not want to bother with assembling my own. Reservoir is a new 20 gallon Rubbermaid trashcan (food safe) filled with RO water that I also got for myself, as I got sick of drinking NYC tap water.

Link here for video.

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[nemesis]

Thank you for sharing. This looks AWESOME. I cannot wait to see the finished product. I have a Beta in a fish bowl with some bamboo. Is this considered aqua scraping? Lol.

[Fishkeeper]

Originally Posted by nemesis

Thank you for sharing. This looks AWESOME. I cannot wait to see the finished product. I have a Beta in a fish bowl with some bamboo. Is this considered aqua scraping? Lol.

I know this isn't the point of the thread, but betta fish need at least a 5-gallon tank, filtered and heated, to do well at all. They can survive in a bowl because they can breathe air from the surface when the water quality is poor, but they need heated water to keep their immune system healthy, and they need space to move. I would very strongly suggest moving the betta to a new setup, unless it's quite a large bowl that's already heated. Be sure to either cycle the new tank first, or move substrate and decor over from the bowl.

The terrarium looks really cool. You might like to check out Dendroboard- they talk about dart frog setups, and there's a lot of overlap between that and orchid terrariums.

I'd suggest trying to find a Lepanthopsis astrophora. Tarzane Group sells them sometimes, and I believe they have some now. It's a wonderful micro-miniature orchid species that produces sprays of tiny, gorgeous purple stars when it blooms, and is quite easy to grow; just keep the roots gently moist, and provide it with decent humidity.
Haraella odorata is another easy micro-mini, shaped a bit like a tiny phal. Mount it, let it dry out slightly between waterings without ever going all the way dry, and enjoy its weird-scented flowers when it blooms. Depending on who you ask (and perhaps on the individual plant), they either smell like citrus, or like citrus-scented window cleaner.

[kcpi3141]

I actually have the same project posted on Dendroboard as well, and it is really interesting to see the different topics and responses the two communities give haha. I definitely got some good tips on how to setup and keep the vampire crabs that I eventually want from people over there.

Your plant suggestions are really cool! I’ll see what I can do (orchid expenses do add up quickly after all…). My main way of getting plants right now is an Ecuagenera nursery about 40 min from my home whenever I fly back to visit Florida, which essentially eliminates shipping costs. I also recently joined the Manhattan Orchid Society as well. Excited to meet other growers and maybe buy and trade some nice plants too!

[kcpi3141]

Been a little while because of my recovery from wrist surgery, but I managed to finish most of the prototyping for the control system I made. You can watch a short demo of it here.

[nemesis]

Just to let you know, I moved the Beta into a 10 gallon with lights, a heater, filter and bubbler. It is totally aquascaped by my son. Thank you for telling me how to take care of my little fish friend

[kcpi3141]

Alright time for an update:

So I mainly spent the past month and a half playing around with materials and setting up a scape. My materials are somewhat limited for the amount of space I have in the enclosure, so it took a lot of thinking and headaches to figure out how to make the most of it while making it practical for orchid growing. The first couple pics below show the progression of how I developed my scape. I made the background removable in case something happens and I need access to the back without doing too much damage. There is also a channel made out of corrugated plastic that will be a conduit for cords, etc. Everything will eventually be sealed with Drylok Original. Some pieces of foam and the cork bark will be stabilized by 2" stainless steel nails.

Fortunately for me, I was able to collect some rocks and driftwood by the Hudson river to add to both the aquatic portion and the rest of the enclosure. This will certainly help in creating more detail and a sense of scale (and be a great place to mount twig epiphytes). It also saves the park rangers some work cleaning up dead wood, although I probably looked ridiculous walking back through the city to my apartment with sticks jutting out of my bag.

Another thing to note is that I will be using large chunks of charcoal to substitute for rocks that will be on the land portion and the walls. I wanted a material that was lightweight enough to glue easily to vertical walls that also had a rocky texture. While pumice and maybe smaller lava rock would have fit those criteria, these were simply not easily available in NYC and extremely costly to ship because of their weight. I finally settled on charcoal that I made sure had no additives (Jealous Devil Lump Charcoal), and was able to purchase a decently sized bag for $30, which would be more than enough to cover my walls. The matte black color of the charcoal would not matter in the long run for me because everything will eventually be covered in moss and plants. I have yet to see anyone using charcoal lumps in terrarium building, so this will be a nice experiment. The original inspiration came from seeing some orchid growers using it in their potting mix, as it is mostly inert (yes there will be some random stuff that will leach out, but it will be a while till everything is crab-ready, so most of it will be washed away with water changes) and will not break down.














Tillandsias and random broms make good planting proxies

[kcpi3141]

Some updates. Dendrobium Nano Chip in bloom in the second pic (very nice fragrance):





Also quick video of the dripwall: LINK

[Steve83]

Is your led dimmable? You might need to keep an eye on placement for lower light plants. Looking forward to the build