Hey, guys. I was wondering how many of you use terraria/growth chambers to keep the humidity high enough for your CP's. I saw someone had converted an old freezer to use as a highland Nep chamber.
I grow orchids, and don't yet have a greenhouse, and I found that findng aquaria big enough for my liking gets expensive in a hurry, and the sizes aren't usually what I want, as I live in a small house.
So, with my penchant for woodworking, I have been playing with building some custom grow chambers at a relatively inexpensive price. My first terrarium was built with plywood and marine epoxy paint, and is still doing well 3 years later (some inspiration from the ciclid growers I knew growing up--see plywood aquarium).
Well, I found that my original design was much heavier/more labor intensive than I think is necessary for a nice, effective terrarium, so I am in the process of building two nearly identical terraria that are front opening much like cabinets. For that matter, you could use this process to make cabinets into terraria. These tanks are made of 1/4 inch plywood with cleats along all edges for stability--super light weight but rigid. Only the top and front will have glass, and the inside gets 3-4 coats of marine epoxy paint from here: Budget Bob's marine epoxy paint.
I'm thinking about putting together a little step by step once I have these up and running and see that they work as well as my old terrarium, but I see no reason why this won't work. The biggest expense is the $60 for the gallon of marine epoxy paint, and you can make almost any size tank you can imagine. My first tank used marine epoxy to glue all joints, but these new ones are using polyurethane glue (like Gorilla Glue), which is cheaper and easier to use. We'll see how it goes, but I think this could be great!
Does anyone else have any experience with making plywood CP tanks?
I grow orchids, and don't yet have a greenhouse, and I found that findng aquaria big enough for my liking gets expensive in a hurry, and the sizes aren't usually what I want, as I live in a small house.
So, with my penchant for woodworking, I have been playing with building some custom grow chambers at a relatively inexpensive price. My first terrarium was built with plywood and marine epoxy paint, and is still doing well 3 years later (some inspiration from the ciclid growers I knew growing up--see plywood aquarium).
Well, I found that my original design was much heavier/more labor intensive than I think is necessary for a nice, effective terrarium, so I am in the process of building two nearly identical terraria that are front opening much like cabinets. For that matter, you could use this process to make cabinets into terraria. These tanks are made of 1/4 inch plywood with cleats along all edges for stability--super light weight but rigid. Only the top and front will have glass, and the inside gets 3-4 coats of marine epoxy paint from here: Budget Bob's marine epoxy paint.
I'm thinking about putting together a little step by step once I have these up and running and see that they work as well as my old terrarium, but I see no reason why this won't work. The biggest expense is the $60 for the gallon of marine epoxy paint, and you can make almost any size tank you can imagine. My first tank used marine epoxy to glue all joints, but these new ones are using polyurethane glue (like Gorilla Glue), which is cheaper and easier to use. We'll see how it goes, but I think this could be great!
Does anyone else have any experience with making plywood CP tanks?