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Highland tank

If I take tap water ice cubes and put them in a cup and put them in the tank well evaporation take place and make the melted ice which is made out of tap water be on the leafs and damage the plants a little?
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That would work fine as long as the cup doesn't get tipped over to spill water on to your plants.  Plastic bottles with screw on caps might be safer if there is a chance of it being tipped over and the water getting on to your plants.  Just don't fill it completely full before freezeing it.
 
My design is like no other so I have ll my plantsin pots and they are high like 4inches away fromthe grow lights and i will put like3 cups on the bottom so if it spills itwill spill into the peat moss and perlite that i am using to have my plants stand o to be closer to the lights. Yopu will see my pics of my GH and tank later in the summar.
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I am putting ice cubes into cubes and going to put them into the highland tank. Then tomorow i will try the bottle thing.
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Has anyone tried putting the entire tank in a tub of ice water to cool the tank at night? I grow my plants in the basement which so far has provided the cooling I need.

I'm currious what people who don't grow in thier basement do for cooling. I guess you could put a window air conditioner in the room with your tank and duct the cool air into the tanks.

Anyone have any experience with what works for them?

Glenn
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I use a cheap A/C unit from walmart, no more ice cubes or bottles of ice, much easier.

joe
 
I do have a A/C but I am going to try to find out how to make the A/C high enough so the cool are well get into the tank.
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Just a caution on using AC. It will dry the air out that it cools so you will need to re-humidify the air as it enters your terrarium. Cold, dry air is great for preserving Andean mummies, but not so great for most CPs.
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Keep in mind that an A/C unit is designed to suck the moisture out of the air it cools. So you will be pumping very dry air into your terrarium. The best solution I could come up with for this is to have the output from an ultrasonic humifier hooked into the pipe coming from the A/C unit before it enters the tank. Ideally you could also install a humidistat near the tank inlet to control the ultrasonic humidifier to run only when the A/C unit is running and the moisture level is low. OR to have the A/C air blown through a humidifying wetpad before it hits the terrarium.

Swords has rigged up something like the humidistat/ultrasonic humidifier deal so would have some good ideas on how to do it.

Tony
 
  • #10
Tony, the one thing i would say is that i am toying around with that idea and i have to have the ultrasonic turn of and off during the day because the humidity drops to low in the highland tank. so having it hooked up to the window unit isn't really a good idea. have it on it's own curcuit since the a/c doesn't need to run during the day all the time like it does at night.
 
  • #11
I think people have an extreamly distorted view on how humid these things should be. I have a hard time believing that an enclosed system would ever need a humidifier running. Now if your system has outside air entering for venting is not almost totally closed for some other reason then this is a different situation.

Perhaps what you are experiencing is humidity drop as temperatures warm up during the day.. this is natural and completely fine as far as the plants are concerned. Regardless if you feel you still need a humidifier in the main terrarium to maintain humidity within that area. You will still need to rehumidify the A/C cooled air before it hits the terrarium. You think you have a humidity drop now during the day as the temperature warms up.. wait till you start pumping in a couple hundred cubic feet of cool air at 20% relative humidity.. The in tank humidifier will not be able to mix and adjust this incoming air fast enough IMO.

I suggest you talk to Swords who had a set up like this with an multiple in tank humidifiers and tried running the A/C air directly in without rehumidifying.

Tony
 
  • #12
actually i have to keep it humid and not let it drop below 80% during the day because of some of the cloud forest orchids that i'm growing in the tank. the only problem i'm having right now is the temp only gets down to 56F 14C at night it has hit 50F but, only once. from what i can tell the plants have ajusted to the condtions cause they are still pitchering and growing.

if Josh wants to commet on this i'm all ears
 
  • #13
What if I take a cloth and wet it with distilled water and have the fan put on high and blow into the wet cloth?
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  • #14
If you use a small 10 dollar water pump to keep the cloth wet that might work. I find it easier to use an ultrasonic on an autotimer, just less hassle. Also people depending on your AC unit and setup, the water removed from the air will need to drain out of the AC unit, perhaps into a bucket.

Tony, what do you consider safe humidity levels? I find that I'm really overdoing the humidity but I'm not sure how low to let it go. My lowland room is enclosed but it has several true lowlanders such as N Amp that I'm afraid of harming should I try experimenting with shutting off the humidifier.

Thanks,
Joe
 
  • #15
I am only going to be using the A/C during the day and it will blow agains the tank. I foundit better to use cups of Tap water ice. Today I had 3 cups of ice in the 35gallon tank and it cooled down to 57*F that great. And when the ice melted it was still cooled and it didn't evaporate, because ther wasn't any water in the leafs of the neps. But the humdidty still stayed and it was 81%.
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  • #16
35 gallon tank...you must be using some large cups.

joe
 
  • #17
One small party cup An a big paty cup and a water bottle 28oz frozen andth cups filled with ice.
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  • #18
Hi,

I just wrote to another post that runs along with this tpic. Do you guys/gals need to use a extra fan when you use the ultrasonic? My units have good fans on them. Is it enough air movement? Also I could put ice in the well. (In a bottle I think.) For when heat is needed - There are pipe coils on clearance. They are 18' long. I wonder if they would warm the tank enough if wrapped around the outside. I could place a temp monitor that could shut it down if the temp went above the desired. What do you think?
 
  • #19
Way too complex. you shouldnt need more than the heat provided by your lights.
 
  • #20
Normally no, but my plant room is in the basement, in an unheated room. In the spring, summer and early fall it will be fine, but even now it is dropping to thirty in there. We are still having some days of temps in the thirties here. Luckily it is not dropping very much further at night. I will not use the wire when the temp accomodates. In the winter the room receives some heat from the water pipes and under the door from the adjacent room, but even with the lights it is not going to be enough. I have checked with just the lights and it is not warm enough some of the cps. I have done this with Bonsai sprouts and it worked there. I have more concern with the humidty and enough light.
 
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