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The easiest possible terrarium

losfreddy

Composter
its that time of the year again to be roasting turkeys in the oven. walmart has these foil pans for roasting turkeys that have a clear plastic lid. its not as big as a 10 gallon fish tank, but is a lot lighter and easier to maintain. i have tried putting soil in it and see how it goes and i find that it molds moisture very well. so i dont see why i couldn't make a good terrarium. in fact i think it will make a great, easy, and very cost effective terrarium. Just make your soil, load it in there, plant your seeds and put the lid on. it may not be perfectly air tight, but tight enough not to make your room all humid. to me its ust the perfect little terrarium. Walmart has a larger one for like 2 or 3 bucks and a packet of two for 2 bucks and they all come with clear plastic lids. like an incubator if you will
 
Hmmm.... just wondering about the aluminum....
 
Hmmmmm, interesting idea, although I don't know if I'd want a terrarium shaped like that
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Just so you know though: You never want a terrarium to be air tight. That's just begging mold and fungus to come take your plants down. Plants grown in really high humidity are much weaker than plants that get good air circulation. Always leave space open in your terrarium so that air can flow freely in and out of it.

If you do end up putting together a terrarium in one of those turkey cookers then by all means, post a picture of it!
 
It sounds great for holding a bunch of seed pots or as a good acclimatization chamber for newly bought CPs. I'll have to drive to walmart and check them out.

Jim, do you think the aluminum pans would be an issue? They seem to be fairly inert in the presence of water, but maybe I'm wrong as I've never used such pans to grow plants. I'd certainly be more concerned if the pans were made of iron, steel, copper, wood, or anything else that can oxidize/rot in the presence of water.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (jimscott @ Oct. 24 2005,2:11)]Hmmm.... just wondering about the aluminum....
It shines right up once you've licked all the good stuff off
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The acid soil that we grow CPs in though will eventually corrode holes in it.
 
I don't know. I've never used any metal with my plants - just plastic and glass. It just jumped out at me, with all that I have been reading about metallic salts, usually associated with Ca, Mg, Na, and K. Use of aluminaum has been used on the outside of a fish tank (flytrapgurl), but I haven't read of anyone using it such that it would come in contact with water and eventually soil. It just set off "bells & whistles".
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (LLeopardGGecko @ Oct. 24 2005,11:01)]Just so you know though: You never want a terrarium to be air tight. That's just begging mold and fungus to come take your plants down.
solution..  put your moss in a microwave safe tubberware and microwave for 5 minutes,  thus killing mold spores and bacteria. and then, once cooled, you can plant your seeds.   and you can pull the lid off every so often (couple times a week) and air it out. even use the plastic lid as a fan to fan it.  i guess the only thing that needs to be proven is the ability of aluminum to stand up against the acidic moss for a long period of time.
 
Does that really work? I've never tried that before...

I'll have to keep that in mind when I put together my classic terrarium later on this week.
 
yeah it works. it steams and boils the water and everything 'alive' in it is killed by the heat. it has been proven to prevent mold in this book.. but a word of caution., if you nuke it more than once for whatever reason, dont nuke it again while its still hot or the tubberware will melt. only nuke for 5 minutes at a time.
 
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