Help with Terrarium set up for masdies
 

:hello everybody I'm new to the forum :waving
I live in tucson az and I have always wanted to grow masdevallias, but considered them impossible to grow in the desert. Looking through the forums the last few days has got me thinking, :hmm , what if I set up a small terrarium for them in my room? I have very limited space, I could probably fit a 10 or 20 gallon tank for a few of the smaller varieties. The temps inside my house are usually in the 70s with about 6 degrees of difference between night and day, however as summer progresses this difference will shrink. So I guess my biggest question is How do i keep the temps at an acceptable level for the masdies and how do I give them a big enough temp drop at night? Also how do I keep the humidity high enough while keeping adequate ventilation in such a small tank.
Thanks for any advice anyone has :biggrin:

-Andrew

A terrarium will take care of the humidity. Check the terrarium forum for pictures of set-ups and tips like fans, light, etc.

The temp problem is a little trickier. The lights might warm up the tank enough to make a wider temp swing. For example, say your house is at about 70 during the day, and 64 at night. The terrarium temp will be close to the room temp, but slap a couple of lights with ballasts on top and your day temps rise into the 80's or higher. When your lights go off, the temperature gets closer to room temp, 64. That's a 16 degree differential instead of only 6.

This may not be acceptable to some cool growers.

What if I were to set it up like a mini evap cooler?:hmm with a mini cooler pad at one end kept wet by a pump and a muffin fan at the other end to pull air through the terrarium. Would this dry it out too much in there?

No! And that should do the trick. I was planning to ask if you cooled with swamp cooler like most Tucson folks or A.C. Great idea. In fact some greenhouses are cooled that way on a large scale. Humidity should be way high from evaporated water in the air. I would add a small 12 volt fan running 24/7 inside just to stave off the mold beasties. Try Coralife Aqualight 3 1/8 Cooling Fan Kit

I've thought of that too, like a mini swamp-cooler. It may work, I just don't see going to that much trouble on my small scale set-up. With some of the great terrariums I've seen on the board, it wouldn't surprise me if someone is already doing it.

How cool do you want to get it?

That is actually the way i cooled my old green house, humidity in there was usually in the 80% range, I wasn't sure if it would work on such a small scale though. My house has AC not swamp cooling so the air inside is very dry. I would like to get it cool enough at least to grow some intermediate masdies, if it works well enough maybe some cool growers. Any recommendations on some good masdevallias for beginners?

EDIT: Would it be worth it to invest in an automatic misting system or on this small scale should I just do it by hand?

PS- If anyone has a miniature masdivallia terrarium set up I would love to see some pics :photo: for inspiration.


Thanks for all the help :biggrin:
-Andrew

Tindo, a swamp cooler is simply a fan setup blowing through a webbing material. Lots of things work besides the commercial units that look like furnace filters with water dripping at the top. Coco fiber mats will work. Fiberglass filter material will work. Stainless spun steel filters for furnaces will work. The idea is to get some water dripping across a fibrous substrate such that the air blowing through it will evaporate the water. Evaporating water yields cooler air since the process steals heat from the air. It works in a forest when trees evaporate water through the leaves and the breezes blow through the leaves. Get it?

The one I envisioned in my head was just a modification to the muffin fan. Cut two little squares of hardware cloth or screen material, fill it with sphagnum moss, and wire up the sides. Fixing the little "aspen pad" or "swamp cooler" to the existing muffin fan is where it gets a little tricky. I was thinking that I'd need to enclose the whole set-up in a tube in order to force the air through the sphag instead of just against it.

Just brainstorming here - any thoughts, tips?

for the set up royal suggested, of course you would have to provide a vent at the other end of the tank so that the air would have somewhere to go. Or here's a thought :hmm : In a larger terrarium you could set up a long vent that ran the whole length of the tank that was maybe .5 in. to 1 in. across, this way the air at one end of the tank would be cooler than at the other end of the tank, so you would have different growing conditions in each section. However this may be entirely impractical, or the temperature difference may not be large enough to really have an affect, just thinking out loud :scratchhead: , or in type...

I included a diagram to illustrate how a swamp cooler works for anyone that was still confused.

-Andrew

I like your thinking. But I wonder how much cooling would actually occur? I almost think the whole end of the tank needs to be open and the other end screened to get massive cooling.

Tindo: the amount of cooling is proportional to the amount of evaporation. In NYC in summer, that wouldn't be much since your humidity is much higher than Tucson. Theirs can be as low as 3-4% on a good day in summer. Thus massive amounts of cooling.

Andrew, If it were me I would custom design an acrylic tank with a slot for a drip pad at one end and a vent (same square inches) at other end - no need for same shape, just same area. Then hook up a drip irrigation hose to the drip pad and run a series of fans to get the air movement you need. I think in a small tank like you envision, the temps will be same at both ends. Not enough diff to worry about. And Paul, at First Class Aquatics can build it for you. He's a wiz at stuff ike that (built mine for me.) You won't need misting, you won't need humidification, you will need good lights though. And you'll definitely need constant air movement inside tank. Just out of curiosity, why do you need a cooled tank, if you have A.C.?

The daytime temps inside the house during the summer will be between 77-80 degrees, night time temps will be between 72-74. And then with some lights on top of the tank it'll probably be even warmer in there without some kind of cooling. Do you think that some masdies could sweat out the summer:whew until autumn? In Tucson we have about 5 months of summer weather which seems like a long time to keep the masdies warm. Do you think i could grow some of the warmer varieties in a terrarium without a cooling system?

Oh, i almost forgot, How much does it cost to have an acrylic tank made? I may just try to make it on my own out of plexiglas if having one made is out of my price range.



-Andrew

Andrew, I would not start by asking the price. That cannot be determined at this time - whether you build it or have it built. First things first. I think you need to work on a tank to cool the 'chids. Your temps are too high. If you want, I will do this on Autocad for kicks - just something to keep me busy (and I may use the design for one of my own later on.) Glass is not out of the question, just harder for you or me to work with. Plexi is way easier to do. If you think you want to take me up on this, let's go to PM to work out measurements, etc.

I live in Colorado and have a really cheap easy successful terrarium!
 

:_( Hi there! I haven't posted for a while but I just went through the "How can I make a terrarium?" idea about 6 months ago for some draculas. I live in SW Colorado at 7000 feet, so very warm and dry in the summer, cold in the winter. Sun-wise and Humidity-wise very similar to Tucson.

What I did was go to the local pet store and buy a used glass 20-gallon aquarium. I got rocks from outside, washed them off really well, and used a combination of flat large rocks and small rocks in the terrarium. The pots and plants sit on the larger rocks, and I pour distilled water to about 1/4 inch over the smaller rocks (and perlite) on the floor of the aquarium. That keeps a lot of humidity in the tank, but not so that the plants are sitting in it. I then went to the auto glass store and had them cut me a piece of acrylic that fits on top of the tank, leaving an inch or so open on one side. Depending on the humidity, I sometimes cover that inch with a gauzy fabric, so that it will keep some humidity in but allow good air circulation. I usually try to spray them once a day just with a bottle sprayer.

For excellent air circulation, I got a computer fan and wired it up to a DC power supply. It sits on top of one of the larger rocks. It is very easy to do, and I am NOT a handy type of person. I don't even know how to download pictures of my terrarium from my camera to the computer (which I have and would do so if I knew how)!

The whole set up gets some later afternoon sun, so usually ranges from 60-80 degrees depending on the clouds, temperature, etc. You don't want it above 80 for these types of plants. With the water in the bottom of the tank, and the fan blowing, my temp has really never gotten above 82, even on very hot days.

Thus far I have added many plants to the mix. I lost one seedling dracula, have 3 dracs that have new growths, and have had multiple blooms on some trichosalpinx, dryadella, restrepia, and pleurothallids, which I just bought in January; as well as new leaves on masdie, zootrophion, and dracula. I have not gotten the dracs to bloom yet -- but hoping they will sometime soon! They look healthy and have some new shoots, but haven't given me any flowers . . .

Anyway, since we're in similar climates, and you, like me, seem to be looking for a small and inexpensive ways to try some cooler-growing flowers -- I did mine for well less than $100 ($10 for aquarium, $20 for acrylic top, $20 for fan, I think about $10 for the DC converter, $2 for distilled water and free rocks! And I only bought about 3-4 plants for about $7/each online initially to see how they woudl do before I added more -- I got 3 dracs and a masdie).

So it works, it's fun, creating an Ecuadorean cloud forest in Southwest Colorado!! Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

Kristin:goodluck: