FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello everyone!
I really love Nepenthes.
I have two big problems though.
1. The temperature in my house is basically a constant 68-72 degrees. This is too cold for lowlanders, and bad for highlanders due to little temperature drop.
2. I don't have room to provide enough light to grow big ones.

I'm my opinion, the solution lies in the smaller ones, like N. glabrata, or N. tangelensis.
Unfortunately, most intermediates are too vigorous (N. tobacia, for example). Currently, I have around 20 N. ventricosa seedlings that I grew from seed. However, I'd like to add some other species.

My question is:
How can I get a good enough temperature drop in a terrarium at night to grow average highlanders? I only have enough room for a 20 gallon one at maximum, and I've only seen solutions for terrariums around 100 or more gallons...

I was thinking about using a Peltier thermoelectric cooler, but I've heard really mixed results. I saw someone who grew ultra highlanders in a terrarium cooled by them, and others saying they fail easily. In fine with electronics, so the drive circuit would not be a problem.

Any ideas?
I'd absolutely love help, so I'll be able to provide conditions for highland Nepenthes and Heliamphora.

Thank you!

I just place a few reusable ice packs in my terrarium every night before bed, and put them back in the freezer in the morning.

Depending on how many ice packs I put in there, I can drop my temps down into the high 40's, low 50's (F).

This method does drop the humidity a bit, but I often mist my highland nepenthes and heliamphora with refrigerated distilled water before bed as well. They seem to appreciate it.

I say you can grow some lowlanders if you want to just place one of those reptile heeting pads under the tank .

for any nepenthes or tropical plants you need a grow light or direct sun and a terrarium. Before you think about plants get a sense of the temperature in your terrarium or window sill. My Heli heterodox x minor was given to me it survived temperatures in the 90's in the day and 60-70's in the night they didn't like it though.

I also had a glabrata that lived in those temperatures it didn't pitcher but it did make leaves A lot of these plants are more heat tolerant than you would expect (start with easy ones like ventrata, alata, and I have had a lot of success with miranda on a window sill

don't worry you'll find a way to grow heli's (I did)

My terrariums are about the same as my house.
I know this because I've had more than 5 years of experience.

Do you know of any dwarf lowlanders/intermediates?
I haven't seen any that stay small*
This is why I want to get temperatures for highlanders...
I know there are lowlanders with small pitchers, like N. gracilis, but they all get MASSIVE, so I'm looking for smaller statured plants...



*I know Nepenthes are big plants, but this is RELATIVE. Species like the ones I mentioned in the first post stay small for Nepenthes...

Well i dont know if your a DIY'er?

I have been thinking about the same for my heli's, and i wrecked a portable cooling thing (to keep drinks cold in during roadtrips etc), it has a 12v and 220v connector (220 to 12v converter as well) and a decent size Peltier element, and i have been thinking about using that for cooling.

And here u can buy those cooling boxes second hand from 10$ and up, so might be a cheap idea to try

The only viable solution that's not so complicated and made to work is a AC unit. In my experience things that are used outside of there recommended or intended parameters require constant fiddling.
I have never had any luck dropping temps at all with ice packs either

Oh this a good thread for me too, I'm trying to get a nighttime temp drop for my tank too. What about something like this homemade A/C unit: http://www.instructables.com/id/Hollis-homemade-AC/

Do you think a scaled down version of that would work or no?

Well, that might be a great "low tech" option!

But do mind that this works the same as placing cooling packs in the tank (allthough u will need a tank to disperse it like with the *homemade* ac.

I think I've seen some people make little swamp coolers for their Nep or Heli tanks. It looks fairly simple and as long as you understand how a evaporation cooler works you can essentially make it any size. All you need is a water reservoir, small water pump, 1/4" tubing, small pvc tubing with holes drilled in one side, sponge, and a small computer fan and your off to a good start.

A couple ideas from a quick search
Bucket
5 Gallon Bucket
Cooler

You could use these ideas and funnel the cold air into your chamber

I've seen this setup a lot with peoples grow chambers. The fans cool the water vapor as the humidifier pumps in the mist, dropping the temperatures in the chamber.

you could probably get a cooler (such as used for capping) and put plexiglass over it. I have heard about people doing that for darlingtonia. maybe it could work?

What do you people think of this doo-hicky I found on amazon? http://www.amazon.com/Original-Handy-Co ... 002F8IFV6/

It's a personal evaporative cooler for only $35. It's not designed for cooling a whole room like the more expensive ones. Seemed like it might work good for a terrarium, but I've never used an evaporative cooler before. Does it look any good or no?

The problem here with a swamp cooler is that the humidity in my house is 20-40%, and the terrarium would be higher, around 60-80% or higher. At those humanities, swamp coolers are terrible at cooling...
Thanks for the ideas. I'll probably go with a Peltier cooler, and either use a CuCl2/Ice mix or a CPU cooler to cool the hot side of the Peltier cooler, so that the other side can get even colder...

personally I would not bother to much , your plants will adapt well enough , the temp drop of the lights going out will usually be enough , mine grow in47c to 38c and night its 25 to 28 summer, and up and down , winter huge difference
2c night up to 12 to 18c day , and they cope fine , dont get to hung up about massive temp drops in micro climate , its give you to many head aches a more stable temp will work just fine on high land plant as well . works just fine in my lab

snapperhead51 wrote:personally I would not bother to much , your plants will adapt well enough , the temp drop of the lights going out will usually be enough , mine grow in 47c to 38c and night its 25 to 28 summer, and up and down , winter huge difference
2c night up to 12 to 18c day , and they cope fine , dont get to hung up about massive temp drops in micro climate , its give you to many head aches a more stable temp will work just fine on high land plant as well . works just fine in my lab

P1190919.JPG

Did u mistype there mr snapperhead?
Helis surviving (and thriving) in those temperatures?

no its not a mistake, its the temps we get here , lucky not every day, but it gets up there and in the 40c temps for weeks at a time then drop down for a cool change to 35 c or so and builds back up again ,we have been named the hottest city on the planet, not a nice though for the future . trouble is with those temps and stifling dry air humidity is very low, from 2 to 10% mainly less here , I can dry a machine washed queen size bed sheet in 5 min approx here of those hot day
the plants are ok if you mist and fogg them keep up the humidity and have evaporation cooler blowing air in, my huge water cooler help with cooling and hot air extraction , you can see foggers working in photo .