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Honzo's Texas Highland Tank Build

Hamata-Honzo

Hamata-Honzo

Hey Plant Bois
Haven't made a post here in a while. Earlier I had made a thread monitoring my outdoor Texas mini bog progress. Let me give you the final update now: FLOP. As a matter of fact, most of all my attempts to grow these plants have been just that: big old flops. I have owned several plants without the means to grow them and I have gotten tired of killing stuff. So I thought I'd do it right for once.

This is the Chilling system parts. Im going to circulate cold water to a radiator w/ fan inside an exoterra tank (S/O Vraev for his inspirational build). the chiller is 1/10 HP and the controller gets down to 32 Degrees farenheit. It's largely oversized for my water volume so I can hedge my bets that the heat exchange is sufficient to drop the air to the low 60s/high 50s.

Chiller testing.jpg

Tomorrow I'm going to pick up a temp probe, a stand for the terrarium (I have it already in the garage), some 1/2" tubing and a 1/2" fitting for the pump. I also bought some glass drill-bits and a drill guide for putting some holes in the side of the tank to run the inlet/outlet chiller lines through.

Will update soon. Would appreciate any critical input to the design. I'll post "Blueprints" tomorrow.
 
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Bit of a hiccup, the compressor wouldn't start. I guess claims of 'New, without Box' basically means 'does not work.' Should be getting in a brand new chiller this friday.
still need a nice-enough stand to fit the tank.
I have decided I'm probably going to put a piece of glass on the top and rill two holes in it to run the chiller lines through. I just dont want to risk drilling the main.
 
Good luck, trying to fight the local conditions can't be easy, especially in Texas. I don't have much in the way of advice but one thing that could be useful is one of those magnetic algae scrapers that they use to keep fish tanks clean. Something like that would probably make maintenance a bit easier once you have the tank populated.
 
Thanks moss!

I replaced the chiller and the new one chilled the reservoir to 45 degrees in about half an hour.

Does anyone have experience with repurposing aquarium LED with CP? I have two Kessil A360w tuna blue and one Kessil A360we tuna blue and would love to use these if they will be enough spectrum wise (I'll adjust them to majority white light). I know the horticulture lights by kessil work well, but these are the strong aquarium ones. Please say yes lol, I don't want to buy another light but I want red plants.
 
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Long overdue update (I post mostly on flytrapcare forum now) Just gotta add plants!
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Great job. I am glad I was able to inspire someone. My chiller is currently down. I ran into a lot of plants dying as well. However, there may be a multitude of reasons for this. I also wasn't very happy with my chiller setup. It used to cycle on and off constantly. I turned it off around November of 2017 and bought a brand new pump that has been sitting around since then. lol. I need to improve the cooling system with a bigger reservoir, better insulation and make the system a lot more streamlined/aesthetically pleasing.
 
Hamata-Honzo said:
Thanks moss!

I replaced the chiller and the new one chilled the reservoir to 45 degrees in about half an hour.

Does anyone have experience with repurposing aquarium LED with CP? I have two Kessil A360w tuna blue and one Kessil A360we tuna blue and would love to use these if they will be enough spectrum wise (I'll adjust them to majority white light). I know the horticulture lights by kessil work well, but these are the strong aquarium ones. Please say yes lol, I don't want to buy another light but I want red plants.
Click to expand...

I do not use those particular LED, but I do use aquarium LED exclusively for my plants. All my tanks now run on ecotech fixtures.

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From what I have "read", Kessil's are pretty good. They will give you the blue and red ends and given that they are reef fixtures, you will have the UV end of the spectrum as well. Most of our plants "should" be okay. personally though, I would add in a DIY fixture or something using perhaps a rapidLED system to add "white" led to your setup. Then you should be set lighting wise. The kessils are crazy powerful. I think you have to turn them down to prevent excessive light form retarding the growth of your plants.
 
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Great post Honzo! I have been looking for quite some time for someone who has attempted using an Aquarium Chiller and a radiator/fan to cool a terrarium. Can you please post a material list of components and maybe some more specs on how well you are able to cool your terrarium? What size Eco Terra did you settle on and how cool can you get it down to in there at night with the chiller running? Any more recent pics? This setup looks sooo cool!!
 
vraev said:
Great job. I am glad I was able to inspire someone. My chiller is currently down. I ran into a lot of plants dying as well. However, there may be a multitude of reasons for this. I also wasn't very happy with my chiller setup. It used to cycle on and off constantly. I turned it off around November of 2017 and bought a brand new pump that has been sitting around since then. lol. I need to improve the cooling system with a bigger reservoir, better insulation and make the system a lot more streamlined/aesthetically pleasing.
Click to expand...

Hey Vraev, I stumbled upon your post and was curious if you could direct me to the thread where you talk about your cooling system that Honzo referenced above as his inspiration for his system. Much thanks!
 
  • #10
vraev said:
Great job. I am glad I was able to inspire someone. My chiller is currently down. I ran into a lot of plants dying as well. However, there may be a multitude of reasons for this. I also wasn't very happy with my chiller setup. It used to cycle on and off constantly. I turned it off around November of 2017 and bought a brand new pump that has been sitting around since then. lol. I need to improve the cooling system with a bigger reservoir, better insulation and make the system a lot more streamlined/aesthetically pleasing.
Click to expand...

Apologize for late reply, I actually ran into the cycling on and off dilemma. Fortunately, I had a leftover APEX reef controller that I used for everything (Total lifesaver) that allows me to set a "minimum off time." basically it gets the water temperature down to a certain point (checked by the probe), and then is controlled to remain off for a minimum of 40 minutes before it can start chilling again. Thankfully all this equipment was left at my disposal from my earlier (and somewhat of a failure) of a reefing interest, LOL.
 
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  • #11
Mad_Pleuro said:
Great post Honzo! I have been looking for quite some time for someone who has attempted using an Aquarium Chiller and a radiator/fan to cool a terrarium. Can you please post a material list of components and maybe some more specs on how well you are able to cool your terrarium? What size Eco Terra did you settle on and how cool can you get it down to in there at night with the chiller running? Any more recent pics? This setup looks sooo cool!!
Click to expand...

I really need to check this forum more often... I will definitely get some pics up, quite a few plants in there now. As to components, the system is comprised of a chiller, tubing, a PC radiator, PC fans, and a water pump w/ reservoir. Its quite simple: the chilled water (50 degrees F) is pumped to the radiator where fans recirculate terraria air across the fins, allowing for heat exchange. This gets the temps down to around 56F. I have the XL Large Tall Exo.

I appreciate the compliments!
 
  • #12
That’s great news Hamata-Honzo! I can’t wait to see the pics! What kind of chiller and computer radiator are you using?
 
  • #13
Cool! I'm really interested in reading people's methods to cooling indoor growing areas lately. I too am excited to see your updates!
Andrew
 
  • #14
Plant Group Shot 1.jpg
First Group Shot! (Sorry for the tiny preview, I'll find a way to blow them up).
 
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Mad_Pleuro said:
That’s great news Hamata-Honzo! I can’t wait to see the pics! What kind of chiller and computer radiator are you using?
Click to expand...

The Chiller is a 1/10 JBJ. the PC radiator is a standard 240mm one that I found off Amazon.
 
  • #16
Awesome shot! Hey can we see some shots of the system? I’m curious how ran all the tubing and settings for the chiller.
 
  • #19
Haven't updated in a while but let me tell ya, it's shaping up nicely!
I have since ditched the Kessil (got tired of blurple) and just set up some led bars. I've since gotten amazing results.
The growlist is as follows. I will post pics soon!

N. hamata (clone 3) AW
N. hamata 'red-hairy' SG
N. Edwardsiana 'red' SG x2
N. Edwardsiana 'yellow' SG
N. villosa SG x2
N. inermis AW
N. mollis AW
N. rajah BE
N. macrophylla AW
N. aristolochioides
N. sp. nov. Papua New Guinea
N. veitchii 'murud-stripe' x 'candy-stripe'
N. sibuyanensis x ventricosa
N. ventricosa x inermis
N. spectabilis x bokorensis
N. veitchii x platychila

Heliamphora chimantensis
Heliamphora exappendiculata
Heliamphora ciliata
 
  • #20
hah yeah at some point even wonderful growth results arent worth the blurple. love my full spectrum white.

pretty elite group you have assembled, look forward to seeing how far they have come :)
 
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