05-18-2007, 08:30 AM
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Jr. Member
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 23
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Hello,
I explain the first one, because it's newer design and I have learned a lot from my first experiment.
1) I bought big terrarium, made from glass, which is 5mm = 0,2 inch thick. I have side doors both in the roof and naturally in front. The roof is made from 3 glasses and is used to control the temperature and the humidity. New air (not much, maybe 1% of my fans ventilation) comes from right side, thanks to roofs sidedoors I can regulate this by making the hole larger or smaller. Air goes away from left side, where I can also regulate the size of the hole.
I use 3 4,5 icch super silent computer fans for air circulation. They are on 24h/7, and really just CIRCULATE the air, not exchange it to new one. This is crucial, because otherwise the air humidity drops.
2) I'm really impressed of my humidity control thanks to it's simplicity. I have just a river in the right corner, this takes only little space (orchids can not grow in all day wet terrain) and is really effective thanks to the position of my fans, which also are in right corner. This way fans change the air all the time near the river, which greatly increases evaporation. Humidity is controlled by roof sidedoors, by making the corner holes larger or smaller. I find this the best way to increase humidity because it's coolinw g value. Evaporation takes a lot of energy, and this cools the viv especially at night rather effectively, even 2-3 degrees colder than the room temperature.
River also oxcidises the water which makes bottoms filtering more effective. I have aquarium filter matte in the bottom, 15 cm, for filtering. My pump is a filtering pump itself and sucks water from left, bottom, front corner and blows it from right, upper back corner as a river.
3) lighting: For my opinion there's few good ways to light your viv, the key for success is to light it enough. I prefer HQI, because it looks good and is rather energy savingg and long lasting. Because you guys grow your frogs rather in many smal vivs, I think either 70W HQI or compact fluorescense 24-56 W works well with you. I have 1 150W HQI and 2 125W HQL in my newer viv. Old one has 12 56W compact fluorescence tubes, I don't recommend this, because those are rather expensive...
4) Watering: I have a old raining system there nothing fancy, 6 misters which water 80% of the back wall, this way I save my fans in right from water. River waters the right corner of the waterfall, which is my svamp area...
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I love how you've used palette[?] of different contrasting tilandsia species as a background to the orchids, which make your viv a pleasure to look at even if there are not many orchids in flower! 
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