Watering & ventilating in terrarium

[Tindomul]

Hi, I've had an orchidarium made from a standard 20 gallon long aquarium for about 7 years. This tank uses a front screen at the top were a small computer fan sits. The fan will turn at various times of the day and dry out the tank. How often and long you leave the fans on in this type of setup is up to trial and error. You don't want the plants to stay to wet without active airflow, and you don't want the tank to loose all its humidity either. Here is an old picture of that kind of design. This tank is much greener now. As for watering, I used to mist by hand with a pump sprayer, recently I started using a mistaking nozzle through the screen opening.


Vertical Vivs project 2-28 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

The newer setup I have does away with exchanging dry external air with humid internal air. Instead I have a strong internal fan that is constantly on circulating the internal humid air. There is some passive exchange because the tank is an exoterra with small vent slits below the doors. I replaced the screen top with 1 large piece of glass. I drilled that glass to accommodate two mist king nozzles and a hole which accommodates a tube connected to a cool mist humidifier (fogger), for fog. The tank has been up and running since June and my orchids, Tillandsias, and other epiphytes seem to be happy. Also I have not seen mold anywhere, or even leaf rot on any plats, only a few mushrooms. Here are some pics of that setup, you can't see the fan because I created a cave for it on the left hand side so that air is sucked in from the top opening and blasted out from the bottom opening.

Here it is when it was first setup,

DSC_2977 by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

Here is a more recent pic, with fogger on,

New Viv by tindomul1of9, on Flickr

Without fogger

New Viv by tindomul1of9, on Flickr