The third vivarium

Oh you guys already know about this one. I have mentioned it before and I finished building it this summer, but here comes the photo evidence finally. The third vivarium in my very small growing space, but I make it work. It is nowhere near as large or as technically complex as the cool vivarium, but it does the job. It is an intermediate vivarium dedicated to vandacesous orchids, primarily Neofinetia but a few Vanda, Ascocenda and Ascocentrum will share the space as long as there is room. It is a slim and tall case, just large enough to fit some fun orchids, but small enough to fit in the space I had left over. It measures 80 cm wide, 140 cm tall by 40 cm deep.

I like the form factor, I can hang these amazing plants and the roots have ample room to grow down. I only wish it was a little deeper, then larger Vandas could hang like coats in a wardrobe and I could fit more. But in the long run this will only house the much more compact Neofinetia anyway, so that is OK. I have a little over 20 unique cultivars and a few Neo hybrids at the moment, but I want many, many more. But half of the fun is the collecting part, so I am in no hurry.

The technical…

To light the vivarium I have gotten my fourth Nebula, this time I got a Nebula II, a slightly better build than the hobby version and comes with a built in reflector. Well worth the extra money I would say. The fixture holds two 55W compact fluorescents (Osram Dulux L 55W/954) and together they produce 6000 lumen at 5400K with a CRI value of 93% per fixture. Pretty close to optimal. I keep the light on the same timer as the rest of the room, 12 hours on per day year round with a timer.

I have two 120 mm 1850 rpm Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans in charge of moving the air in there (0.083 A, 28 dBA, 98 m³/h), same as I run in the cool vivarium. Hey, when you find something that works… They run on the same power supply as the two fans in the smaller intermediate/warm vivarium and I keep them on always, 24/7.

I water this one by hand using a pressure sprayer, that little piece of equipment really is invaluable. I water every day in the summer, every other day the cooler part of the year. There is no drain in this case, so I have three plant trays in the bottom collecting excess water, the water eventually evaporate and help keep humidity up, I rarely have to empty them.

The two intermediate vivariums also share a small humidifier but I only really need to run it when I go away for more than a few days in order to keep the humidity up when I cannot water regularly. Otherwise the humidity hold steady above 75% on its own.

Temperature is ruled pretty much by the temperature in the room, which is intermediate at about Average: 15-18 C at night and 20-22 C in the day depending on the season. The light fixture heat the internal space a little bit more during the day, but it rarely goes over two degrees warmer than the ambient room temperature.

I have mounted an aluminum rod across the middle top to hang plants from, and for the upper one third of the back wall I have hung plastic mesh to hang smaller mounts from. I will probably install more mesh as I phase out the large Vandas over time. The whole thing is very low tech but works beautifully!