8 replies to this topic

[danthecpman]

Hi all,

I am getting a new tank on friday for my highlanders and am looking into turning my old one into a dedicated ultra highland nepenthes tank. I am looking into ways i can cool the tank over night more than my normal highlanders of which remain 65-80 degrees F through the day and around 55 degrees F over night.

Any experiences and ideas would be greatly appreciated

Thanks a lot
Dan

[mobile]

There are a number of threads on the forum with regards to cooling terrariums. Most typically use either the 'guts' out of a fridge of have some sort of recirculation refrigerated coolant (flow cooler/aquarium cooler/beer chiller etc) going through a fan blown radiator in the tank. A cheaper alternative, especially this time of year, would be to use air from outside, but this would need to be controlled so that it doesn't cool the terrarium too much. You could perhaps consider a ducted fan to take in air from outside, with a thermostat within the terrarium linked to it. Some form of baffling would probably be needed, so that the cool air can be mixed with the tank air.

[31drew31]

I use the cool air from outside for my HL grow tent. Right now I just use the cool air from the unheated basement, as the outside air is much too cold. Even in the summer at night temperatures fall to 50-55 ish each night. I use drier ducting, large PC fan and thermostat to control the temperature as mobile described.

[kevnep]

I use refrigerator guts, it keeps lowii and villosa very happy

[danthecpman]

Cool looks like my mini fridge will be coming apart then :)

[twigs]

Any thoughts on refrigerator vs window A/C unit?

[robthered]

ACs have a greater cooling capacity compared to a fridge. they're made to run constantly so if you want more efficient cooling, i'd go with an ac. You can mod it into a chiller. Check out what i made here: http://pages.videotr...east/index.htm

[mobile]

robthered, on 06 March 2012 - 16:30 PM, said:

ACs have a greater cooling capacity compared to a fridge. they're made to run constantly so if you want more efficient cooling, i'd go with an ac. You can mod it into a chiller. Check out what i made here: http://pages.videotr...east/index.htm

Nice setup you have there. Sadly aircon units are only usually fitted to offices over here so they are relatively expensive.

[robthered]

mobile, on 06 March 2012 - 17:55 PM, said:

Nice setup you have there. Sadly aircon units are only usually fitted to offices over here so they are relatively expensive.

Too bad, they're really efficient and the best cooling option. I'm actually working on modding it some more. I'm going to place the AC cooling rad into a coleman cooler with an aquarium water pump inside it. Fill the cooler with water and have the pump circulate water to a computer water cooling radiator in the tank. I have an external temp controller for the water temp in the cooler. Gonna set it to about 8c, and should pull the tank down easily to like 13c for the night temps.

I'm doing this cause with the current setup i have the AC rad tends to cool extremely fast and the temp changes are almost immediate. When the lights go out the tank cools down to 15c in about 5 min, which i think is too quick; also the rad would suck about 20% humidity from the air when it was running. So with the smaller computer rad and warmer temps via the cooler reservoir i should get temps down to where i want it but at a slower rate than it was, and the humidity shouldnt fluctuate much. I'll post and let you all know how it goes.

since ACs are too expensive where you live, I'd try and go with a mini-fridge although it might burnout. A water chiller is another option, however it's probably more expensive than an AC. If you go the minifridge route I'd do what Martin Hingst did here (http://www.cpukforum...showtopic=28146)