Not much gardening going on with me either. I NEED to be dividing some black-eyed susans and cosmos, but we seem to spend a lot of weekends going to grand-kids soccer and football games. And like catbird, we're trying to get ready for the onslaught of the holidays. Also our house is topsy-turvy right now. We're having hardwood put in our BR (which we should have done when we built the house), so everything is a mess. Should get the final coat of finish tomorrow and can move furniture back in this weekend. Then we've got to paint the walls at some point when I pick out new bedding. It's been interesting to try to find stuff we've moved around. Oh yeah, we're also rehearsing for the Living Christmas Tree, which will be the weekend before Christmas.

Nice! The variegated crypt was a very good choice, as that white striping really brightens things up. And what cute AVs! They will eventually need to be separated though, if you are interested in maintaining any leaf symmetry. The one with purple flowers looks like a mini (which I love), so it will stay smaller (6-8" plant diameter). Standard AVs can grow to be a foot in diameter though, so you might want to start new plants from leaf cuttings before then. =) And I think I have the same polka-dot plant as you! Mine also has smaller leaves and pink and white variegation. Is the palm new? I love them, and they stay small for quite a while. I also have one in my terr. Your coco-panels look quite dry though, you might want to try keeping them more moist (this will happen slowly all by itself though, the longer they are in your tank, and the more moisture they absorb out of the air). The tillies you chose won't mind being drier, but if you want an ivy to grow up the wall, it will want to be constantly moist.

Yes, swords are tolerant of lower light levels. My husband used to grow them in his planted discus tank, and they did very well. I have no experience with bacopa, so i can't comment on that, other than that I thought i read once they needed med-high light levels. I can't say for sure though. You need to replace the bulbs every 6 months because you will have them on for about 12-14 hours every day. That is way beyond what most people use them for (just as bulbs in lamps), and after about 6 months, they will loose most of their effective light output. Of course it still looks just fine to the human eye, but your plants will really suffer. Plants need a LOT of light, much more than we need just to see normally, so you really can't go by how bright a light 'looks' to you. Another factor is that the bulbs tend to burn out the blue end of the spectrum first, and blue light is very important to plants. The human eye, however, can't see blue light very well (we're best suited to seeing yellow light, which is not that helpful to plants), so again, you can't tell how good a bulb is for your plants just by looking at it. As for buying on eBay, I have no idea. I've never really looked at bulbs there. I have bought some things on eBay, and I've learned to be very, very careful. Ask the seller lots of specific questions. You can get great deals, but you can also get ripped off big time. Compact fluo's are a little confusing, because a seller could say that they are selling 75 watt bulbs. Now does this mean they use 75 watts, or that they output light equivalent to a 75 watt incandescent bulb? If the former, then they would be putting out way more light, and would be great for your terrarium. If the latter, then they are probably more like a 20 W bulb (energy usage), and you would need more of them to light your terr. sufficiently. To give you a general idea of how much light you'll need, I have an 85 gallon tank. It is 48"w x 18"d x 22"h. I have three bulbs (with an excellent reflector, I might add. Makes a big difference) that total about 80 W in their energy usage. They output the equivalent (as compared to incandescent bulbs) of 240 W (I think). The important thing is the lumens though. That is the actual light output. And I can't remember how many lumens they put out right now. I know I saved a box, but I can't find it right now, so I'll try to find it later and tell you. You really need to get a good reflector though, because otherwise you are going to loose half of your light (the topside of the bulbs, that faces away from your terrarium). Since your tank is about twice the size of mine, I would double the amount of light I have, and then add some extra, because of your increased depth. You will be able to tell if you have enough light by the way your plants grow. If they grow nice and compact, retain good leaf colour in variegated and coloured plants, and if some green-leaved plants get a nice reddish tinge to them, then you have plenty of light, and that's great! If colours fade and plants appear to be stretching towards the light, you need to add more. Also, if you grow nepenthes, the pitchers will get better colour in higher light. Don't really worry about having too much light, because it is very hard to burn plants with fluo's. They would have to actually touch the bulb, or be suddenly put directly under one after having been growing in very shady conditions for a long time. Oh yeah, I will be adding another bulb to my light hood this weekend. So based on the number of bulbs alone, you will need about 10 (of the average HD kind). If you can find higher watt bulbs on eBay, then you'll need fewer of them. And make sure you don't replace all the bulbs at once, because that can also shock and burn some of your plants. Stagger them. Since you'd have about 10 bulbs, you'll be replacing about 1 bulb a month. I always write at the base of a bulb when it needs replacing. Otherwise you just can't keep track of them all, and some could be a year old before you get around to replacing them.

hi Suggest you look around the net for some inspiration. There are sooo many setups and methods don't know where to start. lol. Google "vivariums ""Orchidariums" or my favorite "dutch vivariums" This will give you some idea on how simple or elaborate these setups can be . Much advice on heating cooling ,light ,air circulation and the mind boggling choice of plants and animals that can go into these lol I recently converted my FW paludarium back to FW aquarium while the greenhouse 150 gallon was converted from FW aquarium in to a wet/dry lowland tropical. I got out of SW altogether due to the maintenance and expense.frequent power failures and getting old lol. Look around and see what appeals to you. Though that tank seems quite large now within two months of setup it will seem tooo small lol Good luck!!! gary