# Golden Mantella tank in progress



## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

Sort of the early stages here, but I have got most of my swamp cooler put together and thought it might be worth showing. The tank is a restored 30 gallon slate bottom I converted to have sliding glass doors. Only the cooler end is acrylic (1/4in) and all the bulkheads are peiced out of PVC fittings. I plan on putting an expanding foam backgroud in and covering that with an epoxy resin/peat mix. I built the exchager out of aluminium flashing and some #10-24 threaded rod, in all 50 aluminium plates. 

http://gallery.pethobbyist.com/index.pl?photo=131791&size=big

Sorry, for the link the image posting was not working out so well.


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2004)

wow that is complex. What is the cooler for?


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

I live in Flordia and my home is heated/cooled by a heatpump. So having something to help keep the temps down is a must.


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2004)

the cooler looked almost like a radiator. Does it work on the same principle?


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

The idea behind the swamp cooler is to drop air temp through the latent heat of evaportion of water, where as a radiator uses a huge surface area to disapate heat (same as a heat sink). Normaly, a swamp cooler would have some sort of fiborus material (like paper) with water trikeling down it for the air to pass over. But for my purposes I went with aluminium because I plan on adding a bank of Peltier devices at the top. 

So, the way my works is like this: Water comes in from a sump to a picece of PVC that run through the aluminium plates. It slowly seeps out of a cut in the top of the PVC that runs the length of the whole bank of plates. Air is passed between the the plates by the 2 80mm computer fans in the back. This air foces the water to evaporate off the plates, dropping the air temp and humidifying it. The excses water then just drains into the tank. 

In the end there will be a 1/4 thick aluminium block attached to the top of the bank of plates, attached to this will be a group of Pelier devices and a large heat sink for desipateing the heat produceds by the Peliers. I am hopeing to put together some sort of logic circuit to control the whole thing and incorporate a thermal cut-off with the lighting. I don't know how efficent this design is, but it seems logical.


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2004)

wow. very interesting, but beyond me. I would end up buying a window AC unit to cool the whole room. But your way seems much more fun. :wink: 

Good luck,


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

How many degrees does it lower the temp? do you know yet?


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

I don't know yet. Each of the Peliers devices is capable of droping its surfuce temp to 8C, but the temp in the tank will be a factor of how efficently my design exchanges the heat. So, as of yet it is unknown. But I will let everyone know whether or not it is a flop.


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2004)

Very nice... I love to see people trying new things..... I am a gadget person myself 8)


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

It's been a while, have you forgotten us? or are you still working on it?


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

It has been a while and no I haven't forgoten. I just finished the stand and hood (carpentry wise that is). I will try and get some pics up very soon.


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## Guest (May 21, 2004)

maybe I am wrong but doesn't aluminum leach? if the water is being cooled by the aluminum plates?

why not just chill the sump tank? i just use a chiller or at times, have taken the sump tank, placed into a refabed dorm fridge and with some time and plumbing stuff, the water comes out into the vivarium quite cold.

if you do the landscaping right, micro climates are created and thus if the salama...oops...the frog (lol) want to or needs to be colder, it just moves down into that area of the vivarium.

That's what i do anyway.


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

The aluminum leaching should not be a problem, as the inner workings of most aquarium chillers are aluminum.

I did look into aquarium chillers (to much cooling power and to expensive) and I considered the dorm frig (but decided that too was not apopriate for my needs). So I went with a swamp cooler retrofit with a pair of 85 Watt Peltiers. The other benifit is that because it is a 12 volt system I can have a battery back up incase of power outages. Which is a huge plus.

I just got a 35/30 amp power supply so I will be testing the coolling power in the next couple of weeks and will let you guys know how the design works.

I just finished building my stand and hood for the tank and as promised here are the pics.



















The stand is maple with cherry trim and finshed with Olypic's Antique Oil.

I posted the background a while ago, I think. But here it is agin. It is epoxy resin and milled peat over urethane foam.










Let me know what you think.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

I think it all looks gorgeous!


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## mindcrash (Mar 3, 2004)

The hood and stand look great!

I wish i had woodworking skills.


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## Guest (May 21, 2004)

I am curious as to how well an evaporative cooler will work in Florida with its high humidity, of course if it is inside your house, the home a/c will reduce the indoor humidity. I like to keep my home temp at 77 in the day, and 73-74 at night, this does drop the humidity


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

Yhea the air in the house stays dry because of the AC. Which makes the evporative part of the cooler more effective, but the real issue is the size. This is why the Peltiers are being added. However even outside evaporative coolling is used quite a bit in the state. All of our greenhouses are coolled this way.


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## Guest (May 21, 2004)

Damn dude that stand is beutifull! Great job.


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

Beautiful stand and hood! Did you use a router for the endges or take a long time sanding?


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## Guest (May 22, 2004)

jhupp said:


> Let me know what you think.


Just one word... 

AWESOME!!!



You certainly have put a tremendous amount of effort into it and it shows! 

Best wishes,
Jan


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## Guest (May 22, 2004)

the cabinetry looks great. i use thermofoil so there isn't any issues with warping - which is pricey. how you keep the wood from expanding over time from the elements?

i especialy like the tank. the aluminum-chrome corners. I would like to stubble upon a bunch of those tanks or at least the frames. 

the battery back up is cool - i've never heard of a swamp cooler until last week but regardless, i'm interested in the cost of all the parts it took and the over all output of cool water at the return point in the vivarium plus the temps in those areas if you would please.

the dorm fridge cost me about $100.00 and the chiller was around $500.00 but it's worth the animal to spend it. but if you say the swamp cooler works as good and is less, i'm sold...


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

So here is the update:

I set the swamp cooler up, without the Peltiers, for some test yesterday. Running the fans at 5 volts and using 75F water with the room temp at 75F, the air coming out of the cooler was 68F. Not a huge drop, but decent none the less. The Peltiers should make the temp drop even more.

I'll keep you all posted, and if it works I'll post a how-to guide.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

*cool*

8) COOL :lol:


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2004)

remember please, i've been working with salamanders for a while and
just recently moved on to learn tincs. why would one want the tank temps 
to drop that low? don't tincs and maybe other darts, need warmer temps?


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## Moe (Feb 15, 2004)

Mantellas come from a place from high elevation, and require cooler temps to thrive. I found that out the hard way, two of mine died from heat related issues.

M.N


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

*golden mantella temps*

He mentioned it was designed for golden mantellas, which are a highland species.
According to Marc Staniszewski's very complete book on mantellas, the (recomended) min/max temps for them are:
Minimum nighttime 59 deg F, Max nighttime 68 deg F
Min daytime 64 deg F, Max daytime temp 74 deg F
He also states that tadpoles do best between 64 and 70.
The lighting necessary for good plant growth adds alot of heat to a tank, and I don't think many people air condition their homes to 60 8) !


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2004)

I'm bumping this back up as I'm researching setting up a golden mantella tank as well (although where I live, just have the tank in the basement provides the temps I need). 

Have you finished it since your last post, jhupp?


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2004)

I'm going to add my bump, too.  

Wow, that's quite a fantastic idea. I'm curious if it's worked out as well as you'd hoped? That'd be fantastic for creating a Masdevallia terrarium as well.

Never had heard of a Peltier device, so, I did some reading. Neat stuff. Where do you recommend picking up some of those?

Any more pictures? (Please?) :lol:


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

If you do some searching, you can usually find them at (from)surplus outlets.


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## Ben E (Oct 1, 2004)

nice set-up/....i have played around with peltiers quite a bit with terrariums...are you planning on water jacketing the hot side or just heat sink cooling? you better be prepared to insulate the tank like crazy and the real problem is elliminating any and all heat input ie lights....might want to try water cooling your lights....another question, the swamp chiller works by evaporation, and you need to start with fairly dry air to effect much of a temperature drop....i would be pretty surprised to find your air picks up 100% saturation through one pass through your swamp chiller....what is the humidity of all that ventilated air entering the tank and what humidity does the inside environment stay?? Ben


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

Wish I could answer your questions, but this project has been put on hold.


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