I don't think the seam looks bad at all! Not messy or anything. That Venus Flytrap will need to be taken out once a year for three months and put in the fridge to give it a dormancy period. Otherwise it will just decline and die. And the light seems strangely yellow. You're not using incandescents or 'warm white' compact fluo's, are you?

Question, =) I know that it has to be removed but what I dont know is when? and how long should it be placed in the cold? as for the "warm whites" you have a keen eye! thats exactly what they are! Please let me know if there is a reason why I should not use them =) the only reason I did use them is that I noticed the house plants next to the compact fluo's I use in my home grow better than the rest (not better than the ones in the window) the lightin the picture by the way looks really yellow but the tank looks white with just a very faint hint of yellow, but PLEASE do let me know. Thanks =)

Looks great. Will you have any critters in it?

Hi,

Very nice terrarium you have there. I don't really know anything about anything that has to do with terrariums but I like to read here because one day I'd like to build one. But I think the reason you get a yellow light in your pic is probably due to the white balance setting of your camera. When I take pics at night outside the light from the street lights gives the pics the same yellow cast as in your pics. I have to set the white balance setting to tungsten to get an accurate light representation. If your camera has different white balance settings play around with them until you get the right one.

Hope this helps you take pic of what looks like a good terrarium, that will get better.

Hi
Isn't it amazing how much better a terrarium looks when it is taller than wide?? To my eye just the opposite of an aquarium. No matter how big the tank is . Which leads to two major problems. Difficult to access and requires much more powerful lights.
The seam doesn't look too bad at all certainly better than with the frame. You say you glued two thirties together?? Does this mean you only have access from the top?? I keep trying to come up with the perfect solution to these problems. Certainly cheaper and more practicle to use an aquarium as a base,
Yours looks very nice proving once again that depth is more important than width!! Is that expanding foam on the background?? I find it a great material to work with except for the stickiness.lol It's so adaptable.
I'm going to go slowly with my 150 setup as I want to incorporate different climate zones as it goes up.
First I've got to remove the old attempt which proved to be too wide and not very adaptable. Besides I need to paint the wall before I can even start.lol
gary

Yuppers! I use expanding foam on all my tanks. I love the stuff! In my mind I set the tank the way I want it to look, then set the logs, pots for plants, hose for water features, Etc. and spray the foam in very small amounts just to hold everything in place, when that first layer dries I go on and spray the second layer which use to build cliffs, caves, Etc. I hardly ever have to "carve" any excess foam or cliffs out of foam, after a while you just get used to the flow of the foam and learn to control it, difficult to access?!, yes! but well worth the effort of coming up with ways to work in the tank, I use a stool to jump up on and I can axcess the tank by hand that way, but I also use an assortment of home made tools, mostly just spoons and other small tools attached to long sticks! LOL! but they work! =) I think sometimes its just easier to learn to work with the problem than to go nuts trying to solve it! LOL! the light do have to be brighter and also produce more heat, so what I did was to keep the rain forest in mind,if it wasnt for the plant life it would just be a dry HOT place, desert like, so basically keep your small, heat/light loving plants up high and your medium light loving plants in the middle, and your low light, moister loving plants down low, you dont want to place large plants above due to the fact they they will block to much light from the plants below, Im sure I will add some critters some time in the future, I just dont know what kind yet, Garyfla, please e-mail me, I have an idea for you!!! =) Sorry about the lenth of this reply, I dont know to many people in my area that love setting these things up as much as I do, so when I do find someone, I tend to go on and on.......OK, cya! =^)-

Hi
Glad to see someone does go on and on. The list is usually pretty quiet. If it wasn't for Sahoyaref there'd be no answers at all lol.
If you get a chance take a look at FCBS.org website Particularly the "Berg Cage" pix. This has always been my ideal of what I wanted to accomplish. Certainly wouldn't be that big and I doubt that well organized
A single place to keep my plants and animals. Very practicle yet at the same time very esthetic.
Maybe a place to keep all my hobbies and at last a terrarium that is large enough?? lol
gary

WHOLLY COW!! If I had money and space my house would look like that! I would feel right at home living in my own private jungle! That was incredible! "Berg cage" I think is what most people try to accomplish in thier vivs (on a way smaller scale) thanks for the Info! I will enjoy visiting this site today and in the future!

Ditto iliketerrariums! I often wished that I could shrink down and take a stroll through my terr. =) It's also my dream to have a conservatory like that all to myself. His waterfall area reminded me of the Conservatory at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens (which EVERYONE should go see if they ever get the chance!), but with fewer orchids and more broms. =) Thanks for the great link, Gary!

As for compact fluo's, the only thing wrong with warm whites is that they have more of a yellow light, which plants don't really use much of. Plants like the red and blue ends of the spectrum. That is what promotes the best growth and flowering. Since they don't make cool white compacts (at least not that I've been able to find at places like HD), I use the 'Daylight' ones. These still give that nice, sunny appearance, but they are closer in colour to natural sunlight, and better for plant growth. No need to get new bulbs right away though. I'd just switch to daylights when it's time to change the bulbs (every 6 mos. or so). Warm whites are simply designed to look nice to the human eye, nothing more.

As for your VFT, you'll notice it's growth slowing down at some point. In nature this would be fall, but since your terrarium doesn't experience seasonal cooling, this could be anytime. Many of the leaves will die back, and you'll think "oh no! What's wrong with my VFT?" Nothing is wrong with it, it's just going dormant. So at that point, you want to let it dry until it is just barely moist. Then take it out of your tank, wrap the root ball in plastic wrap or put it in a bag, and stick it in your fridge. Leave it there for three months, checking it occasionally to make sure it hasn't totally dried out. After three months, take it out and put it back in your terr. and give it some water. It will soon start to grow again, making all new pitchers. Now this will actually be my first winter trying this on my VFT, so things might not go exactly as I said above. That's just what I've read online. Check out the carnivorous plants forum here for more info, and/or get the book 'Savage Garden' by Peter D'Am-somebody, and/or go to sarracenia.com for answers to every VFT question you ever had!

Very nice setup!

Don't let any of these guys tell you to change your warm white lights. I've used warm white compact flourescents on my terrariums for a long time and all my carnivorous plants grow like mad and have great coloring.

The general rule is quantity over quality of light. Yeah, daylight is a better spectrum for plants than warm white light, but in the end it doesn't matter that much.

Hi
I visited that place many years ago and was so impressed at not only how beautiful it was but every plant had a tag
and everyone was easily accessible. It was built specificly to house plants but he also kept birds and reptiles in it.
I think i would like to use this as a model for my own attempt sort of combining a terrarium with a cage with a conservatory yet still have it adaptable to different growing conditions.
Have been wanting to start a much larger terrarium for a long time.but maybe I should just redo my entire shadehouse
rather than a separate unit. I need a place to house my orchid collection and my sugar birds would fit right in.
My shadehouse was originally an attached screenroom and over the years I've kept adding plants unril it's turned into a "jungle" lol Since I had some hurricane damage and it's necessary to repair anyway.Thought it might be a good idea to combine everything into one area.
It is now 12x25 but think I'd like to expand it to 25x25
with a 12 foot ceilng. Get rid of most of the yard plants
and incorporate the lily pool into the structure..
One of the really tough questions is wall covering.Note that they use lexan on the outside walls.They use carbolite at the RPH at Fairchild. The MAIN drawback is heat gain.
Even in winter this requires constant evacuation of the entire area as well as air in summer. Personally i think you could get by with only partial covering during winter and eliminate the need for air all together.
I'm thinking along the line of maybe a climate controlled area within the main structure Sort of a terrarium within a greenhouse within a shadehouse lol.
As to budget I think I can keep it under 1500 dollars with very limited maintenence costs. This doesn't seem to bad when you consider the costs of a large terrarium particularly the lights.
I'm kind of excited about the idea as it would give me a central place for all my plants,cut way back on lawn maintenence,provide a fantastic cage for my birds and would allow me to convert the lily pool to tropical temps.
I would give up all the aquariums in the house modify all exterior plantings to minimal care.. I think this would result in less maintenence than i do now.
Glad you enjoyed the site .It's a handy reference for Bromelid ID and care.
gary

Did you use caulk to attach your coconut fiber or peat moss to the foam? That's what I did with mine, but the coverage didn't end up quite as nice as yours . . .

First I would like to say, "Thank you all!" for the great Info and fantastic conversations! =) I have been to several sites where its been like talking to trees!(not that thats bad,they just dont answer in our language!LOL!) Sue, I used brown GE siliconeII, I think the secret to nice coverage is to take your time, do it in sections, after the foam has cured completely (three to four days) start adding the silicone in a small area, around 10"x10", starting at the bottom, make sure that you spread the silicone well, if you see any foam showing, even a tiny spot, cover it with silicone, then cover the silicone with coco fiber, make sure you apply at least two to three inches of fiber on top of the silicone, then pat it down with the palm of your hands to make sure it makes good contact with the silicone, and let it be for a couple of hours or even over night, then use a vacuum to suck up the excess fiber, I bought a turbo vac 800 that I use solely for this purpose, nice and small and easy to work with, this method is time consuming, but the end result is well worth it. =) Garyfla, have you ever thought about turning you 150 on its side? That would give you a nice tall area to work with, you would have to alter it a little, but the results would be outragous! =) Thanks again to every one! =)

Hi
The 150 is only 18 inches wide. In the previous setup it was used as an aquarium set into a 4x8x8 foot open terraium.
I made a lot of mistakes on that setup.Used the wrong materials,was too wide to reach accross, made no provisions for rainfall. At this time I'm thinking along the lines of a river tank and connecting it to the lily pool. This would allow me to use it as a heat source during winter.Since the 150 is 24 inches deep it has to be set rather low or you can't reach the bottom.Makes for bad viewing unless seated
but see no choice. The back wall will probably be a drip wall,maybe 8 feet tall.Thinking of making this of Ex.foam
over styrofoam.Not sure it will be strong enough.
I want to make a PVC tree to the left which will hold the more temp tolerant orchids,Should provide shade for the drip wall and it should give a huge humidity boost.I'm hoping this will be good for the epi mosses and ferns.
Got the tank cleaned up and disconnected and will move it into the house while remodeling.If I can figure out how to move the monster.lol That sucker is heavy!! Really have no place to put it but temporarily we can walk around it.
gary