Building my new Nepenthes habitat

[dboeren]

I should be able to bring the temp down a little bit by opening up the vent a bit wider, and humidity will go up once it's populated and I'm watering and misting. 40% is just sitting there empty. I can also add more water pans if I need to.

What do you think the temp should be at then? The pages I've been reading seem to say low to mid 80's is reasonable for a highland to intermediate habitat. I can get to low 80's without much trouble but dropping into the 70's will require some changes.

[Exo]

I should be able to bring the temp down a little bit by opening up the vent a bit wider, and humidity will go up once it's populated and I'm watering and misting. 40% is just sitting there empty. I can also add more water pans if I need to.

What do you think the temp should be at then? The pages I've been reading seem to say low to mid 80's is reasonable for a highland to intermediate habitat. I can get to low 80's without much trouble but dropping into the 70's will require some changes.

For HL plants....I'd go no higher than 83F....and thats only if you can get night temps around 65 or lower.

intermidiates can go up to 86F easilly, as long as night temps are about 70F

[dionae]

You could try hanging the lights over the terrarium. That way you'll have a gap between your light and your glass for air to circulate. Good luck and I can't wait to see it full of plants!

[dboeren]

Yes, nighttime temps have been measured at about 65 so that part should be OK.

I had hoped that the T5's would put off less heat than they do (they're advertised as putting off less heat than other type bulbs but it's still considerable). I can elevate them a little more of course which is an easy enough change to make. A little added height should do the trick to bring it down to the low 80's, I just need to find the right sized props to slip under the fixture.

Thanks for the advice.

[xvart]

Interesting DIY project here. You should consider using the price board lettering to list what plants are in it.

Personally (and don't take this as a condemnation of your efforts) but I don't think I would like using that as a terrarium/growing space due to having to look down on the plants and the lighting covering your viewing area. As much as I applaud the suggestions about architect-ing a pulley system for lights it just doesn't seem worth it to me, although it would be really cool.

The other thing you will want to consider is ventilation as air circulation might be a problem with a completely enclosed system. Maybe drill some holes in the side with some CPU fans that turn on and off every so often to circulate some fresh air?

Again, I applaud the creativity and efforts. Keep us posted.

xvart.

[dboeren]

That's exactly the idea with the menu board. I cleared off the right hand side of the board to make room for the species names and if I can't find my box of extra letters by the weekend I'll order another set.

The machine has a ventilation fan inside it already which is running, plus I keep the sliding glass doors on top vented about an inch or so. This should (I think) take care of the ventilation. If I notice any problems that seem to be related to airflow I can add an extra fan later but I don't expect any.

I do have to remove the light when I want to get inside, it's not that great an effort but it does prevent you from looking in simply by walking by. In a sense, you can see more looking down I think because a side view wouldn't be able to see the back sides of the plants. If things go well long-term I may expand and get a mini-greenhouse in the backyard but for now this is a reasonable place to start for me with a low overhead cost since I already had the Coke machine. My wife says I start too many hobbies so I didn't want to modify the house at all. For the same reason I won't be doing any hanging lights or pulley system.

After elevating the light fixture a little more the temp is running at 82-83 degrees and I added one more water pan. The water pan takes some time to start having an effect so I'll check the new humidity tomorrow but after a little misting of the one plant in there it was up around 53%.

[xvart]

The machine has a ventilation fan inside it already which is running, plus I keep the sliding glass doors on top vented about an inch or so. This should (I think) take care of the ventilation. If I notice any problems that seem to be related to airflow I can add an extra fan later but I don't expect any.

OH! Good to know. My apologize if I missed that part somewhere in the thread. That should be sufficient I would think.

I do have to remove the light when I want to get inside, it's not that great an effort but it does prevent you from looking in simply by walking by. In a sense, you can see more looking down I think because a side view wouldn't be able to see the back sides of the plants.

You make a good point about the vantage point that I had not thought of. When I had my grow rack I do recall being frustrated by the inability to see certain plants from the backside.

Oh, and great minds think alike with the label board, right?

xvart.

[dboeren]

One thing with the menu board, I'm going to want to avoid super-complex crosses as the names may not fit. Simple crosses should be fine, some 3-parent crosses are OK with short names, but any more than that and I'm definitely needing two lines.

I expect when I really want to examine my plants that will include lifting the pot out and it might be easier with them down low compared to if I had a fishtank on a shelf or something. We'll see. I'm new to this and a lot of ideas that sound good in your head may or may not work so great in practice.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to populating it as soon as I can find a good compromise of what I want to get and what I really ought to be spending on my first order.

I'm kind of leaning towards one red-pitcher plant, one dark-pitcher plant, and one spotted/speckled-pitcher plant. So maybe a ventricosa (or cross), a ramispina (or cross) and then some sort of spectabilis, maxima, etc... (or cross). Although, there are actually a lot more options for the speckled one too.