Best way to heat LL nep chamber?

[adrian]

I have to move my lowland nep chamber to the basement, and am wondering the most efficient and economical way to heat it. It's not terribly cold down there, but not warm enough. Thanks!

 

[Taliesin-DS]

Mine is heated by my lights and ballast.
Chamber is 65 gallon and insulated at back, top and bottom.
2x 55 watt lighting.
Outside temp 20ish, inside 30ish. (celcius)

 

[Frilleon]

If you are using a fish tank. You can fill the bottom with water. Enough to submerge a fish tank heater in. You'll have to guess how much water is there to know what size heater you will need. You can dial up/down the heater until you find the right temp you are looking for.

 

[BigBella]

When I was actively growing lowlanders, I used an adhesive reptile heating mat with a thermostat, attached to the bottom of the chamber; and that worked like a dream, coupled with the usual lighting and timers. The advantage with that method is not having to depend upon an immersion heater with the inherent possibility of the water source drying out . . .

 

[Taargus]

It depends on what your chamber is constructed from, as glass doesn't make good insulation. However, I have a glass 150 gal. tank used for Lowlands that does get and stay warm enough with just the lights on top and water in the bottom. A fan inside the tank, under the lights (separated by glass) blows the hot air off the lights and around the tank. This is enough by itself to keeps the temps warm, but it's a very wide tank with 2 48" shop light fixtures, and a 24" coralife fixture resulting in a total of 6 bulbs. If something like that still isn't enough you could go with a submersible heater if your tank or a reptile mat as Frilleon or BigBella said.

 

[rattler]

If you are using a fish tank. You can fill the bottom with water. Enough to submerge a fish tank heater in. You'll have to guess how much water is there to know what size heater you will need. You can dial up/down the heater until you find the right temp you are looking for.

i would not recommend that......forget to fill it up and it all evaporates the fish heater is wrecked.....rather use a reptile heating mat that attatches to the bottom of the tank or that the tank just sits on.....since the heater is never in the water there are no issues....

 

[Taargus]

Many submersible heaters will shut off automatically when out of water and restart automatically when they are re-submerged for that exact reason. If you go that route just make sure you buy one with this feature is all. Either way you are still spending probably between $20-$40.

Has anyone used both the aquarium heater and a heating pad and can make a comparison? I wonder if the pad will work as well as an aquarium heater, seeing how it's not really made to heat water?

 

[Frilleon]

Yeah I would assume both will work. I would expect the water heater to be more efficent since you don't have to heat up the glass, also if used without a thermostat the mat will run 24-7. Also should mention that the reptile heat mats are not ment to be used with fish tanks (something holding water). They all have warnings about it. The heat mat runs much hotter the the fish tank heater. I think it's really your preference which one you use.

 

[Dodge]

Depends on the size, But I have used a warm mist type (boils the water) humidifier, keept it hot and steamy just how L/L Neps like it

 

[philcula]

There are a number of excellent heat mats available for horticultural use. They come in many different sizes. Some even have metal grids that the plant trays sit on top of and the heat is evenly distributed across the entire plant tray/tank. The one I was using..when I was growing petiolaris type sundews, was 4 feet long by 2 feet wide. This unit was plenty big enough for several tanks of varying lowland genera. It had a thermostat that could be set anywhere from 70 to 90 degrees F.

You just have to make sure that the mat istelf is placed on an insulated surface. In my greenhouse I just placed a large piece of Reflectix silver bubble insulation material down first and then set the mat on top of it. You can get this stuff at lots of hardware stores.

 

[jafvortex93]

not trying to hijack but would having the water in the bottom of the tank and just using it to kinda circulate the heat created from the lamps work inversely at night to get night time drops for H/L?

 

[Taargus]

Probably not unless it is in a cold room. For me the temps stay high (about 70F) all night. Which is a cool down, but never below room temperature. And thats only because the lights are off. You would need a way to vent the heat if it gets hot enough and even then the water will never cool below whatever the room temperature is. And it will take time to cool the water if it gets warm during the day too. Adding ice or something to cool the water might work well enough depending on the temps you are getting already.

 

[jafvortex93]

well i have a portable a/c unit pumping air into my 50 gallon tank all day so the temps (depending on how i cover the top) are around 83-86 daytime and 70-73 nighttime and daytime 65% humidity and nighttime is 80+. so would the water serve to help the a/c in effectively cooling the tank down a bit more?

 

[Taargus]

I have no idea if a/c will do much to water especially if your temps are that high in general, unless you could vent the cold air in through the water? You should insulate the tank, as that is hot for something being air conditioned. That being said, the addition of some water may bring your humidity up and combat a bit of the dry the a/c brings in, but water alone won't solve your temp problems.

 

[jbradt]

The other, and bigger problem with fish-tank heaters is that if they dry out, they have been known to crack the glass on tanks. I'm a member of an aquarium forum as well, and there have been several threads in the last few months about auto-shutoffs failing, and general disaster with heaters. I wouldn't trust it for this application personally.