FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, today I was able to get a chest freezer! Yay! It was a great deal, and I've been looking into making one of these for a while now, so I had to snap it up. Here are some pics. It's 5.1 cubic feet. It's rough dimensions are 28 L x 21 W x 32 H on the outside, 24 L x 17 W on the inside. I'm planning on growing a bunch of finicky highland South American sundews in here, plus maybe some heliamphora eventually. The temps and humidity I'm aiming for are 75 daytime highs and 50 lows and RH of 85-95%. Sound okay?

Now that I know it works, I'm planning on getting a ZooMed Hygrotherm and a computer fan to regulate temperature and air circulation. I think I'll take off the lid, get some plexiglass to put over the top, and probably stand the trays on some egg crate/Plastokite, or just wing it with some upturned tupperware I have lying around

I am definitely looking for advice and tips from anyone who has or hasn't had any experience with this, so any input is welcome. I'll keep this thread updated as I get the system working.

Thanks!

-mo_carnivore

Watching with envy...

Ooooooo I wish I could do that...... Cant wait to see the pictures when you are done!

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Hopefully it works out. Apparently it’s pretty easy to set up and cheap to both set up and run. As long as you get the freezer cheap that is...

Just one thought.
You might want a low-low temperature cutout switch.
This way, if your control system malfunctions, the freezer won't kill your plants by freezing them solid.

For example, if your temperature setpoint is 50 then set your cutout at 40.

One user in the last few years had something like this happen to him.

Just an idle cautionary thought.

Good growing,
Mike

Shadowtski wrote:Just one thought.
You might want a low-low temperature cutout switch.
This way, if your control system malfunctions, the freezer won't kill your plants by freezing them solid.

For example, if your temperature setpoint is 50 then set your cutout at 40.

One user in the last few years had something like this happen to him.

Just an idle cautionary thought.

Good growing,
Mike

That's a good idea, I'll look into that.

tannerm had a chest freezer set up like that. It malfunctioned and froze all his plants. You can PM him and I bet he can give you some tips. You can also find him in the FB cp groups (Tanner Marsh).

Be careful!!! I have heard more than one horror story regarding this method.

I will, thanks! Hopefully it turns out well... I’ve heard many horror stories but I’ve heard maybe success stories too.

The setup is almost done! I managed to DIY the flooring and got the hygrotherm this week. Just got the plexiglass lid and I'm only waiting on the fan which should come today!

Here's how it looks so far. For now, the temps are set at 75 daytime and 59 nighttime temps. I might lower the nighttime temperature in the future, but for now I don't want it to get too cold. Humidity seems to be doing fine, around 85%, but when the freezer kicks on it drops. This will probably be fine, but it's going to be something I will keep an eye on. For now I have really any sundew in there that I like, but in the future I'll have to get more selective--it'll probably turn into an exclusive highland and tuberous sundew grow area.

Congratulations mo_carnivore, I can't wait to see your plants grow.

EliWhitney3140 wrote:Congratulations mo_carnivore, I can't wait to see your plants grow.

Unfortunately there was an accident and a lot of plants were lost.... Morning has been slowly working back the collection.

Yep, quite a costly accident too. Totally my fault however, and I still love my chest freezer. It’s a great way to provide nice temp drops for my picky sundews.

what was the error that caused the losses? you had it automated so curious where it went wrong.

As I was doing maintenance in the freezer, I took out the sensor attached to the thermostat and forgot to put it back in the freezer when I was done. That night, the thermostat was reading the room's ambient temperature and trying to get the entire room down to that temperature, but because the thermostat was attached to the freezer it dropped the freezer's temperature to way below freezing.