My 12x12x18 mini-orchid terrarium
 

Hi all- I finally finished setting up my mini-orchid terrarium this afternoon. I've had the 12x12x18 Exoterra for several weeks now, and the orchids have been hanging out in it on their original mounts enjoying the higher humidity, but I just this weekend got around to making the background and installing the orchids and other plants.

The background is made from expanding foam, silicone caulk, and coco fiber, with a piece of mopani and a piece of cork embedded. The larger mopani on the right side is free-standing and not attached to the background.

The plants are:

Orchids:
Lepanthes telipogoniflora
Bulbophyllum moniliforme
Pleurothallis lewisiae
Pleurothallis dressleri
Pleurothallis grobyi
Pleurothallis niveoglobula
Gastrochilus somai

Non-orchids:
Peperomia reptans
Peperomia tovariana
Peperomia caespitosa
Crepidomanes (a fern)
Selaginella sp. Panama (a lesser clubmoss)
Schistochila (a liverwort)
Riccardia (a liverwort)
an unnamed tropical moss

I'm very excited about this terrarium!

Wow!

Good job!

Wow, looks fantastic!

I must agree with the others! Fantastic!

Well done. Keep us posted on the progress.

Thanks! I'll definitely update when anything interesting happens... and when I add plants... :biggrin:

Update time! This terrarium has been set up for three months now, and it's filling in well. I've added two plants, Lepanthes calodictyon and a second Pleurothallis grobyi.

The new grobyi is from a different source (Ecuagenera, small form) than the first one (Andy's). It'll be interesting to see how the flowers compare.

I also added a Peperomia Banos Ecuador (not an orchid), but it's behind the log and you can't see it. The three original peperomias are all growing really well.

I'm enjoying this tank so much!

How beautiful! This is growing nicely and looks so clean. I'll bet you spend hours with this daily, I know I would. Great plants.

Wonderful terrarium! Beautiful plants!

Wow! Beautiful terrarium! I agree with Pattywack... I'd stare at this for hours!

What lighting do you use? I use Jungle Dawn LEDs for an orchid tank but they seem really bright, too bright for a lot of the Pleuros.

Do you have a fan in there?

Wow it's looking so good.

Good job. Very natural looking. Once the ground moss takes over it would be great! Might reconsider the calodictyon position. They need low light.


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Thank you all!

This has been a very low-maintenance terrarium so far. There is no fan, just the passive ventilation that the ExoTerra has. And actually, I covered half of the screen on the top with plastic wrap to keep the humidity up, because it was drying out too fast. I keep meaning to get glass, but haven't yet.

The light is just the standard Exoterra compact canopy with one 26 watt compact fluorescent bulb. It's probably not really bright enough, but things are growing great and some are blooming. I'd like to get a better bulb when I have funds.

This is going to be beautiful!! Nice work!

Just a quick update- my Bulbophyllum moniliforme is growing! I noticed today that there are 18 new pseudobubs forming, each with an itty bitty leaf!

:goodjob

That looks incredible!! That sort of set-up is what I aspire to. How did you get the plants to stay in place until they filled in? (e.g., fishing line or something?)

Thanks Reeses! There are a variety of plant-attachment methods, depending on how firmly the plants were attached to their original mounts and where I wanted to put them.

• held in place with very thin fishing line (Lepanthes telipogoniflora and both Pleuro grobyi)
• left on their original mount and the wire pressed into the foam background (Pleuro dressleri, Lepanthes calodictyon, Gastrochilus somai)
• detached from the mount and simply set on a horizontal surface (Bulbo moniliforme, Pleuro niveoglobula, some peperomias)
• detached from the mount and pinned to the background with wood toothpicks (Pleurothallis lewisiae, some peperomias)

Very inspirational!
Can you describe your substrate layout?
You're misting too, yes?
Thanks and looking forward to updates!

This looks fantastic! I'm sure this required a lot of work to set up.

I actually just purchased an exo-terra nano (8x8x12), and I'm looking to build a setup similar to yours. Do you let the orchids grow directly onto the coco fibers? It seems like most of your orchids are growing on the cork or mopani. I'm debating on using hygrolon as the substrate (it seems to be more bacteria/mold/fungus resistent). But, I much prefer the look of the coco fiber. Is there a reason you chose coco fiber over hygrolon?

I agree this set up looks fantastic. I'm curious what you used for the bottom substrate?

This is another great 12x12x18 terrarium. Do you have a new picture as I sure the terrarium has matured. I have enjoy my tank this size. Great job!