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terrarium setup for heliamphora

Heli

villosaholic
I have a 20 gal terrarium I will setup for heliamphora. Can somebody give me a list of everything I need to keep the plants cool, I will be keeping them in an AC'd room where I will put it at 67F at night and 77F during the day.

What lights should I use, what sort of ventilation, I am getting a humidifier so that wont be a problem. I heard that t5s with a reflector can cause some heat, should I just get two t8s with reflectors? any input would be greatly appreciated! thanks, Luca
 
I have a 10 gallon terrarium with a Heliamphora minor and Cephalotus inside. At first, I put aluminum foil around the outside of the terrarium. However, with my 125 watt CFL, it literally cooked my plants (almost). It got past 90F inside the terrarium. Fortunately, my plants survived.

In order to cool the terrarium, I removed the aluminum foil. It went down to 83F.

In short, metal reflectors will bounce the heat and light (infrared energy) around inside the tank and cook the plants. If you need reflections, stay away from metal.
 
isnt that a little warm for them?
 
You lose a lot of light if you do not use a reflector with fluorescent lights. Consider the shape of the tube and imagine the rays of light coming from around its circumference, along its whole length and you soon get the idea of how much light is wasted! You can get silver coloured reflectors specifically designed for fluorescent tubes, which direct the light downwards. It is not particularly necessary to line the terrarium with reflective material if you use fluorescent tube reflectors, but if you decide to then use reflective mylar, rather than aluminium foil. Mylar will not get as hot and is more reflective than aluminium foil. T5s will be fine, as long as you extract the heat with fans, as you would need to do with T8s too. Fans will both extract the heat and also provide some airflow for the plants, which helps reduce the risk of fungal attack and will also draw the cool air from your air conditioned room through the terrarium. You're looking to get a gentle airflow, so using 12V (PC) fans can help with this, as you can use a variable power supply to lower the voltage, thus the speed. You may also find that you won't need a humidifier, as the enclosed space in a terrarium will increase the humidity naturally providing the fan speed is not too high. Some of the European growers have moved away from using humidifiers for Heliamphora.

Wolfn, Heliamphora and Cephalotus are not good partners, coming from quite different environments.
 
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isnt that a little warm for them?

A little, but in 'The Savage Garden', it says that Heliamphora can thrive in tanks up to 85F, and the lowlander Helis (Minor, Heterdoxa, some of the hybrids), can take temperatures even higher.

However, they certainly appreciate lower temps.

Wolfn, Heliamphora and Cephalotus are not good partners, coming from quite different environments.

Mine are doing great next to each other. Both are colorering up beautifully and producing mature pitchers.
 
isnt the issue that if the temp goes above 78 F a fungus that kills helis starts to grow
 
Now you're starting to see the shades of gray..... no one right answer fits all.

If I tried to grow mine like "Bob" I would kill them, but "Bob" cant keep em alive growing them like me. "Bill" no longer uses "x", "Mary" started out not using "X" but now she cant grow plants without "X"

etc etc etc

So much depends on "you", "you" take the basics and then learn what will work best for "your" specific needs.
That is what makes the hobby so cool..... the learning curve and the joy of successfully growing some awesome plants.
Along the way you're going to kill a few.... meh, we all did and still do.

There are some basic rules to the game.... don't overheat and don't overfeed, after that it becomes more an art that you just got to learn from doing.

jump on in, the water is fine :)

heli's grow well you will
 
You lose a lot of light if you do not use a reflector with fluorescent lights. Consider the shape of the tube and imagine the rays of light coming from around its circumference, along its whole length and you soon get the idea of how much light is wasted! You can get silver coloured reflectors specifically designed for fluorescent tubes, which direct the light downwards. It is not particularly necessary to line the terrarium with reflective material if you use fluorescent tube reflectors, but if you decide to then use reflective mylar, rather than aluminium foil. Mylar will not get as hot and is more reflective than aluminium foil. T5s will be fine, as long as you extract the heat with fans, as you would need to do with T8s too. Fans will both extract the heat and also provide some airflow for the plants, which helps reduce the risk of fungal attack and will also draw the cool air from your air conditioned room through the terrarium. You're looking to get a gentle airflow, so using 12V (PC) fans can help with this, as you can use a variable power supply to lower the voltage, thus the speed. You may also find that you won't need a humidifier, as the enclosed space in a terrarium will increase the humidity naturally providing the fan speed is not too high. Some of the European growers have moved away from using humidifiers for Heliamphora.

Wolfn, Heliamphora and Cephalotus are not good partners, coming from quite different environments.
thanks for the info, I shouldnt use a small humidifier? wouldnt the AC dry out my room?
 
  • #10
Yes, the A/C unit will dry out the air, unless it has vapour injection. However, I presume that your terrarium is going to be somewhat enclosed, so the moisture in the growing media combined with the temperature would raise the local humidity.
 
  • #11
wouldnt the terrarium overheat if its closed? its a 20 gal exo terra with sliding glass door and mesh top. I was planning to keep the terr fairly open to keep the lights from over heating it or is that not an issue?
 
  • #12
It doesn't need or want to be totally closed, but the fact that it's partially enclosed it will raise the humidity. You could try adding some media, watered as you would if there were plants in there, and measure the humidity levels.
 
  • #13
should I have the glass doors closed with just the mesh and a fan for ventilation or also have one door open, or both? also whats better t5 or t8, I dont need my plants to be blood red, cant t5 overheat?
 
  • #14
The amount of ventilation will be entirely based on your ambient conditions. All I can suggest is experiment and monitor. If I remember correctly, don't Exo Terra terrariums have lighting hoods available that can accept two 26W CFL?
 
  • #15
yes but it is a taller exo terra so i will put it on its side
 
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