Terrarium is finally finished!

[Paul Mc]

It took almost 3 months of playing and experimenting, but I think I have finally finished it!

I would like to take the time in this thread to explain my thoughts, issues and things I did/learned in the process of making this terrarium as there doesn't appear to be a thread like that here on the OrchidBoard.

For those of you not interested in all of the nitty-gritty, I will spare you the details and jump right to the pictures!

And of course, as this is my first terrarium build and mounting effort, please feel free to give me your thoughts and suggestions! This has been a HUGE learning curve for me and I appreciate everyone's input! I really appreciate the patience everyone here has shown me as I've been asking tons of questions and learning.

So, here are the pics!

The "final" terrarium build minus 4 orchids that still need to be mounted:


My hand made water fall/fountain that has a very soft and pleasant sound like a trickling river in the distance.


And now for the orchids that are mounted thus far!
1.) Bulbophyllum sikkimense


2.) Haraella retrocalla


3.) Maxillaria uncata 'Lineas Rojis'


4.) Mediocalcar decoratum


5.) Porroglossum dalstroemii


6.) Sedirea japonica


7.) Trisetella gemmata


The new orchids that just arrived this evening are Aerangis fastuosa, Dendrobium cuthbertsonii, Haraella odorata (I know, just found out it's the same thing as retrocalla - good thing I love this one, lol...) and Dryadella zebrina. I will post pics once I get them mounted in a few days. I want them to adjust to the new climate before I tamper with them though.

So my next posting here will be more about the detail of what went into the construction of this terrarium from the very beginning.

Thanks for viewing!

[zxyqu]

Cool setup. How big is the entire thing? I've always liked the idea, but have no idea how big I could have and where it would go. Hopefully you're setup commentary will provide some insight. Nice going as always Paul!

[Paul Mc]

Hello zxyqu, the terrarium is only 1 foot by 1 foot by 1.5 foot. It is a Zoo Med terrarium sold at PetSmart for around 50 dollars. While it's small, I plan to only put extremely small mini's in here - as many as it will potentially hold. However, the biggest thing for me after having bought several mini's is the relationship between the color of the flower and the size. For example, if it's a bright color then no matter how small it is you will be able to see it admist the browns and green in the terrarium. Otherwise, if it's a bigger flower (3/4 inch or larger) then I am assuming I will be able to view and enjoy it as is regardless of color.

However, the Tristella and the Porroglossum were two of the first mini's I bought. I started my adventure on the mini terrarium build because my Porroglossum lost over half of it's leaves and the Tristella was doing nothing. However, since it's been in a terrarium setting (primarily due to increased humidity), the Porroglossum has not lost any more leaves and appears to have new root growth and the Trisetella has many new baby leaves forming and many very noticable roots.

I hope to start my "journal" this weekend. It will take me some time to recall my thought and experience process though.

[fishmommy]

looking good! I hope you have tons of fun with it!

[Paul Mc]

You know, it was a lot of work and sometimes a bit frustrating as I had to go back and re-do things many times. But overall, it was quite an exciting project. Now, I'm finally in the really fun stages though - the planting!



1st Step:

Once I found the space away from direct sunlight in the house and the terrarium that could fit that space, I had to consider a false bottom. I wanted a water feature so I needed a resevoir of water on the underside of the false bottom. If it had not been for the water feature, then I would still need some room for excess water to fall and not affect the substrates that much. However, having the body of water I thought would help to increase and maintain the humidity of the terrarium.

My first step was to find a pump so would know how deep of a basin beneath the substrate I needed. Most pumps operate underwater and very few will operate in shallow water. I only had 3 inches in the bottom of my terrarium to play with. So, minus the substrate and the eggcrate used to create the false bottom that would leave me with about 1 1/2 inches of space.

I finally found my pump that would operate in as little as 1/2 inch of water. It is a Repti-Flo 250. Another consideration for finding the pump was the thickness (gauge) of the wire. It needed to be a normal gauge (about 16) to fit through the wire slots at the top of the terrarium. This pump worked perfectly!

I then went to Home Depot and bought the following: eggcrate, electrical zip ties, PVC connectors (rounds), screen door meshing and pea gravel.

I used gardening sheers to cut a square out of the eggcrate and put that inside the terrarium. I quickly discovered that I would need to cut the eggcrate much smaller so no one would be able to see the eggcrate and the body of water underneath. Once I had the square cut, I had to cut a space in the back for the water pump to fit. As dirt can easily clog a pump, I wanted an extra layer of screening to go around it, so I cut the space for the pump inside of the square towards the back.

The next part was to consider where I wanted my body of water ("mini lake") to be. It took several attempts to find where I ultimately wanted it to be. Then I played with rocks to see how it looked. I was shocked to learn that I would have to make the mini lake bigger so you could actually see a "lake" as opposed to just rocks. By the way, the rocks would cover up the eggcrate in the finished product so you wouldn't be able to see it and the resevoir of water underneath.

Once I was satisfied with the bottom and layout (many attempts and designs later), I made walls from the eggcrate and secured them to the bottom of my false bottom using the electrical zip ties. I did the same thing for the pump area cut out on the inside as well. On the inside of those walls, I used aquarium sealant to place the PVC connectors to help support the weight. I used as few as possible but remember that eggcrate is rather flimsy, so you need to support any weight that will be on top of it. I erred on the side of one or two too many which I felt was fine.

Once the PVC connectors had cured and were secure, I cut a very large piece of screen door screening out and folded (and in some places had to cut it to fit) around the false bottom. The idea here is to ensure that none of the substrate and particles could get into the resevoir and potentially damage the pump. The screening was specifically cut large enough so it could go down the sides of the walls and then had a bit more that would just sit on the bottom of the terrarium. This extra bit would be held down by the pea gravel used to hide the sides of the false bottom.

I used aqaurium sealant to seal the screening to the top and to ensure that it was even up there.

I then rinsed over and over again the pea gravel to ensure it was completely clean of any dirt, then boiled it on the stove for about 30 minutes to get any unwanted bacterias, molds, viruses, etc... off of it. Once it had cooled, I put in the false bottom and poured the pea gravel all around, ensuring that the screening was not seen as I shoved it all in. By the way, the first time I did this I realized that the false bottom had to be cut even more to allow for more pea gravel as I could still see the screening and eggcrate a bit in places.

I used some larger rocks (cleaned and boiled) in the front where the lake would be to hold back the pea gravel and ensure that the lake had my "special colored" rocks in there for viewing pleasure. I wanted a mixture of red and white rocks as opposed to pea gravel. The rocks I chose were a bit large, but I also knew I would have to conceal the false bottom in the "mini lake" area as well.

One note on the false bottom, many people secure their false bottom with aquarium sealant to the bottom of their terrarium. I did not do this. I wanted to be sure that if down the road I did not like something or if I needed to clean the entire terrarium that everything was able to come out so I could do that. Also, if I ever decided I wanted a different design then I could remove everything and start from scratch. To be honest, this was what took the most time - reverse engineering so to speak - to ensure that I could remove everything if need be.

[silken]

It looks like your hard work really paid off! Very lovely!

[tcrane]

Really well done!

-Tristan

[Paul Mc]

Thanks everyone! I'm mostly pleased with it, though there are still some things I'm looking to correct, but for now it's seems to be working, lol...

So much more quickly than step 1, here's...

Step 2:

I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of other people's terrariums here on the OrchidBoard, in google images, and any other places I could find. I took notes on what I liked about each one in an excel spreadsheet and any thoughts or suggestions that were listed with the build. I also provided a link back to the page so I could see the image again and again while I formulated what I wanted to see.

Originally, I wanted more levels and to utilize those levels for planting orchids on and then use a few branches to extend up to the top of the terrarium to plant on as well. Here's the eggcrate model I had originally built.


However, it was way too symmetrical for my taste. I could have changed some of them to cork rounds or halves, but I still wasn't quite satisfied with the overall look in my mind's eye.

So needless to say, there was a lot of thinking, looking around and imagining going on. This was also the time I started researching air flow and self-automated watering systems to ensure the fact that I would have to do minimal maintenance on it once it was completed. (This still has yet to be determined by the way, lol...).

While doing this, I also looked at various materials available to construct a background, the various styles other people used and materials they incorporated.

After much deliberation, I opted for some earthy areas but also wanted rocks. I also wanted a variety of wood materials, so I used some cork rounds cut in half, mopani wood and a pressed cork board for terrariums (the later two you can buy at any PetSmart or pet store that carries terrarium supplies). As I was looking for particular shapes, sizes, colorations, textures and overall designs, I did not purchase any of these online as you never know what you will recieve. I wanted to see it before I committed to a purchase.

The mopani wood was chosen because other woods can grow mold very quickly (based upon some other people's comments). However, another good choice may have been driftwood as it is very used to being in a watery/high humidity environment. But I liked the overall look of the mopani the best.

In all honesty, I over bought on the materials - but I guess that just means more materials for playing with later, lol...

I think the biggest thing I learned here was to not just settle for a design because it was your first or your 10th design. Keep going until you truly feel it is right for you. Once you think you've got it down, step away from it for a few days and don't even think about it. Come back and view it with a fresh pair of eyes and dissect it in relation to what you originally wrote down you liked and disliked about other designs you've seen. But overall, have fun and enjoy the designing part and let your imagination go. If you construct it by not permanently attaching anything you can always tear it back down and start over, lol...

To give you an idea of at least one design I was considering, here's a picture. I did not like this design because it did not have room for my waterfall. The waterfall would either have to go over or under the mopani wood piece, neither of which I liked. However, with the wood sitting like this it would have allowed for a lot more air movement as well. Just a few of the things to consider when playing with your design.


One big thing that I learned here as well (thank you Pluerothallis - if I got your online name right) is that bigger/thicker pieces of wood like the one I am currently using not only block air flow but they also limit the amount of space you have to plant on. I am still considering changing my current piece of wood out with smaller ones or repositioning it somehow inside.

[Amanda L]

Very cool! I am starting to think about a terrarium for growing some high humidity or cooler growing chids. I love the look of your terrarium. You did a really great job with it. Keep us posted as to how things go!

[pleurothallid]

Originally Posted by Paul Mc

One big thing that I learned here as well (thank you Pluerothallis - if I got your online name right) is that bigger/thicker pieces of wood like the one I am currently using not only block air flow but they also limit the amount of space you have to plant on. I am still considering changing my current piece of wood out with smaller ones or repositioning it somehow inside.

One strategy if you have limited air flow in an area is to cut out the sphagnum moss and plant directly on the wood. Just make sure the terrarium has regular spraying and has already saturated. I also use this with orchids that need cooler temperatures than I really have, except these I keep in areas of high air flow for evaporative cooling.