Chuck's vivariums 'n stuff

[Stu&Shaz]

Really like that last viv pictured Chuck and the areana blanca.
Most fascinating for me will be to hear how the eurotex vivs perform.The design is so different from ours.
Thanks man a really enjoyable thread to go through
good luck

Stu

[Chuck Lawson]

No problem, Jerry -- it's right here: http://reprobatids.com/features/vivarium...led-build/

[Chuck Lawson]

Thanks Stu!

So far the GhostVivs seem to be doing well. The front glass stays clear other than for about 30 - 45 minutes after misting, with no added fans for air circulation. The next thing I'm interested in seeing is how well the plants do with just the passive airflow.

[frogfreak]

Chuck,

Are you pleased with the Eco-web?

[Chuck Lawson]

Glenn, it seems okay for what it is; it's holding up well to the humidity, and orchids I have attached to it seem to like it, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. I had originally hoped that seeding it with moss mix would cause it to become a nice moss background, but that appears to be a glacially slow process -- six months on I've got a few patches greening up in one viv, but that's about it.

[Ghostvivs]

Think I need to start paying ya for product testing... 8)

Thanks Stu!

So far the GhostVivs seem to be doing well. The front glass stays clear other than for about 30 - 45 minutes after misting, with no added fans for air circulation. The next thing I'm interested in seeing is how well the plants do with just the passive airflow.

[Chuck Lawson]

lol! Early-adopter is just in my blood :-)

[Stu&Shaz]

Thanks Stu!

So far the GhostVivs seem to be doing well. The front glass stays clear other than for about 30 - 45 minutes after misting, with no added fans for air circulation. The next thing I'm interested in seeing is how well the plants do with just the passive airflow.

Thanks Chuck for the reply,interesting observations so far,i too am interested in how your plants do,especially broms high at the back. Casper has sited the vent much further forward than we do ours(top vent). My hunch is that your doors are clearing better than mine for condensation,but the trade off might be air movement at the back of the viv is not so great. I think that maybe two vents at the top might be the holy grail in this design. One of the guys here has had some built like this and reports good results. I'm pondering whether to try this on my next few builds myself.

Buddy, i wonder if your ecoweb and the associated moss mix are the same products as the epiweb moss mix sold here. It seems one has to provide very strong light and keep the sides constantly wet for the mix to grow well.Also the mix made into a paste needs to be applied very thick. We have been playing with the moss mix for a good while now(but not the epi/ecoweb),results are sporadic.Primarily because i haven't applied enough mix i believe,its also very slow as you say.
I've recently set up a propagator with ecoearth as substrate and spread the mix on this,starting in the greenhouse,and to be brought inside shortly,its growing thats for sure,but early yet. I'm hoping to bypass the waiting and transplant this into a viv if things work out. I thought this might be of interest
regards

Stu

[Chuck Lawson]

Thanks Stu!

Casper gave me a choice of where to put the top vent; I had him put it there to hopefully pick up both convection flow from the LED heat sink above, and also some of the breeze from the ceiling fan in the room -- the trade off may be airflow in the back. At the moment, I don't have any broms mounted much further back than the center of the tank, but I suspect ultimately I should be able to tell by how moss does towards the back.

It'd be interesting to try one with double-vents on the top; we might want to make them half-width, just to avoid loss of velocity since there will still only be the single lower vent for in-flow.

The EcoWeb is supposed to be a "similar" product to the epiweb, but I'm not sure it's the same; I'm guessing it's just some kind of industrial product that got found and re-purposed. The moss mix I used was just a DIY attempt -- blended up moss plus some sphagnum and water.

Please keep us posted on your propagation results -- I'd dearly love to be able to "bulk-grow" some moss, but nothing I've tried has worked worth a darn yet.

[heyduke]

Mine are vented similarly, I get good airflow to the back. Enough to keep tillies from rotting and the the background dries a few hours after misting.

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Sean

[Stu&Shaz]

Interesting Sean 8)

Guys I'm interested what mesh size are you using? I think much can probably be made of our climate/room behaviour,and this relative to mesh size.

Chuck here's a thought worth trying tomorrow, grab some ecoearth(cocofibre) pop it in a propagator after its been soaked from the brick form,say an inch deep,get it real wet and keep it somewhere light,always keep it moist never let it dry out.It is so much warmer where you are progress should be faster than here. This will grow the most beautiful moss,its a low growing stunning green,but it takes ages here,or in viv.I have got one of these working too. It is based on what I'm seeing at our only specialist phib shop in Blighty. Gradually all vivs are being covered in this moss,(where it is wet enough)but it all comes from spore in the cocofibre he uses,nothing else has been put in them. I'm not saying it will be a quick fix,but i find so often that just getting these things on the go yields results for later,that one is real grateful for.Hell life philosophy about moss :roll: :lol:

I find that moss grows best in the dampest corners of our vivs,from scratch anyway,where the airflow is restricted,i haven't a clue whether in the big Tex that will hold true,but it's what I'm slowly seeing here.In ten yrs i might actually know this stuff,now I'm trying to second guess to speed progress :lol:

Sure I'll keep some record of this,i took some pics if our moss mix in viv, but damned if i can find them for you

regards


Stu

[Chuck Lawson]

Thanks Sean -- hopefully I'll have similar luck; those tillandsia look terrific!

[Chuck Lawson]

Guys I'm interested what mesh size are you using? I think much can probably be made of our climate/room behaviour,and this relative to mesh size.

I'm going to have to defer to Casper on this; I've got some similar looking "no-see-um" mesh I'ved used on Exos, but I've long since discarded the packaging and any info it might have contained.

Chuck here's a thought worth trying tomorrow, grab some ecoearth(cocofibre) pop it in a propagator after its been soaked from the brick form,say an inch deep,get it real wet and keep it somewhere light,always keep it moist never let it dry out.It is so much warmer where you are progress should be faster than here. This will grow the most beautiful moss,its a low growing stunning green,but it takes ages here,or in viv.I have got one of these working too. It is based on what I'm seeing at our only specialist phib shop in Blighty. Gradually all vivs are being covered in this moss,(where it is wet enough)but it all comes from spore in the cocofibre he uses,nothing else has been put in them. I'm not saying it will be a quick fix,but i find so often that just getting these things on the go yields results for later,that one is real grateful for.Hell life philosophy about moss :roll: :lol:

Huh. That's interesting. I don't have any brick-style ecoearth on hand, but I've got some loose stuff; I'll set some of it up and try it. I'm currently trying to revive some "vendor" moss that got overly dried, and I've got it on top of wet sphagnum in shoebox-sized translucent poly containers under LEDs, and have been misting it daily. I wonder if it'd be worth trying a layer of wet sphag (for more moisture retention) under some of the eco-earth set up the same way? I'll give it a try and report back...

I find that moss grows best in the dampest corners of our vivs,from scratch anyway,where the airflow is restricted,i haven't a clue whether in the big Tex that will hold true,but it's what I'm slowly seeing here.In ten yrs i might actually know this stuff,now I'm trying to second guess to speed progress :lol:

lol -- that sounds familiar -- I'm still a rank newbie at this, just trying to blend in little bits and pieces of stuff I've gleaned keeping houseplants and fish over the years and trying to claw my way up the learning curve...

The "manuran moss" I've had the best luck with seems to be growing well (or okay, staying green and not dying; about as close to "growing well" as I get with moss :-) ) mostly in ventilated and well lit areas, as long as it stays regularly misted. My second best luck is with sphag coming back to life, mostly in exactly the same kind of areas. Just to add a few data points, my house tends to stay about 72F - 75F and 50%-60% humidity; not sure what the humidity actually runs in the vivs, but most of them have a lot of ventilation and I mist heavily -- four times a day (when lights are on only) about 45 seconds each time; with two mister nozzles in most of them. All rooms also have a ceiling fan keeping air moving, and the exos have small DC fans in them, but (so far) the new euro-style vivs do not.

[heyduke]

The mesh on mine is not quite no see um. A small melano can definitely escape but most won't.

I like it because UV will pass through it. Though I have yet to add the fixture. That's my next project once I build out a couple more.

Before I finish setting up my next ones I should do a smoke test and see how the air circulates. I have a theory that there is a bit of convection type movement going on especially with the lights on.


Sean

[Ghostvivs]

This is what i use.
http://www.wholesalescreensandglass.com ... nAodyRQAlg

[Chuck Lawson]

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Intermedius makin' tracks...

[IDPM]

Lighting makes it look like he's been playing in the tar pits.

[Chuck Lawson]

Yup. Footprints just happened to reveal some heavily shadowed areas...

[Chuck Lawson]

Playing with a new camera. Frogs weren't feeling photogenic, so just some foliage shots...

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It's been since film shooting days (back when we used to ride dinosaurs to the drugstore to get it developed) since I've used a camera that actually had some meaningful manual control and a depth of field shorter than a football field... Hopefully some of it will start to come back to me.

[Stu&Shaz]

C'mon Chuck tell all the new camera is? Dinosaurs,you guys always do things bigger :lol: naturally at this stage we had invented a wheel ,but hadn't realised one could make transport from it.
Chuck tell me more on lenses and what you'll eventually want to get(or have already) to shoot the , erm smaller frogs with,
cool plants though all the same
regards

Stu