Large viv, Help in setup please! Dial up DANGER

[Jussi_K]

Hello,
I wanted to make a tropical biotop, my own world with beatiful flowers and mosses all over. I made it complicated, way too complicated. First I thought that there are 4 major elements when growing orchids:

one: air, especially oxygen and carbon dioxide. There are 2 five inch (12cm) pc fans blowing air around. Set to 6 volts and they blow between 8-20 o’clock. Then I have one fan blowing air outside, its linked to thermostat, which also controls temperature. What would you think would be the ideal winter temperature, during day? what about in the night?, in Summer? in Spring? in Autumn.
There's also one extra fan for summer, if the humidity is too high, to make it lower, to give some fresh air, but it is no ofcourse set off

two: Water. Hardest one, for sure:
1) humidity: 3 systems managing it: a) aquarium, b) Ultrasonic fogger (mainly decoration). 3 misters, now 8 seconds every 40 minutes between 8 -21.
2)watering, once a day from the top down to the bottom, adjustable nozzles.

three: Light: 12 dulux L 58W compact fluorescent light, 5200 lumen each. Vivarium measures 140 x 60 x 125 cm, plus aquarium.

Four: Fertilization: How much, with what type fertilizer?

Five: Plants are mounted to flevopol (coconut, soil - glue), which is basicly the same as coconut wall or fernroot wall.

It would be easy to make a terrarium for only bulbos, or for only phals, but I wanted them all. It is probably my major problem. So here is my plantlist
- Tillandsia, about 30 different species: grow well, not a problem

- Bromelia: vriesea, Cryptanthus, neoregelia, about 15, no problems, grow well

- Tropical ferns and other small plants: Growing well, not a problem

But then comes the problem: sadly the plants I like the most, ones that I made this vivarium for:
Orchids:
- Aerangis 5 species, growing well
- Bulbophyllum alliance 7-9 species, growing well and not well
- Cattleya alliance: Small hybrids, catleytonias growing well, brassavola also, others not so well. 20 plants.
- Comparettia macroplectron
- Dendrobiums: mostly compact hybrids. Growing well or not well, they’re only 1 week old plants
- Dendrobium aggregatum
- Dendrobium lindleyi
- dendrobium kingianum
- Masdevallia 7 plants
- Maxillaria Sophronitis
- Oncidium equitans: 5 plants
- Phalaenopsis, nature species, cause most problems
- paphiopedilum 5 plants
- phragmipedilum Hanne popov

I have tried my best to solve this problem with so many plants, by mounting all the other plants but paphs and phrag. The Idea is to prevent overwatering. Plants are also placed so that dens and catts are on the edges and on top, which are the drier areas. Also right corner is the coldest one, because cold air comes from there and the left bottom (phals) is the warmest.

Questions:
1) How often I should water? Should I water catts less than others. So, I can’t adjust how often for plants but I can adjust the amount.

2) How much air circulation? It dries it little down, so I don’t want to make it too much. It also makes noise, so lets keep it little, but enough still.

3) How much light? Now I have two lamps 8-10 o’clock, six lamps 10-11 o’clock, 12 lamps 11-13 o’clock, 13-18 o’clock six lamps, 18 - 20 2 lamps. 20-22 moonlight.

4) Fertilizer, how much ?

Here is a pic trying to explain my system


First photo where the plants are located


Second. How the water goes dow in the soil part, watered once a week. Considering to turn it semi-hydro, what to you think?


Third overview

[Jussi_K]

I took some extra pixs to explain my viv:

watering system at top:


Catt courner


Bottom


Water part


aquarium


Dendrobium

[Tindomul]

I love your tank!!!!! I love your aquatics!!! I love your orchids!!!!!
ANyway, I would suggest misting the tanks 2 or 3 times in the morning hours, 1 or 2 times in the late afternoon hours before lights out, and maybe once sometime just before lights on in the morning. I would also suggest your run the fans all night, or mostly all night with a break in between to let the humidity climb again. You don't want to dry out everyone. As far as I can see, you don't need to keep the humidity down to much while the lights are on. So Keep them off in the morning and mid day. Turn them on in the afternoon to dry everything out before lights out.
Seeing as how you have a paludarium, I don't think you will suffer for lack of humidity. My orchids in my orchidarium just get heavily misted twice a day. They don't get any more water than that. I also put in a few milliliters of orchid fertilizer in about a gallon of water, and mist them with that. If thats not good enough, they will have to rely on frog poo.
Your lights seem to be ok so long as you give them 12 hours of light. 14 hours of light would not be so bad either. But its up to you.
Now, how long did it take you to build it? Where did you get the tank? Did it come with the front opening or did you make that? Tell me/ I mean us, everything about how you constructed this tank

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[Jussi_K]

Hello,

Sadly I didn't take any photos, when I made it. It took very long, almost two years. Main reason for so long period was work, (could only do in the evenings and also 9 months in the army (could only do weekends, in Finland everyone goes), which by the way drove my girlfriend nuts. Actually it still isn't ready. It takes maybe 2 hours every day, but I'll hope that one day in the near future, I could set it up so, that I could concentrate only watching it at the froggs...
Construction is a long, long text, but I try to keep it as short and easy as possible. The backwall is plywood, also half of sides is covered with plywood. Rest of sides are glass and the front (the door) is polycarbonate. Plywood is waterresistant type and painted with epoxypaint and then aquarium area is covered with acryl.
When this structure was finished I constructed bottom. the aquariums backwall is made of styrofoam (water resistant type), designed with warm air and painted with black paint (water solvent) and covered with sand. Cool and dark enough. The bottom of orchids and froggs is made of styrofoam covered with flevopol, The backwall is also made same way. First I made dripping system for all plants, also there's network of drippers, that I could water each as much as they need, but then I decided to change it simpler, also pipe at top, whe drippers. Because there were no need for these special drippes and they didn't cover the whole area. And you could only adjust the amount of water not how frequently.
Now I'm interested how I could get it covered with mosses and get the orchids growing better. I'll hope someone had little same kind of setup as I have and could help.
Tindomul1of9, Sadly I can't do what you suggested. Firstly, my misting system is capable to set 20 misting periods for a day, so I want naturally use them all. Of course shorter, the shortest time is 1 second. Secondly I can't circulate air at night, because I wan't the air temperature to drop inside the viv. This is possible, because there's this pipe that gives with diffusion cold air to viv from outside. This way it gets colder at night. Because it's so damm cold here in Finland (In winter 20+ celcius minus) I can't circulate air at night because my livingroom would then also be freezing. Thirdly Misting doesn't provide any fertilization, so I need to at some to my pump system, which pumps fertilized water on top of the walll. It can be adjusted to water as frequently as needed. My question is should it dry out completely between waterings, or should it be atleast little moist all the time. Now it is little moist at bottom, and at center, but the top region (some catts and dens and vandaceous) dryes out completely. Another question is, what is ideal humidity? How much it can drop? My problem is that moist backwall gives most humidity, if I let it dry out, my humidity drops also. Misting gives maybe +20 % humidity, not more, because otherwise my plants would be wet all the time. Aquarium gives maybe 10 - 20 % with ultrasonic fogger. So without the moist backwall humidity drops to 60% easily with high air circulation, which is needed to dry my plants in the evening.
No my setup is this way:
- the backwall watered once a day / sjould I change once every 2 days
- misting every fourty minutes 8 seconds
- air circulation at morning 3 hours (from five to eight)
- air circulation at afternoon from 15 to 24
- The coldest moment 15,5 degrees, the warmest 26 degrees, but naturally in the bottom and in the left downer corner (phals) the drop is smaller ( 3-4 degrees).
- humidity 60% - 90%, lowest in the evening

By the way more pics from techs and other stuff found from my website
http://web.mac.com/jussi_kaijasilta/.../Vivarium.html

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[Jussi_K]

Over a month ago I had a lot problems with my plants. Now everyone seems to grow like crazy. Here are few pointers I have noticed growing orchids in viv.

Air circulation! As much as possible. Keeps mold away. But remember circulation not air out and air in, it just kills the plants.

Less water, much less water. When you think now would be a good day to water wait one, or even too. As long as the humidity is high, plants will thrive. I water maybe 2 times a week and I dont have any potting material (spaghum moss) for the drier ones and only little for the ones that need water more often.

High, really high humidity. I keep it between 85 and 90%. But remember, you have to have a heavy air circulation to keep mold away, I use a house hold fogger. I prefer it over misting system because it is easy to adjust an it really just moists the air.

Most inportant to get those lovely ones to bloom. Low night temps. Thanks to Finnish winter my plants get cold air at night and they just love it. 2 of my potential 3 paphs are developing now spikes. 2 of my potential 5 dens do the same, But what's the best most of the plants are developing lots and lots of new growth and roots.

I just want to thank you all guys from helping. It didn't need so much change, but the result is just crazy!

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials

[justatypn]

OMG Jussi ... nice job, chids look happy happy happy . It's amazing how they have acclimated.

I must add to Tindo's post...frog poop helps

[Tindomul]

I'm glad you have reached that point where you know how to keep things from dieing. See your plants growing and rooting is more important at first, than to see them flowering, so CONGRATS!!!! Please post and celebrate each and every bloom you get, we would love to see them!

[Jussi_K]

http://web.mac.com/jussi_kaijasilta/.../Vivarium.html

I posted some photos of new development!


edit. Oops I had wrong adress.


Two of my 5 Sweden dwarf imports decided to rebloom. Three other ones are developing new growth. The other one with spike has also new growth. I’m really glad to see these loving my vivs conditions.


Nice to see some paphs blooming. I have had five paphs for over a year and maybe 3 of them are potential to flower. This one did it, also another has a spike growing.
One of my paphs has had no roots for months, so I’m really glad to see root growth with it! Two small roots are now 4 and 2 cm


Grows beatifully definitely one of my favorite bottom plants.

Flowered really nicely with three spikes. also developing two new bulds. Almost my favorite plant already.

Nice to see a lot new roots also in this plant. I’m hoping to get my other masdies to flower too, their developing a lot roots atleast. I hope that the winter would get still little colder that they could get enough cold air to bloom.

[Tindomul]

["Palatino Linotype"]HOly Cow! That little pink flowers one is amazing! I hope to see some of your paphs in bloom soon. Very cool tank![/FONT]

[cb977]

Jussi... to OrchidBoard!
What an entrance!!!

I don't know if I'm more impressed by the viv or the thread itself!

Here's a link to show you how to resize your photos, as large photos can cause a problem within the thread...

Resizing Images...originally posted 6/13/06 by Marty

Here's another with instructions for thumbnails in posts, which enlarge to full-sized pics when clicked on:

Thumbnail pics in posts


I look forward to hearing more about your adventures