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highland terrarium question

SirKristoff

SirKristoff

so basically at nights my terrarium gets down to the mid 60s
but i heard Rajah likes it in the 50s.
so i moved my entire terrarium over to my window which i pretty much always leave opened, took off the mylar on the backside so it gets some sun from there
not too much sun as its a west window and there are 2 big pines in the way.
but i figured the cold air coming into the window might help cool it down more as the back of the terrarium is very close to the window.
on average the day temps are mid 70s to the low 80s
nights usually got to mid to upper 60s
i personally love the cold, so the open window is no problem. but do you think it will help?
Here is the Rajah
it looks a bit bleh right now
hopefully it recovers nicely
Terrariumupdateforhighlandneps002.jpg

and here is the terrarium now.
Terrariumupdateforhighlandneps003.jpg
 
There you go, SirK. Back on topic.

xvart.
 
I thought like villosa, rajah likes 40's. I'm also having trouble cooling it under 60 at night.
 
In Atlanta, it is hard to get night temps under 75f in the summer. Once I move into my dorm room at UGA, I will set up a lowland terrerium in a 150 gallon tank I got for my birthday. I got a single person room that is fairly large (for a dorm), so I think I can pull it off.
 
...people please stay on topic with the question.
 
I think that it might be able to cool it down a little bit. It kind of depends because you can always try putting it on the floor where air is the coldest, but having cold air flowing in at the terrarium might do it. Though, why did you mention what I think is what wisdom teeth can do when this is a thread on you N. rajah?
 
oh xvart accidentally combined my thread cause someone asked about wisdom teeth being pulled.
 
lol so as a desperate attempt to help cool it down i put an icepack in the terrarium as close to the plant as i could without it coming too close to the plant. that and a cup of ice. hopefully it helps cool it down...
 
  • #10
Is the plant growing? Is it making deformed leaves, smaller leaves, yellow leaves or no pitchers? If not, then why are you worrying? Plants are adaptable. If the plant looks happy, is growing happily, and looks normal, it probably is happy. No need to change things just because it's happy with conditions that 'should' be 'less than ideal'

A grower once told me: 'after 8 generations of plants in cultivation, the conditions the plant expects to have to adapt to and live in change. '
It may not be true, but it certainly explains a lot if it is. Find a situation your plant is happy in, and when you find one, leave it there. Give it four weeks at least to try and adjust to each new situation, and if that situation doesn't work, try another.

However, if the plant is not happy, I would suggest moving any unused pots or cups of water etc. out of the tank, because they store energy from the day and release it at night. Could you perhaps supplement with some sort of small fan, or else use ice. Another thing could be to wrap the pots of the plants in reflective material, so they do not absorb the heat and therefore release no heat at night. If the terrarium is warm when there is no lighting or heating, that is why, because stored heat is being released.

If you have problems with heat in the day, try adding a reflective flooring. Greenhouse's work because the light (and the heat which is attached to the light) come in and warm the ground, then, the warmed up ground heats the air, the hot air rises, but it's trapped, so the greenhouse heats up. The other cause for heating is because the infra-red rays which warm up the air inside travel in easily, but find it hard to exit.
This means if you can reflect some of the unused light which would heat the ground back out of the tank, you may be able to reduce the heat a little.

Another thing to do would be to use white pots, or china pots (glazed ceramic) which also do not absorb as much heat.

If you're going to use ice, try putting it on a flat surface the air easily reaches. Putting the ice so it touches both the tank wall and ground would be good, so it transfers cool to both places, and therefore there is twice as much cool surface area to cool the air. It will also use up the ice pack faster though, so more than one pack may be needed. If you are using ice, make sure to block all holes, because you want to keep the cool air in the tank, because preferably you're trying to keep the tank cooler than the air outside it.

Air is also a poor conductor, so you could try wrapping the pots in bubble wrap, or adding a layer of bubble wrap to the floor of the terrarium, which would hopefully reduce the absorption of heat by the pots themselves.

Hopefully that helps. I don't know if all the ideas will, but you can try experimenting.
 
  • #11
the plant just arrived -_- so i dont know.
does it look alright to you in that picture?
 
  • #12
Kat, thats some pretty solid advice and some things I definitely did not ever think to put together...
awesome. i'll be writing some of those down somewhere :)
Thanks for the advice even for the people who are just watching these threads
 
  • #13
Sirkristoff, it actually looks perfectly fine to me, it just looks like a healthy plant that's had a rough trip. Give it a chance to settle in, and then you'll know, but for now, treat it like you'd treat a healthy plant.
 
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