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Post by Dennis Z on Jun 21, 2014 19:27:41 GMT -5
I have a slight problem of cooling my terrarium at night. During the day it reaches a 27-28 degrees and at night it only drops to about 24-25. How does everybody go about cooling their highland tanks? I'm going to try placing some ice cubes in a water bottle with the cap off into the terrarium to see if I can cool it to about 20.
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Post by Maiden on Jun 21, 2014 20:50:44 GMT -5
Hello dennis,
What are the nepenthes inside the tank?
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Post by cory on Jun 21, 2014 21:20:43 GMT -5
The only way that I have been successful is to lower ambient temperatures during the day. Especially if it's Mostly sealed setup to hold high humidity.
I am also curious as to what's inside lol
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Post by Dennis Z on Jun 21, 2014 21:57:50 GMT -5
I have a veitchii, jacqueline x izumiae and many unknown hybrid nepenthes seedlings. (All from cole!) I haven't been in the hobby long enough to know if I'm doing anything correct but so far, some seedlings have started new pitchers so I guess that's a good thing. The terrarium is basically a plastic hot house people buy to germinate seeds and grow them out so it does have two ventilation holes that I can open or close. I keep the humidity at 80-90 percent although I can keep the humidity easily at 100. Right now I got some ice in there but the temp is still at 25.
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Post by Maiden on Jun 21, 2014 22:19:20 GMT -5
Here a post i made in another forum. Sorry for my bad english.
"Sarah,
From my experience, the #1 problem for all growers who like highland and ultra highland plants is the night temps drop.
I spend one year just to ajust and improve my highland setup.
My setup is very simple.
In my apartment, i have a room only for my plants. I run a A/C next to my setup, the air flux directly on my terrariums. This way, even with the massive full spectrum i throw in the tank, the temperature stay cool, at 24C max. Each terrarium in that room have a .5 inches hole on the cover. This way my plants have a gentle air flow running slowly inside the tank and the relative humidity stay at 85%.
At night, when my timers close my T5 tubes, i add 3 little icepaks inside each terrarium, and with my A/C running, i can reach 15C with 80%RH.
I had to ajust my a/c to the right angle, because the cold air have to hit all terras. I also had to monitor the vibration, because of the a/c. That was bad for my plants, shaking all the time.
Also, i had to buy new window store pannels, because the sun pushed a lot of heat in the room, at the wrong angle. I had to move the plants, because helis species like hispida or parva need cooler roots night temps. So i move these plants on the cooler side of my terra, where the a/c air hit the pannel. Many others lil details i had to set also.
For my temperate plants who need dormancy, i just open a window next to the setup. This way, my plants just fall slowly asleep in november, and when they are 100% dormant, i bag them and put all these lil guys in the fridg at 3C until next april. I just open the bags once a month to add 2-3 water myst shots and to see if everything is ok.
So, you will need to 'try and learn'. Each lil details are important, and at the end, you will run the perfect setup for your plants, in your growing space and with your local RH% and temperatures.
Francois."
Dennis,
As you can see, sometimes some collection plants require some money input. Its very hard having a temp drop at night without a lil equipment. Icepaks, fans, are low cost coolers but the results are limited.
Hope this help a little.
François
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Post by HaruShin on Jun 22, 2014 1:23:36 GMT -5
I cut a round hole on the bottom of my plastic tank(I assume you have the same one), attatched an inch wide black tube you can easily get at canadian tire, and put the other end in the opening of an AC. I also have a repti-fogger for the humidity. I used to have the tube blowing downwards from one of the vent hole, but that dried out the soil too fast. I also use this method to keep the water of my darlingtonias cool. (Very cold. I've seen it drop to 14C when it's out in my Living room, directly under the lights) In the winter, I have a small box with a computer fan inside and the tubes attatched at the front. Just put that in any window, and you get your free cold air. Hope things work out for you starting on highlanders was one of my biggest fear and challenge.
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