Building my new Nepenthes habitat

[dboeren]

I've been thinking of the best way to raise my new Nepenthes collection that I'll be working on, and I think I just came up with a killer idea.

First, I need to a way to keep the humidity up, which generally suggests a relatively sealed environment.

Second, I need a way to provide light. My wife doesn't want me to hang ugly fluorescent tubes around the house so it has to to look nice or be unobtrusive.

Third, it needs adequate room.

Originally, I was looking at fishtank solutions. A lot of people do these and they work. I've got a 40 gallon breeder that's unoccupied, but I'd need to buy a top, lights, and probably some sort of stand. Also, that's not all that big.

I also considered a mini-greenhouse (the bookshelf kind). This would have to go outside though and I'd rather have my collection where I can view it and not deal with outdoor pests and things. Further, you can't view the plants easily without opening it up and letting all the humidity out.

Earlier tonight it hit me, I think I've already got the ideal habitat almost set up and just waiting for me to do something with it! There will be a little work to get it ready, but not much, and almost no expense.

It's already sealable with sliding glass doors on top so I can regulate the humidity and look down into it. It already has two 24" fluorescent light fixtures in it. It already has a built-in fan for circulation, and a cooler if I ever want it (although the cooler is kind of noisy). It's totally self-contained, easy to clean, and with a little sealer I can make it water tight. It's got room to store supplies on top, looks good, and forms a natural display case that people will be interested to look at. And most importantly, I told my wife about my idea and she's on board with it

What the heck could I possibly have lying around that fills all these criteria? Check it out:

My plans are to seal the one drain hole inside, trim the cardboard we've got it on to look nicer, and install my thermometer/hygrometer. I may set up a remote display above the unit later on. Inside I'm going to run some humidity tests and see what level it keeps using different methods. I'm not planning on ordering more plants until the weather warms up a little so I should have plenty of time to get everything squared away. I'm also planning a trip to Home Depot to get a couple extra bulbs and a timer to run it on (there's an outlet right next to it and nothing else plugs in there).

What do you think, sirs?

 

[seedjar]

Sweet! I've wanted to do this for a long time, but I discovered several years back that I can grow almost all the plants I want as houseplants so I never ended up putting it together.
Best luck with it - I'll be looking forward to hearing your results.
~Joe

 

[swords]

That's great! Please photo document your work on this!

I've always wanted to get one of those large 6 ft tall x 10 foot long supermarket coolers they sell frozen pizzas out of and put a naturalistic HL Nep display in there.

 

[dboeren]

If anyone is interested in doing a similar setup, go to the local gas station and look at those for sale/trade pulp magazines. That's where I found my cooler and it was only $100, although I did have to rent a small truck to take it home. You might check with local vending companies and see if they've got anything they're wanting to get rid of - possibly one with a broken cooling unit that's not worth repairing.

Tomorrow I'll start taking and posting pics of the interior as I work on it and I'll post what I find out on how well it holds humidity. The fan may pull air out of the unit (see the suspicious looking grating in the lower left?), so if it does and the humidity drops too much I'll have to go in and disconnect it or block the outlet or something.

If it turns out I can grow my plants more as houseplants without enhanced humidity that's fine too, and it will ease the transition if/when I move them out later. But I still need a place to keep them and some lighting. This provides both in a unique and cool package

---------- Post added at 11:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------

I couldn't wait, so here's some more...

The interior dimensions are 61" long by 22.5" wide by 19" high. That's roughly equivalent to a 113 gallon fish tank according to the calculator I plugged the numbers into.

The top is split into two halves, each with an independent sliding glass window.

This is an image looking straight down into the left window. You can see the one drainage hole that I'll probably want to plug up just to make sure no spilled water can run down onto our carpet. Otherwise the inside has no other seams or cracks

This is looking down into the right closed window, as you can see transparency is fairly good. It's less good on the left where the word "Coke" is written across the glass in white.

This is holding the camera inside the right side and angling left so you can see down the length. That big thing on the wall is the fan assembly. I can remove it or disable it if I need to.

Finally, this is the camera pointed at the front inside wall. The fluorescent light is on top, and you can see the little holes that serve some unknown purpose. There's another row of them low down about 1" off the floor. I don't think they'll matter for what I'm doing, just the one hole in the bottom center.

The fan pulls outside air, and blows it into the cooler. So, that shouldn't kill my humidity I think. I'll want to sand it a little at the rust spots and then kind of wash it out. It's not that dirty, mainly just dust. It will never look clean enough to eat off of but then again I don't need it to be. It's all metal, and there are no seams at the edges, I guess it's welded or something. That means water spills are pretty insignificant once the single drain hole is blocked which I can probably do with a little duct tape. I don't need it to hold water for fish, just stop small spills from draining.

 

[dionae]

Might want to line the bottom with some sort of plastic. Looks like it should be a nice terrarium when its all setup. Great idea and good luck!

 

[Taliesin-DS]

i would not permanently plug that drain hole if i were you, it would be nice to have a way to flush all the crap out if you ever need to.

 

[mobile]

It would make an ideal Heliamphora terrarium, with some additional lighting. Running the refrigeration unit at night, with a suitable thermostat, would allow for the temperature difference that this species likes.

 

[ellisonk001]

Very cool idea! Please keep us posted on your progress.

 

[dboeren]

I'm just going to seal the drain with a piece of duct tape/gorilla tape, so it will be removable if I want to use the drain again. However, I'm not sure at this point where the drain goes...

Additional lighting: Last night I found a standalone 24" fluorescent fixture lying around the house. I could add this without too much trouble, although I might need a small extension cord and I don't know if I'd need a hole for the cord to exit through. I really don't want to run the cooler much if at all though, it's pretty loud (as in out of adjustment). If I was going to use it with any regularity I think I'd need a repair guy to come service it.

 

[thez_yo]

I agree with mobile: ideal Heli habitat too for sure. ..and you'd have the most droolworthy plants this side of the Tepuis!

 

[seedjar]

How big is it? You might want to come up with some sort of drip pan to set it in, just in case condensation becomes an issue. I used one of those mini-greenhouse things as an indoor terrarium for a while and it dripped like crazy. My solution was to get an ABS liner pan for a dog kennel and use that, but it wasn't cheap. There's probably a better product out there.
~Joe

 

[dboeren]

It's pretty heavily insulated, so I don't expect there will be any exterior condensation. These things were designed to sit inside a store and I doubt store owners would stand for a cooler that dripped all over the place. I'll keep an eye out though.

Made a trip to Home Depot over lunch today and picked up a 2-outlet timer ($11) and a 28qt plastic tub ($5) to serve as a water pan. It just barely fits, and with four of them I could pretty much tile the whole bottom if I wanted. Right now it can remain open, but as my collection grows I could potentially expand to four tubs, drill a ton of holes in the lids, and the plants could sit on top the tubs while humidity wafts upward through the holes. In the beginning I'll only have a few plants so it's not a big deal yet. I'd like to get some more experience with beginner level plants like ventricosa, maxima, etc... before expanding too far - just in case things don't work as well as I'm envisioning.

Anyway, I put in the pan with about 1" of water and left the fan & lights running. It's fairly quiet with the lid closed. I'm planning to check the humidity tonight and again tomorrow to see how it's stabilizing. I spilled some water and this confirmed that the floor is a little buckled. Water runs to the corners first which is away from the center drainage hole.

Would a 12-hour period of light and fan be appropriate do you think? It's two 20-watt fluorescent bulbs in a roughly 5'x2' space. I'm thinking of starting the timer running 9am-9pm if that seems about right. This is inside the basement so there are no other lights except when we're down there.

Edit: About Heliamphora... I'm still very new to CP's, maybe something to keep in mind for later. Currently I plan to start out with s few specimens of relatively hardy Nepenthes species and gradually build up to some more advanced ones over time as I build experience and confirm that everything is going well with my environment. But perhaps someday.

 

[amphirion]

12 hrs during the winter, 14 hrs during the summer. is probably the safest route to go concerning tropicals. you should also consider upping the number of fluorescent bulbs you are using: you basically want to place as many bulbs as you possibly can---CPs cant get enough light and that refrigeration unit is going to come in very handy .

concerning light, i highly recommend the t5 high output lights....they might be initially expensive, but they are very much worth the cost and end up paying for themselves. i've realized that amount of money i spent upgrading my lights ended up being higher than if i had initially just purchased the t5s in the first place. that being said, if there are financial restrictions keeping you from doing so, just do with what you can.

also line the sides of your interior with mylar.

good luck! if this is done correctly, you might just have the most pimpest indoor terra setup in the states!

 

[Kyle]

Oh, that is SO friggin' cool. I wonder if you couldn't redirect the refrigeration (since you don't seem to be terribly interested in using it in its conventional sense... are you?) to keep a cold water bath somewhere in there. You could then use the cold water to periodically pump cool mist onto your plants, which they'd surely love and you can use in place of actual refrigeration should temps get a little toasty, and even to Darlingtonia pots to keep their roots cool. Just a thought!

 

[dboeren]

Hmm, the fixtures built into the cooler are pretty built in, I'm not sure I can replace them easily. What would be the best bulbs be that will fit into a standard 24" fluorescent setup? Preferably something that's widely available so I can get it at Home Depot or Amazon? The bulbs I have now are I think T12's.

I may be able to add a T5 as a bonus overhead light if it's compact enough, but probably not replace the built in stuff.

Anyway, I have an extra 24" fluorescent that I can add pretty easily so I'll look into mounting that. Tonight I plan to clean the insides, tape over the drain hole, and set it up on the timer - it shouldn't be much effort to add another bulb as part of that effort.

Is the only purpose of the mylar to be reflective? Would aluminum foil work just as well?

 

[Kyle]

Is the only purpose of the mylar to be reflective? Would aluminum foil work just as well?

I actually remember reading that foil doesn't reflect light very well because it more "scatters" it than directly reflects it. Mylar is the stuff of reflection and is the best you can do in terms of keeping the light bouncing around in there. Most are rated to reflect 98%+. I use space blankets in my rack, but I don't know how that compares between mylar and foil. I've just been too lazy to go pick up some mylar.

 

[dboeren]

Oh, that is SO friggin' cool. I wonder if you couldn't redirect the refrigeration (since you don't seem to be terribly interested in using it in its conventional sense... are you?)

The main issue with the cooling is that it's out of adjustment. It's quite loud which means my wife wouldn't put up with it. It may or may not work well, or efficiently. To be reliable for ongoing use I'd really need to have a service tech come in and restore it. Anyway, it's not part of the project for the near future but I might look into it down the line if I decide to grow something that needs cooler temps.

However, it is located in our basement which is cooler than the main floor of the house so that may help a little.

I can pick up some mylar no problem, just wondering if what I've already got around the house would be just as good. I've only spent $16 so far on this project so there's easily money left in the budget for minor items like this and quite honestly increasing my light with mylar is far more efficient in the long run than buying and running more fluorescent fixtures anyway

 

[amphirion]

i can see adjustable overhead lights on top of the whole thing, strung up by pulleys. raise them up when you want to open the top. lower them when you're done.

 

[dboeren]

It seems like the lights and fan put out a significant amount of heat after all.

Early tests seem to indicate that during daytime it will be about 83 degrees. Opening the top further can drop this some but this also reduces the humidity. With everything off it should drop to around the mid 60's at night (but maybe warmer in the summer). I should be able to confirm this tonight.

Humidity seems to be pretty controllable by adjusting how much gap I leave in the top. I plan to put a piece of masking tape by each of the doors and mark the humidity at various positions to use as a guide for daily use. It may be possible to have one side a little more humid than the other by having that half be more closed but I'm not sure how much different this will really have.

It seems to me that these conditions would best match Highland plants, do you agree? It doesn't have as sharp of a nighttime drop as might be ideal but the daytime should be a very good match.

 

[dboeren]

concerning light, i highly recommend the t5 high output lights....they might be initially expensive, but they are very much worth the cost and end up paying for themselves. i've realized that amount of money i spent upgrading my lights ended up being higher than if i had initially just purchased the t5s in the first place. that being said, if there are financial restrictions keeping you from doing so, just do with what you can.

also line the sides of your interior with mylar.

After reading up some on lighting, I'm inclined to agree w/ amphirion. t5 bulbs are going to be a must to get my lumens up high enough. Fortunately, the prices don't seem that horrible. Maybe they've come down in recent times.

Is there any general consensus yet on the use of actinic blue bulbs w/ nepenthes? Most of the reasonably priced fixtures I'm finding come with two actinic blue bulbs and two daylight bulbs (they're designed for coral reef aquariums). Granted, I can replace the actinics with more daylight but I've also seen posts claiming that plants are good at absorbing the blue spectra so if switching to daylight bulbs aren't going to benefit the plant any I might as well leave them in there.

After I get a fixture I'll have to redo my temperature measurements since they may go up some.