New lowland chamber

[swords]

I was going to buy the mareials to build a DIY chamber when I saw this moulded showerstall marked down to $75 cos if a nick in the finish. That's cheaper tahn the materials for my DIY project, including the $19.99 to rent the truck to drive it home.

I built a bench that will be able to be lowered as the plants on it grow. lowlight plants can go beneath the bench and hanging from the bench as there's ample space on all sides. the sides (and soon) back will be covered with plastic netting so I can hang mounted orchids on the walls and disquise the "white" look.

The door is a sliding shower door, unfotunately the cheap sliding doors are all "hammered glass" so here's a shot with the glass:

and without:

The tank isn't nearly as dark as the photo appears, I'm still learning this new camera! I will be putting another 2-4 40 watt tubes over the chamber which is 6.5" tall x 5" wide x 3"deep as I don't think the 240 watts from the old lowland tank will be enough for this new one.

Today is the first day the plants have been put in. I don't know how the humidity will be nor the temps but I have a therm/hygrom with a  memory so I can keep an eye on it for a  24 hour period. right now there is nothing but the lights supplying heat and a misting to create initial humidity.

 

[Khai]

Hey Swords why dont you ditch those flouros and buy an HID?
I recently picked up a 250w MH PL remote ballast system from Midwest Hydroponics for 249.99 excluding tax of course.

Yes i know thats not entirely cheap but PL is the best.
I dont know if you know this but an HID will out compete a flourescent setup of equal and greater wattage simply because you are streching that same wattage over a larger area.

Id just recommend you stay away from HPS, youll never want to work under one of these. They are so red every color is distorted, imagine growing plants on Mars. Some of you may think that sounds "neat". Well it isnt.
If you find you need more red than what most halides offer they do sell and enhanced MH bulb that has a higher spike in the red.
If you have any questions regarding HIDs feel free as they kind of my specialty.

Peace

 

[Tony Paroubek]

My concern is with the normal fluorescent and the distance to the plants. Fluorescent light intensity drops off extreamly rapidly the further away you go from the tube. Adding more tubes will help slightly but will not correct for most of this. I think you would find better results going with a 250 watt metal halide vs 250 watts of normal fluorescents. Probably cheaper in the long run also (although I have not calculated it out).

Perhaps if you hung the fluorescents down inside so they are closer, as another option?

Tony

 

[Khai]

Its about 40 cents a day to run a 250w MH in MN.

Peace

 

[swords]

I do have a few unused metal halide setups...
a 175, a 250 and a dual 400 watt unit (800 watts total). All are remote balast units from old reef tanks.

My concern is that I heard I can not use MH lights over plexiglass (the reef tanks were open topped) and that's what the lid is made of. 0.90 mm thickness arcylic from home depot. I know from earlier experience terrariums don't work well open topped in comparison to "nearly sealed" when shooting for high humidity. A sheet of 72" x 36" glass would probably be pretty pricey wouldn't it?

Khai are those the same PL lights from Orchids Limited? Those looked pretty weird when I was at OL and they had them running. Seems like the light was almost pink! I did not like that at all. I preffer either a "golden green" or "bluish" light as opposed to oranges and reds (i.e. soft white).

 

[schloaty]

Great setup swords! Looks really nice.

I have a suggestion about lighting. I was able to find flourescent tubes at Home Depot that can be attached to the wall. You just screw them in, instead of hanging them. If you were really motivated, you could probubly figure out a way to mount them on a track instead of directly on the wall, that way you could move them up and down as plants grow (or you have babies). The ones I saw were two feet, not four, but you could always just mount two across....

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

Why not put a hook in the top of the chamber and hang the metal halade inside the tank? It would increase heat quite abit too.

 

[Ozzy]

I can think of two options that you can do.
GE makes a growlights called BrightStik. It's a disposable light fixture. The tube and the fixture are made together. They are easy to install, you can stick them where you want. Looking at your setup it would work very good for you. I've seen them at Lowes and Kmart for $9.99.
Second option is to use the compact flourescent light bulbs($6) that scew into regular light sockets. I buy cheap cords(less than a $1), and replacement lamp sockets($2 or $3). Wire these together, and screw in the bulb. I hang these in by the cords so that I can get them close to the plants that higher light levels.
Nice setup Swords.

 

[Khai]

Hey Swords Id go with the 250.
Um I probably wouldnt worry too much about the Acrylic as long as the lamp was being sufficiently cooled.
Of course over time you will see bowing in the the acrylic which is somewhat unaviodable with out some kind if rigid frame.
To be honest i dont know exactly what glass would cost but it would probably be comparable to or less than a peice of acrylic the same size. Glass is cheap.
I would suggest a dayton blower if your looking at air cooling,
you can find them for about 70 bucks for 265 cfm unit.
They are reall nice, they move a lot of air and yet are amazingly quiet. Ive got 2 and they are roughly as loud as my computer.
At OL they run the HPS which is what I would recommend against unless your looking to supliment light in a greenhouse or growing fruiting plants like tomatoes and the like. They say theres 30% more blue the bulbs that OL uses but you only see it when the bulb initially fires, then its TOTAL RECALL!

Peace

 

[theddy]

I have never used MH on my plants before....however... in a larger set-up I was using this summer...400W HPS., it worked great. My Judith Hindel looked GREAT....and my ventricosa has made giant leaps so don't knock it if you aint tried it...eh?

 

[Khai]

Hey Theddy if you had read my posts you would have seen that I do use HPS lamps, They are great for growing plants no doubt about it but my point was this, its depressing to work under imbalanced lighting, and even more so when its the only source of light.
MH lamps produce a much more natural white where as HPS lamps produce a so called "Golden White", I call it red.
Its no fun IMO to work on my plants in that type of light, I can tell you if you had the experience with both lamps youd see what Im talking about.

 

[Ben]

Hi I'm a newbie here sent from over the pond (CPUKFORUM) on George-CP's recommendation.

I just wondered what you did in the end? Did you mount a HID above glass or did you shine it through plexiglass, or did you put the HID inside the chamber?

Is there any problem with installing HIDs in enclosed chambers of high humidity? I know about the potential heat issues, but is the bulb ok to run in 80%+ humidity?

I'm looking for a highland solution and am a bit worried about a cold lamp switching on and suddenly heating up with water dripping from it? Anybody got any thoughts?

Thanks,

Ben.

p.s. Great forum you have here!

 

[swords]

Hi Ben, I am now using a 400W metal halide bulb over this showerstall terrarium. I put the bulb and reflector into a box of wood that I made (just enough to fit the reflector) and set it ontop of plain plexiglass that I reinforced with an extra 1" x 2" board running the lengthways through the middlde under the plexiglass as a reinforcement against bowing cos the light box is sort of heavy.

heat is surprisingly not an issue whatsoever. I made the light reflector box and installed a 4" fan to suck out the warm air from the bulb-there really isn't any! My terrarium is not as warm as I'd like infact! My lowland plants were used to days no cooler than 90*F in their old tank and now they only get to 76*F max with halides! it's weird I always thought these bulbs were supposed to heat things up. I'm going to build a better light hood with no fan (but a space incase I need it) which will contain the 400W halide and 4 40 watt flourescents so I get a better even light distribution throughout the tank and perhaps a few more degrees heat as well.

I don't know about using the bulb inside the terrarium, I'm using a remote ballast unit made for lighting saltwater reef aquariums the encased units used in greenhouses and botanical gardens where they would be subjected to mists and high humidity are likely much different than what I've got.

 

[Ben]

Thanks Josh,

Thats very helpful.

If I can put a lamp inside an enclosed box and stand it on the clear chamber lid without it overheating, as you have done, then I am not going to bother putting the unit inside the chamber so the rest of my question is kind of redundant.

I too was originally hoping to heat the chamber using only the light, but I have already found that I need some additional heat otherwise the temperature drops too low when the light is out through the winter. I'll just revise my plans to use the heater to supplement the heat from the light also.

Thanks once again

Ben.

 

[swords]

No problem! What kind of heater will you be using? I was originally planning to use a seedling heat mat strapped across the back of the stall but I don't know if it would be enough to heat this size enclosure.

One more thing is I've noticed is that you should hang your humidistat (the controller for your humidifier) in direct light so that the plants in the brightest area stay in their preffered high humidity range. I damaged a lot of my large lowland plants (no pitchers on a couple leaves) by hanging the humidistat in the light fall off area instead of the brightest area.

Were you planning to use humidity controls? I find it is almost impossible to keep the humidity high enough in non-aquarium type enclosures without the controllers as they aren't as airtight as glass & silicone as well the wood used to build the frames and the benches all soak up water. I know my humdiity is high enough, not just because my humidistat says so but because my bench and the frame work of my highland chamber have started growing moss! SInce this is happening I've mounted a Masdevallia orchid on my bench and so far so good!

 

[Ben]

For my size of enclosure, something like this will I think be fine:Rena COL

For the larger enclosure, have you considered underfloor heating units such as this Devi mat
I use the above mat under tiles to heat my kitchen. For a humid environment, you might have to do something about the thermostat tho.

On the subject of humidity, this doesn't seem to be a problem in my chamber. Approaches 100% with no light and drops to 70-80% with my test lamp on (a 150W Halogen).

I'm really just starting at this, so will worry about humidity controllers when I buy my first shower cubicle

!

Regards,

Ben.