Alex
Sounds like a really fun project IMO the first thing to do is decide how large you want it to be and want you want to keep. There are hundreds of different types or "terraria" everything from a brandy snifter to a whole glass enclosed wall. You mention fish and tropical plants
so would guess you're talking "paludarium"??
There are hundreds of ways to control the parameters from moving the glass back to complete automated controls.
If you haven't yet,do check out the sites on the net.
Most are centered on the animals usually kept in terraria
but will give you a lot of ideas. Definitely check out the "dutch vivaria" sites.They've moved terraia into an art form.. They have lots of specifics on equipment and management plus fantastic pix lol.
So difficult to make specific suggestions for a setup
without knowing how large and what you want to keep in it.
Do keep us informed on your plans.
gary

Thanks for the reply Gary,
My limit for size is nothing bigger than 1 cubic meter. But realistically i am thinking length 750mm height 500mm and depth similar as an idea.
I have been doing some research a have come to the conclusion that i will stay away from keeping fish as well at the moment.
The system i hope to have almost fully automated.
As for plants i just want fairly simple interesting species that will look good!
As a bench mark for me to work on what is the ideal environment parameters for:
HUMIDITY?
TEMPERATURE?
LIGHTING?
So far i am working on the principle that i will have to design my own misting machine, Fans for bringing in fresh air, As for heating i am not sure what is the best method?
As i the lights will displace a fair amount heat, would this be enough to control the temp?

Thanks every so much.

My website for progress with lots of pictures will be up an running soon for you to check out!

I would go as large as possible if you are going for a mini ecosystem. Are you wanting to do a biotope tank, that is, a tank with only flora and fauna from a specific geographical region? I would assume that this whole thing needs to be somewhat scientific and accurate, since it is a BSc project. And will this actually be for a customer, or is it for yourself? Because if it's for a customer, you want to make sure that they will take care of any animals you put in there. Fish and frogs don't take care of themselves, and you can't make a self-sustaining environment with bugs and everything in such a small space. Do read the old posts on this forum. There are several that deal with large terraria, and one that even talks about making a closed system with bugs and things. Use the search function on this forum to look for 'giant paludarium' or 'dream orchidarium/terrarium' or 'biodome' or other similar phrases.

If you won't be putting any animals in, then you actually don't need to worry about fresh air, and therefore you won't need fans unless you really want to keep certain orchids that require high air circulation as well as high humidity. Then things get really tricky! =) But I grow several orchids in my terrarium without a fan to circulate the air, and I have had no problems with rot yet. It's been almost a year since I set my tank up too, so problems should have developed by now if they were going to. The lights most likely will heat the tank sufficiently (mine is at about room temp, 72 F, and cooler at night with the lights off), unless it will be placed in a very cold room, and if that is the case, then you can always put a submersible heater in your water feature to keep things warm enough. If you want a water feature, you MUST have a false bottom (or an open bottom, like in a paludarium) for things to work smoothly. I would suggest a waterfall, because everyone loves them, and get a strong enough pump so that you have some splashing going on as the water flows down over the rocks or wood or whatever you decide to use. This will really help keep the humidity up. You can always leave the lid cracked open a bit to allow some fresh air in, but in a cubic meter, you will have some air currents going on all by themselves with convection (which of course you know all about), so I really wouldn't worry about a fan. Ideal humidity for plants is about 60-80%. Light would be about 2000 foot-candles to rebloom the low-light orchids, as well as allow most other tropical plants to maintain colours on variegated foliage and grow nice and compact, not stretching towards the light. This can easily be accomplished with a few compact fluorescents. You can convert foot-candles to lumens or watts yourself. =) Daylight or cool white bulbs are the best for plant growth. The ideal is 6500-6700 K, natural sunlight. I think my bulbs are 6300 or 6500 K. They're called 'Daylight'. It gives the appearance of full sun at noon (slightly yellow). Cool whites would look more like a cloudy day. A misting system may not be neccessary if you have a rain wall to water the plants along the back (and maybe sides) of the tank. If you don't have either, your plants up top will dry out too much and die. In addition to the sites gary recommended, go to www.poison-frogs.com. The guy there built a very large vivarium for his frogs and he shows the step-by-step construction in his journal. Are you looking to make this a really complex system, since it's a science project? For instance, would you have sensors that would detect the humidity levels and automatically turn on a misting system if the humidity dropped below a pre-set level? If so, none of us here have such a set-up, so you would have to invent that part yourself. As for aesthetically pleasing set-ups, judge for yourself. =) Check out the gallery here, as well as the frognet gallery and maybe vivaria or wild sky. Definitely the dutch vivs. They are breathtaking. . .

Alex
Think Sahoyaref just about covered everything.. Probably a standard aquarium would be a good container for your design. Reasonable price easy to find and many sizes available. I'm using a 48x18x22 deep ,75 gallon for my indoor setup. They have some serious drawbacks for terraria
as they are not tall or wide enough nor does it have enough access. The more experience i get the more convinced I am that the "ideal" would be much like the one on the black jungle website. Their setup method and selection of specie
also seems very good. This is of course a tropical humid forest setup without major water features This is by far the easiest type to setup and maintain. I would think that setup would almost maintain itself.lol
As to Temp.Hum. and light,this natuarally depends on the specie selection. Sounds like what you have in mind is much like their setup??
I'm not convinced that misting machines are necessary and in some cases could be detrimental. They do look cool though lol. IMO air movement is far more important and maybe even necessary.
Light fixtures will add a great deal of heat to the setup
usually too much I doubt supplemental heat will be necessary in your set up. Depending on room temps of course.
IMO a good drop of say ten or 15 degrees during the night
would be beneficial to most tropical plants and with some orchids essential.Most tropical plants thrive in the 60 to 90 degree range anyway.
Look forward to seeing the pix of your progress. I had intended to start building my large system by now but the hurricanes changed my plans lol.Will probably me March or April brfore I even get started.
That's also dependant on the urge to setup a marine aquarium. Have an opportunity to get a large hex-shaped tank for almost nothing.May be more than I can resist lol
gary

Thanks for the replies!
Sorry for such basic questions is just that i am in the start up of this project!. I am going to be designing a 'PIC' that will be designed to regulate the environment Via sensors. apart from basic maintenance i am aiming for a design that only needs external water reservior topped up on a regular basis.
I have vast knowledge on keeping Marine aquariums, as had three 50+ gallon tanks at one point but this field is completly new to me!!
This week i am going to be working on the electronics side and designing the dreaded PIC!!
The kit is designed for people like yourselves that have great intrest in the subject.
One thing what is a false floor set up?? i have looked at a few diagrams but have yet understand!?
I am fixed on the idea of a water feature though as i think this will provide more interest, but not with any living inhabitants at the moment.
So as for the design shape of the enclosure maybe a corner unit design would provide good volume??
Alex

I think a corner bow-front tank would be PERFECT! You would have plenty of depth, and be able to cover the two corner walls with epiphytes without obstructing the viewing area (as with a standard rectangle tank). Corner tanks, and especially bowfronts, are much more expensive than the same volume of standard tank though, so be aware of that.

As to humidity and misting systems, gary doesn't need them because he lives in Florida, and can keep his tank totally uncovered and maintain 80% humidity! LOL So he needs fans, I need a misting system. You will have to tailor things according to where you live.

Regarding false bottoms, it took me a long time to understand them too, even though I also read a lot and looked at pics. Check out the link I put below. The page was done by one of the regulars here, and I think it does a good job explaining it. Bascially you need to make a floor above the bottom of your tank so that you have a water resovoir under there. You use PVC pipe sections to hold this false bottom up, and the false bottom itself is made of eggcrate with screen over that. The screen is so that your substrate doesn't fall through the rather large holes of the eggcrate, but you can't use screen alone because of course it's not stiff or strong enough. And it needs to be porous because obviously the entire substrate needs to be able to drain after it is misted, and your waterfeature needs somewhere to go. In my 85 gallon tank, my false bottom is three inches high. This allows enough water to cover the pump that operates my waterfall, but if you are having a water bucket underneath the tank, hidden in the stand, you could probably get away with as little as a 1 inch false bottom, since your pumps would be outside of the tank. I really would recommend putting all that kind of equippement outside the tank, because it is SUCH a pain in the butt to try to fix stuff in the false bottom. . . (the voice of experience). I even tried to make mine easily accessible, but failed. =(

My husband has a saltwater tank, and it definitely generates more interests with our guests than my terrarium. People seem to require something moving to look at. Probably a result of our television-obsessed world. . . but anyways, you will undoubtedly find terrariums less complicated and less expensive, and with much lower maintenance. Have fun!

Here is a link that might be useful: False Bottoms.

Alex: I have been working on such a device with my friend MDS.
Greenhouse controller.

It's built using the PIC 16f876, which is a reasonable size, and we have a serial protocol to talk a computer (for displaying current status on a web page, and for reconfiguring)).

Everything is done as free software - we'd love for you to use our work and contribute further. In return we can give you extra testing, and help with the programming. MDS uses the CCSS compiler to build stuff, and I haven't got SDCC to work with 14bit pics for some time, so I rely on him to build stuff.

I actually use the controller for my greenhouse, but I have another one on order for my terr. If you live in Australia we could post you some PCBs to get started.

Regarding controlling humidity, I had an interesting idea recently after a discussion of cloud chamber design - cloud chambers were used to look for high energy particles before they invented snazzy new things like scintilation plastics (indeed, before they invented plastics :). The idea is to completely pressure seal the terrarium and have a piston which moves in and out to cause sudden super saturation of the air. This will cause real clouds to form. I reckon it would be damn cool to have real clouds forming in a terrarium :)

Anyway, enough dreaming, it's time for bed.

Wow, real clouds in a terrarium? That would be cool! Those hydrofoggers are also very good for making a fog or mist along the ground of terrariums, which looks really cool, but you would need fans for sure to circulate the air if you had that much humidity! It would be perfect for growing pleuros and masdies though. . . they live in the cloud forests, so they love that combo. of cool air and humidity!

I Live in the UK unfortunaltly!
That is a great idea though! Not so sure whether i would be able to tackle that issue though as it may up the budget of the project drastically.. Plus i am not sure it would actually work on the scale i am going to build?
I have a meeting tomorrow about the electronics so hopefully will be making progress soon! Thanks ever so much for the PCB offer but i am in the UK dam!
To be continued shortly!

HI all,
Well i am still progressing on my project slowly! I am trying to make the housing very stylish and a bit different! Basically i have a few basic design ideas which are a bit different i understand the constraints of some of my ideas. But i would love people opinions on a couple of my ideas + also any ideas for shapes etc you have.. Any input would be greatly appreciated!
The images are here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/degree007/towercopy.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/degree007/5485f839.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v516/degree007/tower2copy.jpg

Thanks all
Alex

Alex,

Nice design. I have seen a cylinder design put to practice. I'll see if I can find the guy's new website and I will post it. There are a few problems with tall, narrow vivaria: condensation and getting enough light to the bottom without burning plants at the top. The website I have seen addresses some of those issues. Good start!

Why don't you try some tiny turtles or hermit crabs? The tiny turtles would love the water feature and hermit crabs are not so hard to take care of (my mother had some when she was a child and said they were not so hard to take care of). You could also try a gecko or small lizard. It sounds like a neat project. I have a dart frog in a 10 gallon tank that I'm fixing up to look like the jungle.

I found the website: http://bbrock.frognet.org/Gallery/Vent_Gallery/images/ventviv1.jpg

You can go to http://bbrock.frognet.org for other pics and descriptions of the building process.

Homer

I like the cylendar and the oval. The oval is probably more practical in terms of lighting, being shorter (like Homer said). You'll definitely want to use acrylic if you want those shapes though. I've never seen an oval glass tank! I suppose it could be done, because I've seen vases like that, but you'd probably have to pay a fortune. And then there's the distortion that you get when looking into a round object. Not as bad with a terrarium (air) than with a fishbowl full of water I'm sure, but something to be considered.

I build vivariums for a living here in california.
You can build a terrarium or micro environment in any sized container, a ten gallon or 1000 gallon.

You need only establish the nitrogen cycle, create the right heat for your plants, and fuana if any, and maintian
constant humidity, while creting air flow. simple.

depending on the plants, their needed light and water levels, you can do anything. concider a epiphytic peperomia
called costa rica. it need strong light but no too strong, it grows in the canopy (dapled light)and humidity.
you can grow this in a ten gallon tank, with a compact floresent(sp) or any tube plant light simply for years.

the soil is one of the keys to learn about. establishing a system that create inorganic waste - or nitrogen to feed the plants is easy. add a pill bug or two, and a few ear wigs.

it's not rocket science.

Here is a link that might be useful: home page.

I wouldn't add earwigs. They can really do a lot of damage to your plants. Pill bugs/roly polys/sow bugs seem to be quite harmless though. Nice terrarium, BTW!

Hi
Alex, not to hijack your thread but I found viv guy's site very interesting. Since he has a lot of experience at this thought I might ask him a coulple of light questions.
I want to build a much more vertical type of terrarium,somewhere around 5/6 foot in depth. Any suggestions for lighting?? I;m considering locating it in my shadehouse and use natural light .Would this work?? Thanks
Gary

viv guy: did you design poison-frogs.com guy's vivarium? Is that why you have his pics on your website? If so, wow! I'm impressed! You should post here more often! =) Especially when we're dreaming of massive tanks, like the one gary mentioned. =) BTW, what is that fern in several of your pics? It looks very soft, full, and lush. Which species/type is it? I would love one!

I think this is simpler than you think. Realistically, you controll the temp by the wattage of light compared to size of tank. Go for commercially available products. A heating pad that goes under a fish tank and is low wattage is available commercially at fish stores. Cooling in hot weather is much harder. Humidity is controlled by opening a gap in the top. Once set, it stays pretty much the same. Google each plant to learn it's humidity requirment and lots of other requirements you might not have thought of. Remember, living things are adaptable. They have to be in the real world. Don't over plan because the living things will tell you what they like. Plan for flexibility so you can make changes when they become necessary. One example: I had spider mites killing my plant. I learned that high humidity would kill them. You can't plan for things like that. Become a naturalist. have fun.

High humidity actually will not kill spider mites. It simply makes the plants healthier, so that they are unaffected by the spider mites. And I know from experience that the humidity can vary greatly, especially when a gap is left in the top of the terrarium. Mine went from 40-80% humidity. Now that I have it closed, it stays at about 90%, which is much preferable.