Highland Chamber setup 2.0

[swords]

I had "quit" Nepenthes and all growing of plants in late 2006 early 2007 but I have been slowly sucked back in starting with succulents in 2009 and vivariums in 2010 and now (inevitably) here is my new Highland Nepenthes chamber. It's based on the same principle as my old one but using a new controller the Zoomed Hygrotherm.

Before triggering the controller:

After:

The fog gets so dense at times you can't see anything but I've got it set to stop before anything gets wet so it stays nice and high but not too high. I've still gotta fidget with the fan and temp settings, it's too cool! LOL

The Hygrotherm controller can be set for daytime temps and night time temps down to 50*F. Humidity can be set between 15 and 95% RH. The photosensor on the controller display senses the terrarium lights going out, room lights, TV, PC, etc will not prevent it from going into nighttime mode so that's nice for night owls like me!

This piggy back cord for the controller accepts 2 and 3 prong heating/cooling and humidifying appliances and the LED lights up to show which appliance (or both) are running.

And here is the meat and potatoes of the whole thing: PC fan in the window, 4" diameter duct tube, ultrasonic humidifier plugged with a piece of 2" diameter sump pump hose that intersects the duct to humidify the incoming air when the humidity drops.

Just one day after moving my stuff in here I THINK I may actually be witnessing a Nepenthes inermis germinating, can anyone confirm from this crummy pic? It's definitely not moss, I've watched that germinate in all my other Nepenthes seed pots... LOL

 

[mass]

Looks like you could use a LOT more live LFS.. wink wink

 

[Kyle]

That is way too cool. Well done. *goes to check price on Hygrotherm*

 

[swords]

Best price I could get was $75.50 or so with shipping off ebay. A regular greenhouse humidistat is $80 plus shipping and that doesn't control a fan for day & night settings.

 

[Kyle]

Mmmm, not bad at all! I'm trying to come up with ways to essentially turn a room of my house into a greenhouse... It's got 2 south-facing windows, so I can utilize that light as well. Just gotta figure out the cooling and a nighttime drop. I'm thinking a fan in the window set to come on at night and pull air in from outside should do pretty well. But that leaves the window open to lose all the cool air during the day. Might have to attempt constructing my own louver for it, which would probably suffice. But anyhow, yeah, the Hygrotherm looks like a valuable piece of equipment to undertake said project. Thanks for that! XD

 

[swords]

If you built your room set off from the window you could use a larger hydroponics room fan with the Hygrotherm (it handles up to 1000 watts) and have it pipe the cool air into it like this tank only on a far larger scale. I would like to do that myself someday, make a room like nerd has done but probably out of this insulation foam and wood frame cos this insulation is pretty awesome at keeping lower temps inside. My condo is always hot but I'm not having any trouble keeping the tank cool even with 4 x T5HOs over it.

Looks like you could use a LOT more live LFS..

I grew all this from a fist sized clump in a 10 gallon tank inbetween pots I'll use it to pot up the new baby arrivals root systems and use what's left to seed the floor of this tank inbetween the pots. It should grow really well in here compared to the warm and stuffy 10 gallon it was in with no real air flow and random humidity fluctuations. Not sure if I should fertilize the moss very lightly or not some is bright white but I don't wanna get any algae or molds started up. I notice some T. viridis or something gross brewing ontop of one cutting pot in that shot there with the white thermometer I've gotta get rid of that....

 

[mass]

I could tell it was home grown.. Looks GREAT! Lemme know if you want some more. I can easily accommodate.

 

[lizasaur]

The master....

 

[swords]

Thanks for the offer!

I may hit you up after my stuff gets here and I see how little is left! LOL

Liz: I sure hope I still have the magic to keep these alive after the $$ I've spent in the past couple weeks on this and the incoming plants...

 

[Kyle]

You are a freaking genius. All this time, I thought I had to have air come straight from the window into the room. Just using that HVAC tubing would probably all but eliminate hot air coming into the room during the day. Especially if the tubing's opening is lower than the window - hot air rises, right? And the room is shaped probably perfectly to do that. I could use one of the windows for light and the other as exhaust/cool intake as needed. I feel bad crowding up your topic, though, so I'll just catch you in chat some time or something.

Thanks, you're amazing. LOL.

 

[eou812]

Cool! i want to make it! I love the ideas heere on the forum Great idea swords. Keep thinking up storms everyone!

 

[swords]

Thanks Reaper and all!

It's an easy enough project to do and seems to work pretty good without much fuss once all rigged up which is good for me. Just fill the humidifier every few days and I'm soaking the moss with a pump up garden sprayer once a day to try and get it reestablished in this tank before I start pecking away at it.

I'm trying to get up the gumption to drill a hole on the top of the humidifier reservoir so I can fill it through a funnel glued on so I won't have to lift the tank up to fill. If it works it'll be awesome but if I crack the tank as I try to drill it I'll have to buy a whole new humidifier. 50/50 chance of success or total disaster! Perhaps if I start with a very small hole and gradually increase it to 1/2" for the funnel...

 

[EdaxFlamma]

Awesome set up!

Might try a dremel tool or super heat a nail and melt your way through the plastic on the humidifier.

Any chance of a rough schematic for the whole deal?

 

[seedjar]

Huzzah! Looks great, can't wait to see it grow in.
As for drilling a hose into your humidifier, make sure that it doesn't need to only have one outlet to keep from spilling. If it works the way mine do, it's like one of those water coolers with the big bottle on top, and the only thing that keeps the water from spilling out continually is that there's no way for air to get in to displace it.
~Joe

 

[robthered]

Awesome setup Swords. Nice to see more and more people in the CP community starting to use the hygrotherm. I have one as well and have been using it for 2 years. It's amazing, and very cheap compared to other environmental control units. I use mine to control the humidity and in the summer i have it hooked up to my AC that i modded and put in my tank. In the winter i just hook it up to a fan and have it blow cold air from my window to the tank. Definitely the best thing I've bought for my setup. Here's a pic of my modded AC in case you're interested in doing the same.


Cooling System COMPLETE! by robthered, on Flickr

 

[eou812]

COOL!!

 

[swords]

Hey Rob, yep I do the same in summer (mid June - mid September) but instead of disassembling the AC I just put it in the window and mount the fan to the front of it the fan pulls the air from the AC output and lets the rest of the AC blow into the room and cool me off as well.

 

[dashman]

That's pretty cool! Good job.

 

[robthered]

Hey Rob, yep I do the same in summer (mid June - mid September) but instead of disassembling the AC I just put it in the window and mount the fan to the front of it the fan pulls the air from the AC output and lets the rest of the AC blow into the room and cool me off as well.

nice ! I'd do the same but most AC's will not cool below 68*f, and the evap fan located against the cooling rad removes humidity from the air. With the modifications i did to my AC it now cools down below 0*c and i also removed the evap fan so that there is no extra loss of humidity.

To note I also have an AC in the window of the room during the summer to cool the room during the day. The AC in the tank is so that i can achieve cold temps during the hot summer nights.

I'm guessing that you intersect your AC with the humidifier like you currently do with your window setup so that you dont drop the humidity in the tank? Can you get your tank cool enough with your AC setup? or does it only cool down to the tank into the high 60s?

 

[Kyle]

I'll second seedjar's concern about the humidifier. Drilling a hole in it, if it's anything like the ones I've seen, will simply allow air in and, thus, give you a small pond to play in.