Post by Avery on Nov 23, 2015 23:30:28 GMT -5
This is my setup. It's not too fancy but it works for now, and it's automatic, which is convenient. I could leave town for a week and not really have to worry about my plants. I plan to keep improving my setup, to make it more efficient and to accommodate larger plants.
I picked up an apartment sized deep-freezer second hand for cheap, and drilled two holes in the top to run vinyl hosing through. The deep freezer is around a 1/3 full of a heavily diluted pink anti-freeze/water mix. A small aquarium pump sits on top of the freezer and pumps chilled fluid through the line into the terrarium and back out into the freezer, in a closed loop. The vinyl tubing is insulated with a styrofoam sleeving found at generic home store.
The aquarium pump is hooked up to a day/night thermostat which runs a thermometer into the terrarium. During the day, the pump kicks on when the temperature in the terrarium exceeds 21 C, bringing it back down to around 19 C before switching off. At night (when the lights go out), the thermostat is set to 10 C, so the pump circulates the chilled fluid through the lines until the lights switch back on in the morning. It usually gets down to around 12 C, which leaves me to assume that it runs all night without turning off.
The other thermostat pictured in the lower right hand corner is for the freezer. It keeps the freezer at around -10 C (instead of its default setting of around -25 C), maintaining freezing temps, but not getting cold enough to freeze the fluid that sits in the hosing inside the freezer. If the basement gets cold enough, the cooling system won't have to kick on very often, which means the fluid in the line won't circulate, leaving it susceptible to freezing solid as it sits stationary in the line within the freezer. The thermostat for the freezer prevents that from happening. I have weights attached to the two ends of tubing that hang down into the fluid in the freezer, because if one of them is pulled up out of the fluid, air could get into the line, meaning I would have to re-prime the pump.
Inside the terrarium there is a copper radiator that I made out of 1/2" copper tubing. The anti-freeze is circulated through this radiator, and back out into the freezer again. Again, it's a closed loop. There are two fans blowing on the radiator to help cool down the terrarium. Behind the radiator I stuffed a copper mesh, to help with cooling efficiency. The air that is blown through the copper mesh gets quite chilly. I have fans going 24/7 in my terrarium.
Cool growing plants sitting next to the copper radiator (painted white).
More fans:
I hope I was somewhat coherent. Don't hesitate to ask if something doesn't make sense.
I plan to replace the freezer with an aquarium chiller, just to save space and for aesthetic reasons, and I'd like to replace my DIY radiator with ones I've seen on ebay like this:
I picked up an apartment sized deep-freezer second hand for cheap, and drilled two holes in the top to run vinyl hosing through. The deep freezer is around a 1/3 full of a heavily diluted pink anti-freeze/water mix. A small aquarium pump sits on top of the freezer and pumps chilled fluid through the line into the terrarium and back out into the freezer, in a closed loop. The vinyl tubing is insulated with a styrofoam sleeving found at generic home store.
The aquarium pump is hooked up to a day/night thermostat which runs a thermometer into the terrarium. During the day, the pump kicks on when the temperature in the terrarium exceeds 21 C, bringing it back down to around 19 C before switching off. At night (when the lights go out), the thermostat is set to 10 C, so the pump circulates the chilled fluid through the lines until the lights switch back on in the morning. It usually gets down to around 12 C, which leaves me to assume that it runs all night without turning off.
The other thermostat pictured in the lower right hand corner is for the freezer. It keeps the freezer at around -10 C (instead of its default setting of around -25 C), maintaining freezing temps, but not getting cold enough to freeze the fluid that sits in the hosing inside the freezer. If the basement gets cold enough, the cooling system won't have to kick on very often, which means the fluid in the line won't circulate, leaving it susceptible to freezing solid as it sits stationary in the line within the freezer. The thermostat for the freezer prevents that from happening. I have weights attached to the two ends of tubing that hang down into the fluid in the freezer, because if one of them is pulled up out of the fluid, air could get into the line, meaning I would have to re-prime the pump.
Inside the terrarium there is a copper radiator that I made out of 1/2" copper tubing. The anti-freeze is circulated through this radiator, and back out into the freezer again. Again, it's a closed loop. There are two fans blowing on the radiator to help cool down the terrarium. Behind the radiator I stuffed a copper mesh, to help with cooling efficiency. The air that is blown through the copper mesh gets quite chilly. I have fans going 24/7 in my terrarium.
Cool growing plants sitting next to the copper radiator (painted white).
More fans:
I hope I was somewhat coherent. Don't hesitate to ask if something doesn't make sense.
I plan to replace the freezer with an aquarium chiller, just to save space and for aesthetic reasons, and I'd like to replace my DIY radiator with ones I've seen on ebay like this:
:
