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Terrarium cooler

I am considering turning my 4'x3'x2.5' tank into a highland tank. I have been looking around for small AC units for nocturnal cooling. I found this relatively cheap and small portable swamp cooler:
http://www.air-conditioner-home.com/product/SF608R.aspx
This would be used in conjunction with a ultrasonic humidifier. Does anyone see any problems with using this cooling unit? Any better options? If this is the case...and I do end up converting my tank, I may have some LARGE neps for sale ;) Thanks for any input,
David
 
Not sure. It says "works great in under 50% humidity"-what does it mean by that? Will it croak in humid conditions?
I am very intriged, if anybody has any answers.

Cheers,

Joe
 
Griffin,
I am pretty sure they mean "it works great under50% humidity" because since it is a swamp cooler and works off of evaporiative cooling the less humidty in the air it sucks in means more heat can be dissipated as evaporated water...if that makes sense. And since I would use it indoors, as I expect anyone would with a terrarium this shouldnt be a problem. My house is usually at most 50% humidity...depending on the season. But it really does look like a great way to cool down a tank, it is small and doesnt use much energy. Anyone else have any input? ow about you Swords? If you are around, you seem to have this type of setup down pat.
 
Swamp coolers usually only work in the southwest low-humidity areas because they only cool when the water evaporates. I've yet to hear of any successful installations in the mid-atlantic states.

If you're planning on using this inside and you have a/c for your house, you will significantly increase the load. Your house a/c will spend some of it's energy removing the excess moisture in the air that your swamp cooler is putting there.

These are just my quick thoughts and can be / should be over-ruled by anyone w/ direct experience.
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I see what you are saying Ron, however if the swamp cooler had a duct directly into the closed terrarium, the newly moistened/cooled air would be present inside, and not in the rest of the house. And about the humidity, I am speaking for myself when I say that most houses here have dehumidifiers and the humidty inside the house is never above 60%. But thats just us north carolinians. However some like it more moist than others ;).
Oh, and the one flaw that I have found with this unit is that it has a relatively small water tank, meaning you would be constantly replenishing it every day...or every other day depending on the amount of cooling. Arrrggg why cant I just have a huge underground basement with perfect humidity and low temps lol
 
I live in the south west and swamp coolers are very common... AC is a major bonus!! Not a nessesety (except about 2 months out of the year durring monsoons when the swamp coolers DON'T work)
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(not really the portable ones... lol) Understand swamp coolers work by air displacment also. AC recirculates your air... Constantly removing the heat. (that's all AC does... removes heat) While with swamp coolers or "evaporative cooler" it takes outside air runs it through pads that are drenched... the water evaporating cools the air.. and in your house, you must have windows and doors open for the old air to go out... I once had window "swamp cooler" that i used when i was an auto tech, i just set it on the bench outside and it directed the cool air on me. I took it to my girlfriends house (now wife) when her cooler was broken and just set it in her room... All this does is HUMIDIFIES!! YES it will humidify your room... unless you have "exhaust" set up on the tank to blow that humid air outside.... It would not make your AC work harder to remove the water... Because your AC doesn't run to "remove humidity" it is a by product. BUT you're house will feel warmer because of the humidity content. Also, the temp drop through evap cooling is not that great... Exp at already cool temps. You can expect 8-28 degree drop depending on pretemperaure/humidity level etc...
Bottom line, I would say it WILL NOT work in a terrerium without lots of work... And I'm not sure you can get a big enough temp drop for it to be a highlander tank....
Hope that helps
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Andrew
 
Additional information from wikpedia...

"Performance

Understanding evaporative cooling performance requires an understanding of psychrometrics. Evaporative cooling performance is dynamic due to changes in external temperature and humidity level. Under typical operating conditions, an evaporative cooler will nearly always deliver air cooler than 80 °Fahrenheit (27 °Celsius). A typical residential swamp cooler in good working order should cool air to within 6°F - 8°F (3°C - 4°C) of the wet bulb temperature.

Some rough examples clarify this relationship.

* At 90 °F (32 °C) and 15% relative humidity, air may be cooled to nearly 60 °F (16 °C).
* At 90 °F (32 °C) and 50% relative humidity, air may be cooled to about 75 °F (24 °C).
* At 105 °F (40 °C) and 15% relative humidity, air may be cooled to nearly 70 ° (21 °C).

Because swamp coolers perform best in dry conditions, they are widely used and most effective in arid, desert regions such as the southwestern USA and northern Mexico."

"wet bulb" is refering to the coolest temperature the air can be cooled by a evaporative cooling....
 
awesome, thanks for all that info andrew, it was very helpful indeed! So I will get rid of that idea. I knew that little evaporative cooler was too good to be true
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. Basically I want some type of air conditioner that is relatively cheap that I can hook up to the terrarium with a humidifier as well. I would like not to have to get a window unit, but thats all I can find. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Thanks all for your insight
 
  • #10
Okay, after reading what other people have done I think I may just have it. Im scratching the use of an AC unit and going with a chest freezer. Instead of just taking the top off and putting glass on I was thinking of building a terrarium frame of sorts that fits ontop of the chest. That way you could see the plants and get in there easily, as well as make it much taller than just the inside of the chest freezer. this also means that I could place a thermostat in the upper part of the frame, not having to drill into the chest freezer. I figure if I had a fan on the bottom of the freezer blowing cool air up would be enough to circulate the cool air. Okay, I hope that isnt too confusing, I dont see why this wouldnt work. Any input?
 
  • #11
Dunno if these are big issues but off the top of my head...

You will lose the insulating features of the chest freezer by removing the top and building your terrarium over it. Dunno if that is a problem for the unit running longer to keep the set temperature. Would increase operational expenses at least compared to putting a top on and using in that manner.

Condensation may be a problem on the outside of your terrarium? Guess that would depend how cold you have it set inside and the humidity on the outside..

Interesting idea though.
 
  • #12
I posted a setup from a guy who has a cool growing vivarium from the orchid source forum.  He uses a chest type freezer below his setup.  When the temps get too high air is pumped into the freezer from inside the vivarium and back into the vivarium after it has cooled.  Everything grows up top in a seperate area than the freezer, but there are two vents one piped in and one piped out of the freezer to drop the temps in the vivarium.  If your interested in his setup I saved a copy of the thread and his plans.
 
  • #13
AHH ok Josh I gotcha.  So basically the terrarium is sitting on top of the closed chest freezer.  With ductwork and a blower set on a thermostat connecting the chamber and the freezer. That is kind of a nifty idea too.

What kind of temps does he maintain in the grow chamber and how often does the freezer run?  I would imagine with good lighting and a somewhat warm room the air is exchanged on a regular basis.

Tony
 
  • #14
Well, he grows Masdivallias in his case along with other cool growing orchids.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I have been asked to explain how my vivarium with integrated cooling system works.

I have done many trials with different solutions to integrate the possability to cool the vivarium for cool growing species. Here is my final solution and the one that works absolutely best according to me.

I use a standard freezer (the one you use under benches). In Sweden the cost for one is about $260. I cut two holes in the side of it and connected two ventilation tubes and connected to the vivarium. In one of the ends in the freezer i mounted a PC-fan and connected that one to the thermostat. The thermostat tells the fan to start when to cool and sucks down warm air in the freezer and on the same time push cold air up to the vivarium until the temperature is at the set value.

The thermostat i use here is a kind that allows me to set 2 different values. One for the night and the other for the day. And also when the day and the night temp is to begin.
The freezer work for itself on its own cycle and works just a bit more than a usual freezer.

The biggest advantage of this solution is that you don't need anything in the viv. Just 2 holes in the bottom (wich you can hide with plants).
You need to defrost the freezer every third week.
I therefore built a special container in the bottom of the freezer to easyer do that. The water from the defrosting ends up by a small pipe in the same container i use for the rain system.

During daytime the temp is set to 19 C (66 F)and at night down to 12 C (53 F.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]You have assumed everything perfect. The Macrolon (Lexan) is just 1 mm thick(dont know that it in inch)and wrapped around the structure.
The vertical strip in front is a reinforcement of the sheet and a handle to have something to grab when opening and so on. If I had done that today I would have used a piece of thick Macrolon instead of wood.
The light set-up is a 150 W Metalhalide projector to the fiber optic system. Thats the small spots you see. I compensated the cold light from the metalhalide with 2 halogen lights 35W.
The light in the viv is fairly strong as you said.
But the benefit with fiber optics is that you don't have any heat from it at all.

 I want to build one when I get the time and money to do so.  His setup is not a cheap one, but its the only one I would build.  Since it looks nice and able to keep his plants cool.  Unlike just a freezer where it may grow the plants good, but doesn't make for a nice presentation.  This guys setup is perfect for any living room and still does its job.  You would no even know the freezer part is there unless he told you.  By the way he has it build.  You have to see the pictures to understand.  It is VERY NICE.

If I were doing it the only thing different would be to add a larger fan or maybe a couple of fans to pull the air through the freezer, and I would put deviders in the freezer to keep the air in the freezer longer than just in and out.  Kinda make it go up and down inside the freezer a few times rather than just in and then back out.  Thats why you would need a larger fan or an additional fan sice you have the increased area inside the freezer to push air through.

Here is the link to the topic. Cool Vivarium
 
  • #15
You might try using several petier junction plates. I'd wire 'em into the top of the tank, , slap CPU heat sinks on both sides, and maybe jury rig a duct and a pie-fan to blow over both sides (to dissipate the cool and the hot air, respectively.)

As an added bonus, you can use these to heat the tanks, too, simply by reversing the direction of the current through the plates.
 
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