Details of my high tech Orchidarium

[Ocelaris]

I have posted some of this in different locations, but thought I would put it all together to show people what I'm doing, and of course I'm up for suggestions, but also I hope it helps others get ideas themselves. Credit goes a lot to my wife who has made or helped with the creation of the structure and the how to make it work


Here's a pic of the tank as it stands today




First the humidity. I have a bucket with an ultrasonic fogger, it sits in a doughnut floating ring so it's at just the right level about 1" below the surface of the water. It has a 120mm ~4.5" fan blowing down into it, and then tubes going to each of my chambers. The clear tube is so that the fan isn't close to the water, I have gone through like 5 fans because they rust and die... so this one keeps it far enough away that it doesn't get too much moisture on it. I have a dimmer switch on the fan which is 120volts... it's at about 3/4 on, if you go too low, it will pull too many amps and burn up the fan (I learned the hard way). I got the fans on ebay for about 5-20$ a piece. I've found the industrial strength ones work better than computer fans. Mine are Comair rotron a very good brand, and their website has great specs to determine the noise level of the fan, the air pressure it can push, and the volume. They are always in good supply too on ebay, it's my little secret I'm sharing I also use a fan like this in the chamber to move air around, it does a good job in the high humidity, where as the computer fans burned out regularly.




My second innovation is the humidistat I got for a steal on ebay, it's an Invensys HC-201 . I got mine for like 30$ but they're regularly 150$, you can find it on ebay for about 90$ shipped now:

Invensys Building Systems HC-201 Duct Humidistat NEW - eBay (item 320165547227 end time Jan-30-08 09:35:06 PST)

Basically it is a relay, so it turns on or off any power source, it even works for 120v AC, so I have my humidifier setup set to 80% humidity, and it goes up to about 80, turns off, goes down to 70% and turns back on... does a very good job keeping humidity at just the right levels. It uses a modern plastic humidity sensor, so it is more accurate and long lasting than the coil types. You can see the front which sits inside the chamber, and the back with the dial and box for power connections. You can either have it turn on or off something when it his the prescribed humidity.




lastly you can see my metal halide "cool tube" don't ask where I got the idea. But basically it is totally enclosed from the chamber, and it pulls air through it so it's wholly seperated from the orchids. I used to have a 150w MH, but that was too much light, so now I have a 100w MH. It's actually cooler on top than the CF 2x36w on bottom (which are also seperated from the tank:






heres the full chamber, it's about 2 feet square by about 5 feet tall...

I have a temp/humidity sensor in each chamber, and I can download the data to my computer as a text file, and graph it with excel. The system is a La Crosse Wireless Data Logger. it has a base station, and then you can add 3 more (for a total of 4) the model # is the WS-8610U. The data goes back ~2 weeks and records every 5 minutes the temp and humidity... Very useful, and not too expensive for what it does.

WS-8610U by La Crosse Technology - Tomorrow's Weather Today

[Jussi_K]

Humidity?

What kind of ultrasonic fogger do you have and where did u get it? thanks!

What's a donut ring?

[Ocelaris]

The doughnut ring is what holds the ultrasonic fogger afloat in the 5 gallon bucket. it's like a life preserver....... I use a mainland mart M001 ultrasonic fogger...



first one on the page:

Ultrasonic Water Fogger-The Mist Maker

The Doughnut ring that it is supposed to hold is the K011



But I like the bigger one K009, because it stays afloat better



Humidity stays pretty much in the 65-70% humidity, it's about 40% outside, and running a lot of venting I would say it does a pretty good job. Red is humidity, blue is temp.

[calvin_orchidL]

This is a sweet setup! What are the dimensions of the whole shelf? I'm getting a 90gallon fish tank off craigslist in a few days, and I'm thinking of employing something similar. I have a ultrasonic fogger but I have yet to find the right adaptor (actually I got it off ebay from mainlandmart and didn't read it properly - the item I bid on didn't include the adaptor and now I need to search for a 12v adaptor that fits! )

Can you go into more detail about your cool 100W MH? So do you have fans mounted at each edge of the tube that sucks the hot air out? Either way it looks pretty clever

Oh yeah and I've heard that it's bad to keep those humidifiers in a tank of water because it essentially vaporizes bacteria and mold that starts growing in the water and disperses it everywhere - is that true or just a myth?

[Ocelaris]

Actually, it's a 24 volt AC that drives the ultrasonic misters from mainland mart... not DC, DC will damage it. You can find 24vac adapters for like phone systems, or security systems.

I have a single 120mm fan sucking from one side through the tube, it's a 12v fan running on 5v, so it's really low flow, silent.

You need to use some sort of disinfectant on a regular basis, clean the tub on a monthly basis (at least). I use RD-20 at 1 tsp per 3 gallons as a general disinfectant, any more than that and it gets all over the glass as it vaporizes. Yes, it can be a bacterial nightmare, but that's pretty much any humid warm environment. Just keep your sanitary procedures on the up and up and you'll be fine.

The 100w MH I got on ebay for 35$ shipped, put it in a tube, put a 30$ reflector on top of it. It's a ceramic metal halide bulb, 4000k, 85 CRI and about 9000 lumens, which ends up being enough light to flower easy vanda/ascocenda (high light) plants.

Gotta keep that lighting seperate from the tank or it will get too hot. Any more questions feel free to ask, Im just real tired tonight, hope that helps. I'm building roughly a 240 gallon chamber, 4x4x2 feet or 120x120x60cm with 2 x 250w MH... Probably going to start building the week of the 18th, take the week off and put 80% of it together... stay tuned!

[Mike Davis]

Damn fine looking setup!

[jason woodrue]

This is a nice setup! thanks for posting it - the floating donut fogger with the fan blowing in: brilliant engineering. i have to try something like this.

Jason

[Ocelaris]

It works pretty well, the donut floater, but the bigger the donut the better as the smaller one sinks eventually because it get water logged. There are two sizes above, and the biggest works great, I bought the middle size, but haven't tried it yet.

It wasn't my idea originally, someone else drew a picture and I imitated.

I did add the part where the fan is elevated, otherwise the fans would burn out from the moisture too frequently.

[razka3]

Originally Posted by Ocelaris

lastly you can see my metal halide "cool tube" don't ask where I got the idea.

I know where you got the idea from! I have one as well - setting it up for my orchids now, just waiting on some panda film to enclose the area. My cool tube has a 430w HPS Eye Hortilux. Specs are below...

Anyone know what orchids would thrive under these specs? at about a 4ft distance?

# Intial Lumens: 58,500
# Mean Lumens: 52,000
# Color Temp. (CCT or K): 2,100 K
# Color Rendering Index (CRI): 25
# Ansi Spec: 430 WATT HPS

[Ocelaris]

Well, pretty much anything that needs high light... there is a thread somewhere (I couldn't find it) where you can calculate the estimated light output (which by the way is pretty accurate). And then you can pair it up with various orchids.

If you're not happy with that color, there are retro fit Metal Halide bulbs which run on HPS ballasts. I'm using some in my dual 250w setup.