My newish Warm terrarium - Page 2 - Orchid Board

tropterrarium · #1 12-22-2012, 11:52 PM

Greetings.

Here is my newish warm terrarium, currently doubling as a festivus pole. Some specs:
20x36x60" = ~180 gals. Temp range 65-95F, RH 65-75% minimum target. Mainly for Oberonia.

Set-up. Tank is custom job from Protean terrarium, which I do NOT recommend due to massive delays and lack of communication. All non-tempered glass. Access through sliding panel on right. Drilled additional holes in the bottom aluminum rail so that misting water can drain out of rail into tank (and not on my wood floor).

Two venting slits under sliding panel and on top. The top panel is partially closed with plastic wrap. Once I figure out how much it needs to be open to maintain adequate temperature and humidity, I will find something better.

Water reservoir (~4 gals) in back left about 5" tall, siliconed in myself. Water reservoir and main compartment have drains with ball valves (Marine depot). Drilled holes myself, also through stand I made.

Water feature with a small fountain pump that overflows the hollow cork tube (I think from FirstRay) in the back left. The water hose is wedged into the cork cube with a piece of styrofoam, the whole thing liberally sealed with silicone. The cork tube hangs from the side glass with a metal screw-washer-nut going through glass. Was first worried it would crack the glass, but so far so good

. A floating ultrasonic fogger sits in the water basin.

Two 4" fans are hidden in foam-board tubing, further camouflaged with bark. one along the backside of the terrarium, blowing over water feature, other one front center blowing upwards. 2 smaller 2.5" fans at the top blowing down.

Bottom of tank has about 1" styrofoam mat to help distribute weight of branches. Then expanded clay. Just installed some soil warming coils (20' @200W) in the expanded clay and along the backside of some branches. Got it from a horticultural supply house. For same length, the horticultural coils have higher wattage (= heat output) than what is sold for terraria.

Additional aquarium heaters installed under vertical fan, and in duct of horizontal fan. Seems to work!

Misting with Mistking system and 7 nozzels, dripzip, about 5 gal water reservoir in bottom of stand, water reservoir slides out on drawer rollers.

Misters are attached to two aluminum L-profiles, that I drilled every 1 cm or so. The L-profiles are glued to the glass with some heavy glue, the nozzles and lines attached with zip-ties.

Controls with DigitalAquatics HerpKeeper with PC4 (switched strip outlet), MLC (moonlight controller with 3 LED lights), AP1 (Temp RH sensor). Adjusts day/night temperature fluctuation, runs misters = rain every day, and adjusts RH in two stages with water feature and fogger.

Initially, I thought I would control heat with water heater in the water compartment in the tank, and blow air over it. Worked great in my other tank. Here, humidity was too high all the time, with water condensing on plants (not good!). Also at night, the tank did not cool sufficiently due to residual heat capacity in water reservoir. Therefore, the water feature and fogger is only used for humidity control, heating is done via air heating.

Lights: ATI dimmable 6x 36", with continuous up and down dimming over course of day to simulate natural light changes over course of day. SWEET! ATI is on a UPS to protect against brown-outs and short black-outs. The ATI-timer resets after any power interruption, and power glitches re surprisingly common. The HerpKeeper is very resilient, resets itself after power outage, and starts up correctly.

Branches are Manzanita (Arctostaphylos sp.: reddish heavy), and Orange (Citrus: grey, light weight).

Current plants: Oberonia setifera (2x in spike), O. toppingii, O. sp. "iridifolia", O. sp. (in spike), O. miniata, O. cavaleriei (aka "myosurus"), Notylia barkeri, Bulbophyllum virginalis, B. sikkimense, Jaquinelia leucomelata (finally flowered after 3 years!), Ornithocephalus in flower, Lockhartia lunifera from keiki in GH, Ludisia discolor (cutting), Leptotes pohlitinocoi (in bud). Still quite a bit of space :-)

Let me know what you think. Thanks!

P.S. Always lookin' for more Oberonia

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