Building a new orchid enclosure.

[Wouter]

I currently keep a few cold growing orchids in a small fish tank in the basement where the temperatures are a bit lower. I find im running out of space fast and maintenance is troublesome in the improvised orchidarium


Luckily i stumbled on a cheap but fairly large (1m x80cm x60cm) second hand terrarium a few months ago.

So i decided to start a build inspired on Kavanaru's build Vivarium - a set on Flickr and Orchid Karma's cold orchidarium Orchid Karma :: An orchid blog.

The plan is to make a display tank with a water feature much like Kavanaru's, plated with epiweb, and cooled with an ac-unit because this tank will be placed near our living room where the temperatures are too high.

It is nowhere near finished yet but i will post some of my progress in the next post('s).

[Wouter]

Before actually starting to build i removed the light hood just to find the tank was actually bigger than i expected

Next was the part that i was quite nervous about. For the water feature's external filter and for draining the rest of the tank i needed to drill some holes in the glass. I thought drilling holes needed expensive equipment and was difficult but i found a set of drills for barely 20 euro on ebay.


and the rest of the equipment in the local toystore


I found drilling holes isnt all that hard just needs alot of patience for a nice result

Next was installing the water feature itself.

[Wouter]

I know i will probably change my mind alot in the future so i did not silicone anything of the background to the glass and made everything easily replacable.
The idea is to have a few levels to put pots of orchids i dont want to mount on the epiweb closer or further from the lights depending on what they need.
I would like to have worked with eggcrate but somehow i cannot find it anywhere here in Belgium or only really expensive eggcrate.
This left me with option 2: foam boards.
To reinforce it and to hide the bright white color i covered it with black silicone.


On the top level i installed a small container to hold a small pond of water big enough to fit my ultrasonic fogger inside. The external filter will pump the aquarium water back into this pond making the water level always high enough for the fogger to work.
The pond will run over into a waterfall leading back to the aquarium (if all goes well )

After i finish putting the last silicone its time to wait for the epiweb and the lights to arrive for the next steps =)

[Tindomul]

Looks really nice. Can't wait to see the outcome.

[Wouter]

Thanks Tindomul
I've been toying a bit with the waterfall last week with whatever little spare time i can find
I am not completely satisfied with how it turned out so far but im thinking it will improve alot after the epiweb is installed next to it and maybe i will paint or cover it with some kind if substrate.

In the last 2 pictures i was trying out the little mistmaker
Needs a little more adjusting to make sure 100% of the water ends up back in the aquarium.
Hopefully the epiweb and the lamps arrive in the next week

[Eyebabe]

Truly amazing what you are doing!
Can't wait to see the final product

[Wouter]

Well last week the epiweb and the lights arrived woot
It will take a while before i finish building a hood for the lights but meanwhile i made a little progress inside the tank.



I decided to make another waterfall since i didnt really like the looks of last one. This time i went with styrofoam covered with grout and i must say i am much more pleased about this result =) Not sure if i will paint it completely or just highlight it here and there with some darker grey.

Still need to cover the second level and the sides of the waterfall with epiweb but i think its coming along nicely.

[Call_Me_Bob]

you SO should have water in the bottom, and have fish ( my other hobby ) !! that would be so cool. if you are thinking about fish, and need some help, hit me up

[Wouter]

If all works out I think it will be like a small aquarium.
Tho since the tank is located in a room that gets pretty cold in the winter (5°C) and i plan to cool the tank during summer with an ac unit for cold growing orchids i am quite limited in the species of fish i can keep.
So far i found 1 kind of fish thats pretty interesting and would like the size/temperatures of the tank , Elassoma evergladei. Maybe you can point me to some other small fish or shrimps besides goldfish?

[Call_Me_Bob]

you could have a small heater for the water, it wont make the rest of the tank any warmer. i will make a thread on the fish forum im a member of, for fish that would work. but, the fish you suggested likes water about 68F or 20 C year round.