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Highland terrarium planning

  • Thread starter Matthewp
  • Start date
I'm planning to build a highland terrarium for my plant room/home office. Right now I have some highland nepenthes down in a closet in my basement. It gets down to 45/55 in the winter/summer, but it's hard to get the plants above 60 during the winter days. The plants seem pretty happy enough down there but the whole purpose of having the plants is the admire them, not hide them down in the basement, so I want to bring them upstairs.

I'll use a 50-100 gallon tank depend what I find on craigslist.

I've been look at using a 1/10 hp chiller link.

I'm not sure what size of a pump I need. This pump link comes as 160gph and 40gph. I'd appreciate advice on which size to choose.

For cooling I am hopping I could just circulate a couple of inches of water around the bottom of the terrarium under the plants. Would that transfer enough heat or will I need a true radiator?

Also how should I maintain the correct water level in the bottom of the terrarium? I not excited about trying to drill holes in the side of the terrarium.

For lighting I'll just use shop lights, and I have a MistKing for supplemental humidity. I'll control the system with the raspberry pi that I have controlling my lowland and intermediate setups.

I'd really appreciate any advice on my proposed cooling setup.
Thanks,
Matthew
 
I’m a bit confused, you say the winter summer temps are 45/55 degrees F and highs of ~60 F? Are you sure you are not looking for a heater and not a chiller? My highland neps get 72-76 degrees F during the day and cool to about 58-62 F at night.
 
You are correct, heating is also important but I grow a lot of lowland plants and I'm not concerned about this. If I can can get the cooling system working I can move the system upstairs and then the system will be at 70 degrees during the day. So its really the cooling I need help with.

Thanks,
Matthew

I’m a bit confused, you say the winter summer temps are 45/55 degrees F and highs of ~60 F? Are you sure you are not looking for a heater and not a chiller? My highland neps get 72-76 degrees F during the day and cool to about 58-62 F at night.
 
So you want to grow the highlands upstairs where your lowlands are so they are more viewer friendly so to speak but can’t achieve the low temps up there? I think I understand now! Yes cooling is tough. I am in the process of making a super highland tank. I am building it from a refrigerator with a glass door. I couldn’t think of any other way to make it other than buying an air conditioner for the whole room or using a refrigerator so refrigerator it is. I was lost for ideas until I procured the fridge. In the winter time it’s easy enough to pull air from outside. Summer time I need artificial cooling for sure. Just an idea to consider. Also if you could always get a condensing unit from a refrigerator and build your own enclosure, but that is a lot of work, esp. if you aren’t familiar with hvac type systems
 
What fridge did you end up going with?

Thanks,
Matthew

So you want to grow the highlands upstairs where your lowlands are so they are more viewer friendly so to speak but can’t achieve the low temps up there? I think I understand now! Yes cooling is tough. I am in the process of making a super highland tank. I am building it from a refrigerator with a glass door. I couldn’t think of any other way to make it other than buying an air conditioner for the whole room or using a refrigerator so refrigerator it is. I was lost for ideas until I procured the fridge. In the winter time it’s easy enough to pull air from outside. Summer time I need artificial cooling for sure. Just an idea to consider. Also if you could always get a condensing unit from a refrigerator and build your own enclosure, but that is a lot of work, esp. if you aren’t familiar with hvac type systems
 
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