Basic setup of a mini greenhouse. 55 Gal. Aquarium?

[JimmyTheCack]

I have an old 55 Gal. aquarium, that I want to evolve into a mini greenhouse to branch my collection off into some more "tropical" varieties. I have a basic idea, but easy-affordable suggestions are very welcome! Thanks!

[tropterrarium]

This is pretty vague, but I'll bite. Easiest is: put a lid on, add some sort of fan, put a humidity meter and thermometer in there, and see what you get. Then chose plants according to what you can provide.

In terms of landscape, you can use it as a glass box (cheap) or build a full habitat (expensive).

If you want different plants, but your conditions do not work, then adju$t that/those parameters: light, humidity, temperature.

If you want some sort of automatization, add a controller.

Re budget range, the first option is about $30, a fully automated system with feedback loops and e-mail notification will be around $2-3,000.

So, what do you have, what do you want, how much do you want to spend?

[JimmyTheCack]

I was thinking about a plexi glass lid with several small holes , and a couple of flourescent plant lights, 60 watt or so! Some activated charcoal at the base, and some coarse gravel on top of that, with a miniature fountain for humudity's sake. I'd like to push for 75-80% Humidity, and a temp. close to 85 degrees 0r so.
I was really curious as to an easy method, of achieving the levels I'm pushing for, and getting enough light out to sustain suitable conditions for a variety of tropical orchids- Vandas, Phals, Bulbophyllum, Oncidiums and some temperamental Paphiopedilums
Right now all I have is a 55 gal. aquarium, and a stand!

[tropterrarium]

I would start out with a plexiglas lid without holes and see what sort of humidity you get. You can always drill holes if humidity is too high. 75-80% RH is also my target. With relatively high temperature (so WARM set-up) and a water fountain, you may actually get quite high humidity reading due to higher evaporation at higher temperature. Also consider that you will have to replenish the water in the fountain regularly, because of same evaporation.

Light: 60W on a 55 sounds very low, particularly for high light plants such as Vandas. On my 90 gal, I have 4x 80W T5HO, and I only grow relatively low light plants (pleuros, some bulbs, Oberonia, but certainly no Vandas).

Fluorescent lights come in different flavors: cheap T8/T10 vs T5HO lights. Rather go for T5s.

Depending on how you position lights (straight on plexi, removed), you get higher light output and heat in put, but with strong light off-fall with depth, vs less light output, less heat, but more even light over depth of tank.

Temperature: See what you get with ambient and with lights on top of terrarium, then decide about need for heat. Put a thermometer and RH-meter in the tank, those are you best friends.

The plants you list sound rather on the large side, particularly considering spike. Does your 55 gal accommodate such large plants? Consider that plants grow.

RE $150 budget, given your light needs for Vandas, this is unrealistically low. You may be able to find some cheap aquarium light off e-bay, but even that will right there blow your budget.

For $150, I think you will have to do with just a bit of gravel bottom, a plexi lid, a fan, and a temp-RH meter. Period. Select low light plants in the natural temperature range of wherever you put the tank.

[Gthumbz89]

I have a thirty gallon orchidarium that was fairly cheap to build. I just cut some glass for the lid, bought a zoomed hygrotherm for humidity control (a digital timer works also),bought a crane cool mist humidifier, installed a few small fans, and bought a light. I must say that temperature was the biggest issue since I use a metal halide light, but that was fixed by buying a huge box fan that runs over the top of the tank. This cooled it down to a nice 80-84 degrees perfect for warm loving plants.

The whole project cost about 300 dollars give or take.
I hope that helps, good luck.

[Tindomul]

Are your plants going to stay in pots? If so, I would reccomend rather than all that gravel and charcoal, just a false bottom. A sheet of egg-crate (the plastic that covers office lights hanging from the ceiling), so pvc pipes to hold up the eggcrate above the glass. That way you can add water to the bottom, keep humidity up, and never have to worry about flooding your plants. Ofcourse you would need have access to the water. Either be able to sippon it out when there is too much, or pump, or drill a hole on the back of the terrarium at a certain height so the water level never gets higher than that.

[catherinecarney]

Vivarium Forums has some great build logs which feature 55 gallon tanks. You might check there for ideas. Most of them have good picture sequences, and many are done "on the cheap" as well....

I currently have a 20H terrarium, and it was pretty easy to do. The most expensive part of the setup was the light ($100 + new, but I recycled it from a reef tank we were tearing down).

So, here's what I did (someday I will figure out how to take and post pix):

Supplies: 20 gallon high (a resealed leaker I don't trust for aquarium use anymore), double bulb T-5 light (from a reef tank, high light), 2 cans Great Stuff foam, assorted cork bark, assorted branches (found these--mostly oak and maple), 1 coco fiber brick (in the reptile section of the pet store), Drylock paint and concrete colorant (asst colors).

I followed (more or less) Black Jungle's tutorial on how to do a Great Stuff and bark/branch background. However, I used Drylock (colored with the concrete colors) to paint the Great Stuff, and used the coco fiber as the substrate (about 2-3" thick) since I planned to grow some terrestrial type plants (orchids and non-orchids as well). The finished background has enough "give" that I can use wire pins (floral greenery pins work well) to attach my orchids to the background. There is no lid on this tank at this time (although I may add a screen top since one of the kittens seems to think he should be able to play with the plants), temps and humidity are both higher than in the surrounding room without a top....I mist the tank pretty much daily, especially the mounted orchids on the back wall.

Inhabitants include: 3 no-ID phals (my test subjects), Phal. Pinlong Cheris, a Blc. Star Ruby, jewel orchids, Haraella odorata, Angraecum distichum, Den. parishii (on a moveable mount since it needs a dry rest), Hoya shephardii, Begonia Little Miss Muffett, no-ID begonia seedling, and a few plants in "hospital" (Den kingianum keikis, 2 phal equestris with minimal roots, and a cattleya hybrid seedling). The no-ID phals and Blc. Star Ruby have been in there since the start of the summer and are putting out new growth, ditto for the non-orchids....The rest of the orchids are things I added as the weather got colder--either plants who didn't like the colder/darker conditions elsewhere or things I bought purposely for this setup.

The tank gets a decent day/night temperature swing since the lights do tend to make things warmer (as do the other electronics in use in this room during the day). Humidity in my house runs around 40% or higher, and this tank is damper than that (generally around 55%).

Bottom line is that these setups can be as simple or complex as you want to make them. People on this board have created an amazing array of orchidariums for their plants--use those ideas and go with what works for you and fits your budget.

Catherine