Will this work?

[RandomGemini]

I have a 7 gallon minibow aquarium just sitting in my garage taking up space with a fluorescent retrofit kit that I installed with the idea of keeping corals. There's a 50/50 compact fluorescent in there now. 28W but I can easily order in a plant bulb from the supplier. I have concerns that my orchids will not get enough light on my window sill this winter because, in December, we'll have day light from about 9 am until 3 pm. So I'm thinking I'm gonna have to supplement light somehow and I want them to stay warmer during the day anyway.

I was considering getting some inexpensive aquarium gravel or using some cheap bark mix as a substrate and setting up this aquarium with my three mini phals in their pots in this tank, with the lights from this tank on a timer, so I can control how much light they get, without having to think about it too much.

The questions I have are:

Will it be too much light on my mini phals in a tank of that size?

This aquarium has a couple of openings in the back of the hood, if I leave those open, do I need to worry about installing a fan to keep the air moving? (I can probably retrofit a CPU fan to do this job if I have to.) I would continue to water and fertilize as I do now.

What am I not thinking of? I've never set up a terrarium before.

Thanks much!

[WhiteRabbit]

[annak]

I have set a terrarium the past November, and so far so good...
I have a computer fan working on a timer (10 minutes every half an hour this period - hot in Greece) and I plan to keep it in the winter, but not so often.
The top is made from wire mesh, which I think helps in the air circulation.
For the lights I cannot help you

[Bud]

If you have the materials then use it to your advantage. Its always good to put something to use than leave them gathering dust in the garage.

[RandomGemini]

That's kind of what I was thinking Bud. Any thoughts on the lights and whether that would be too strong for the mini phals? The aquarium is 14" high. There's a piece of glass between the bulb and the top of the aquarium. I would place them on the bottom, either very close, or on the substrate so they'd approximately be a foot away from the light source. I can retrofit something else into that hood if I need to.

[Bud]

I am not the right person to ask about this since I don't grow or own a terrarium. You may do a search on this board about it or go to the forum that discuss this.

* the best person I can recommend is 'Tindomul'

[RandomGemini]

Cool! Thanks! I'll head over to a terrarium forum and see what information I can get that way. I just don't want to sunburn my phals under this light fixture, because it seems to me that their distance from the bulb is kinda short. It'd be a foot or less.