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Post by lucanidae on May 21, 2015 9:46:45 GMT -5
I live in Sydney and our summer is so insanely hot. It can reach low 40'C during day and 30'C at night, inside greenhouse can reach over 50'C and that makes it impossible to cool the temperature all the way down to 15,C at night for the highland Nepenthes sp. It's only possible to cool the temperature inside terrarium in summer. I have a 6' intermediate set up for Nepenthes hybrids and orchids and a 4' ultra/ highland set up for Nepenthes sp and Heliamphora. For my 4' set up I finally got a 2nd hand cake display fridge for true highland /ultra hightland terrarium set up for our summer. I can keeps the temperature at 18'c during the summer day and all the way down to 5c at night. It has already fans for air flow and temperature controls. I only had to changed the fans to waterproof fans, add led lights, a humidifier and timers. The cake display fridge has already got double glazed to insulate the cold from the heat. I can't even use fluorescent lights (produces 57'C) or the high power LED lights (produces 37'C). I've been only using 4x 14W LED lights plus 2x 20W cfl lights with a flat bottle with salt water inside to let the light through with out the heat (reduces heat from 37'C to 27'C). www.ebay.com.au/itm/Memo-A5-Paper-Bottle-Flat-Portable-Water-Bottle-Clear-Readily-Cup-BPA-free-750ml-/400838608233?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_15&hash=item5d53d7c569Here is the 6' set up
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Post by lloyd on May 21, 2015 11:31:24 GMT -5
That's a pretty amazing set-up.
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Post by WillyCKH on May 21, 2015 11:34:30 GMT -5
Looks great!
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Post by H2O on May 21, 2015 17:03:24 GMT -5
Love this! I've always thought using grocery store unit would work great growing Neps and Helis. A walk in fridge would be an awesome place to string up some lights and start growing
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Post by Apoplast on May 21, 2015 21:13:56 GMT -5
G'Day lucanidae and welcome to the OCPS. That's quite an introduction! It's just plain impressive. I'm a little surprised the unit couldn't handle the extra heat load of the fluorescent lights. Interesting. Do you know what the cooling capacity is on the unit? It's truly an impressive setup, and great solution to a difficult climate for the plants you are trying to grow. (Given that I live where it can get to 40 in the summer and nearly -40 in the winter, it feels a bit strange to characterize Sydney's climate as "difficult".) Thanks for sharing your creating. It's inspiring!
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Post by lucanidae on May 22, 2015 5:45:21 GMT -5
Thanks everyone, this takes me more than two years to try and find a way to lower the temperature enough to grow them. The main problem is when the night temperature is around 30'C for more than a week, my system can only lower up to 10'C to 20'-21'C in my 6' tank. I still lost 2/3 of my naps in my 6' this summer due to hot nights. The fridge can definitely handle the temperature from the fluorescent lights. I only want the lights without the heat because I don't see the point to put all the heat inside then try and lower the temperature, it will only drive up the electricity bills. It's much more easily to heat up temperature than to lower the temperature. They don't normally look like that, I normally wrap them all up with bubble wrap to further insulate the cold from the heat. Most people use the bubble wrap to insulate from the cold but I use it to insulate from the heat and therefore lower the power bills. This is how I lower the temperature inside the 6' tank. I got 2 ice cube makers and took the compressors out and put the elements inside the eskies then pump the cool water with usb pumps through copper pipes with fans blowing cool air inside the tank. Even the humidifiers are automaticly tossed up with water daily with a large water reservoir below.
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Post by lloyd on May 22, 2015 8:52:20 GMT -5
I keep the lights on only at night so the heat load will be at night when it's cooler and the electricity is much cheaper.
Also it would be neat to use the heat from the compressors to heat your hot-water or even a small swimming pool.
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Post by vraev on May 22, 2015 18:48:06 GMT -5
Fantastic setup. wow. Clearly you have mastered what u need to do for ur conditions.
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