Large Amazonian Terrarium Project (pt.3)

My freakish dream of having a chunk of rain forest in my living room is now reality! Dispite the fact that before things start to look really interesting I have a lot of planting to do, and the plants have plenty of growing to do, this sucker is finally 100% built and operational. So far so good. Things have gone surprisingly well. My fears of mistakenly creating a big moldy, festering, insect larvae maturation tank have so far gone unfounded.

For those of you who haven't been following along, or have forgotten, some months ago I started planning a project to build a large amazonian terrarium in my living room. For years I've been cultivating carnivorous plants in a few small terrariums and this around I decided that it was time to do something more dramatic. The plans were detailed in Pt. 1 of this post. The first half of the construction was detailed in Pt. 2. Read on to see how things evolved from there in the continuation of this post, linked below. This was fun.

Here is the finished project:

Okay, so here is where we left off last. Frame built and the walls were landscaped:

Next I put in the windows. I still wish I could have found 6'x4' glass panes to work with, but glass that big is about 80lbs, and hanging 80lbs on a hinge and making an air tight door was a bit beyond my woodworking abilities. These windows were cheap and saved a whole lot of time. I've grown used to the seam in the middle, and the built in sliding doors make for handy access.

Next I built a lid for the box. I waterproofed a chunk of 5/8" plywood and cut holes for the lights and the humidifier. The wood has a natural warp to it which causes gaps. I'm using the gaps for ventilation presently.

For lighting I went with 8, 23w compact fluorescent flood light replacement lamps. They say that they are 90w equivalents, which would be similar to 720w of incandescent lamps but without all of that heat. I attached them with black silicone, which allows them to sit tightly on the cover. They have built in reflectors that have a much more efficient beam angle than typical CF lamps. Even still, I have a real feeling that I still don't have enough light inside of this thing. I would like to double the number of lamps eventually. For now I keep telling myself that the floor of the Amazon rain forest is not the brightest place in the world. Here is a shot of the lid:

The humidity and much of the watering for the terrarium is done via a regular humidifier hooked up to the lid with a dryer hose and duct tape. It is a pretty simple setup that keeps things nice and moist in there. I still have to climb inside occasionally to do some hand watering but this takes care of the humidity requirements very nicely. Using distilled water keeps minerals from building up on the glass.

Here are the lights and humidifier running. Everything is/will be on timers and I'm running the lamps for 14 hours a day and the humidifier for about one hour. It looks great when things really fog up in there. After a good amount of fogging everything is covered with tiny droplets pf water.

I bought the molding from Home Depot and finished it with a mahogany stain. I used shim blocks to flush it out and a hot glue gun to put everything together. Hot glue is just about the most fantastic stuff in the world for putting on things like molding. It is fast, easy, and stronger than nails.

The corners were tricky. I'm not entirely happy with how things came out. It's a little bit more over the top than I really want. It's easy to change around if I find the time and motivation.

I have planted some stuff in there already. It's a lot of fun hunting around the city and around the internet doing research. I'm trying to focus on plants that are interesting in some way, such as being sacred to the indigenous tribes, are beautiful, grow fast or have some kind of a weird story behind them.

Here is a shot of what things are looking like presently:

Here is an angel trumpet tree that I picked up at Home Depot the other day. It's beautiful and poisonous. :0)

Here is an achiote plant that I bought online. This plant produces seed pods that can be used to make orange dye. It's the coloring used in cheddar cheese. Wikipedia reports that it can also be used to make a remedy for rectal discomfort.

Here I have trapped a small child. I use them, when I can get them, to generate CO2 which the plants absolutely love. Did you know that half of the dry weight of a plant comes right out of thin air via absorption of gaseous CO2?

Vines! Vines rock!

So how do I plan to proceed going forward? Next I'm going to get a whole bunch of epiphytic plants, like orchids and whatnot and try to fill in the walls some more. It is going to take a while, but I think I have a pretty good start.

So here it is, the finished product. Honestly this project will be forever evolving and changing. I'll be adding plants and clipping stuff back, I could add a pond and some frogs, who knows. This thing was a lot of work but at the same time it was so much fun to make. I'm trying to figure out what I should do next.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments. Bring it on. :0)

Comments

[zen]

Is that a Roomba I see in the corner?

[Non-Prophet]

You betcha. My house has been robot friendly since about 2003!

[es]

Definitely a lot more interesting than a TV set! Congrats!
How much energy does it take to run the whole setup.. just out of curiousity?

[darksandal]

I'd like to see a permanent exhibition of amazonian children if you could please. Live diorama!

[Non-Prophet]

I had Ursen in there once. He loved it.

[Chris (UK)]

What a fantastic idea! I love it! I hope that you will continue to post pictures as things begin to get busy in there.

Now I want one...........

[bryan dean]

Hey man, your terrarium looks incredible. I was googling "terrarium denver" and your page came up. I actually have a 180 gallon terrarium that's leaking and need to find a home for the plants because I can't really water them. I have a ton of carnivorous plants, orchids, ivy, misc. fern and air plants. Would you be interested. I really hate to trash them.
let me know!
-bryan

[bryan dean]

FYI I live in downtown Denver.

[Kate]

Very cool! I hope to do something similar one day.

[pete]

do you/are you going to keep all the plants potted? the walls look so cool, just wondering if stuff is going to be growing out of them

[Non-Prophet]

The pots will go as soon as things acclimate and look ready. I'm trying not to shock the plants to death.

Bryan:
I'm interested, but I don't know when I'll get the chance to run up to Denver. I am going away this weekend and then that'll leave less than two weeks before my wedding which is on the 30th. How long to I have before they get tossed?

[Michael Dean]

Absolutely beautiful! You did a phenomenal job; congrats!!!