# Air circulation principle Vivaria Paludarium



## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

We have made a drawing to show you how the air circulation is inside the Vivaria paludariums. I think you can use or extract some ideas for your own tanks.


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## Dunner97074 (Sep 19, 2004)

Do you have the ventilation pulling the hot air out (exhaust) or blowing the cool air in (fan).
Mike


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

The light hood is about 50 to 60 degree Celsius because of the heat of the lamps and ballasts. Fresh cool air is blown by way of the square ventilator against the heated lamps and ballasts and heated up. Than one of the ways out is the groove in the acrylic plate above the sliding front panel. The air inside the vivarium will warming-up and the sliding glass plate is free of condense. The tangential ventilator is pulling the warm air out and also it pulls in fresh cool air from underneath the sliding front panel. The water is heated up with an aquarium heater to 26°Celcius and is also going through the drip wall. So that fresh air is also warming up. Inside the vivarium you get a mixture of warm and fresh cool air. The tangential ventilator is bigger than the axial ventilator, so you can exhaust more air than the axial can feed. Therefore you know for sure that you have always an air movement from front bottom to top aft. On the back of the light hood are also 2 rows with 10 mm holes. Those are also for cooling the lamps and ballasts and to prevent to move to much heat to the vivarium. Some measurements of temperature: Bottom 22/26° Celsius, in the middle 24/28° Celsius and under the light hood 28/ 32° Celsius or more. It's depending of the height of the Vivarium and how it is built. Technically you can make it cooler or warmer by regulating the speed of the ventilator or making the groove bigger or taller, but that is normally not necessary.


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## Dunner97074 (Sep 19, 2004)

Thanks for the info, I'll put it to use soon.
Mike


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2005)

I saw that on a site somewhere recently, was that your site?


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

I have built my site in the Christmas holidays of 2004 and still busy with it. It is on the Internet, but only a few people knows about it because it is not finished yet.(more or less under construction) But if you will look to it, this is the URL http://www.palutech.tk It’s in Dutch but in the future I will try to translate it in English
I have placed the drawing on some boards such as http://www.gifkikkerportaal.nl/forum/to ... IC_ID=3991 This board is from Dedrobatidae Netherlands and there I am moderator. Also on this board you can see it http://www.kikkerforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=524 
On my site you can also see the Bug Bazooka from Brent Brock in European style. Go to “Handigheden en zelfbouw” and "Weide plankton sorteerder”


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Hans, very nice design. Do you know what your ambient room humidity runs and have you monitored changes in humidity with the ventillation system running?


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2005)

*vivarium design*

with the kind of vivarium shown in that diagram how high does the top of the peat need to be above the water level to prevent it from being too water logged for plants other than specific bog plants to grow?
also when you use oak wood do you use branches or stumps and stuff?
also when spraying with RO water how long do you think it takes under good lighting for moss to spring up on the wood and background like in the vivaria.nl tanks?
sorry for so many questions


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

Brent,

This type of vivarium evaporates about 2 or 3 litres (0.5 or 0.8 gallon) per day. A human being evaporates more. So you can't find it back in the ambient room humidity. Our humidity is now (it's winter) 53 %. If it's freezing outside the humidity is 40 / 45 %. In the summer we have some times 35% and that's to low, even the 53% is not high. We have no air-conditioning in the house.


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

Louis,

The peat is about 5 till 8 cm (2 or 3.5 inch) above the water level. My water level is 10 till 15 cm (3.9 till 5.9 inch) but you can give it the height you want. I have water minded plants in it and not only specific bog plants.
For oak we only use the roots of the oak tree. You have to digging them up in an old forest. Most of them are more then 100 years old. In the little paludarium I have one for 15 years in it. I use only RO water, and within 3 months you have the first moss on the coco back panel and oak root.

This is one of the two watervals in my corner viv. You can't see the water because of the moss


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2005)

*vivarium*

thats a pretty amazing tank. you must have to do alot of digging to get at the roots but with a tank like that i bet its worth it. i know of a big forest and theres been some serious wind recently so a tree may have fallen over, ill check there for some oak roots.


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

Wouldn't that much wood add a tremendous amount of weight to the tank?


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Dane said:


> Wouldn't that much wood add a tremendous amount of weight to the tank?


As compared to?
This appears to be a fairly large viv.
When you get past a certain size, It doesn't really matter (as long as the glass structure is stong enough) if the viv weighs 100 pounds or 300 pounds...you aren't going to be able to move it safely without tearing it down...unless its on wheels, in which case it still wouldn't matter.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Dane said:


> Wouldn't that much wood add a tremendous amount of weight to the tank?


To be honest, I've never understood the concern about weight in vivaria. Aquarists don't seem to mind the weight, why do we?


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

Those roots are some times older than 400 or 500 years. It's a peace just under the trunk where the roots are spreading out. On Thursday I will make some pictures by Peter. He has digged in the Christmas holydays. There are some nice peaces. The thickness of the glass of the corner vivarium is 6 mm (almost 1/4 inch) and the sliding door is 3 mm (0.12 inch) There are no problems with the weight. The only thing to concern about is the flatness of the cabinet topside. One sand grain can crack your bottom. The bottom is in-between the side panels, so the weight of the light hood goes directly to the cabinet topside. The weight is about 160/180 kg (352/396 pounds)


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## Dane (Aug 19, 2004)

> This appears to be a fairly large viv.
> When you get past a certain size, It doesn't really matter (as long as the glass structure is stong enough) if the viv weighs 100 pounds or 300 pounds...you aren't going to be able to move it safely without tearing it down...unless its on wheels, in which case it still wouldn't matter.


Very true, I'm just so used to building tanks to be as light as possible so that they can be moved later or not overburden a rack etc...But the end result is of the tanks Vivaria makes is incredible.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

HansV, can you post the diagram again, it doesn't show up anymore.


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

Brian,

Excuses for the inconvenience. I have placed it back. To much removed from my old private website. I only use it now for pictures for several forums.


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## Dancing frogs (Feb 20, 2004)

Thanks,
Do you know what the ambient room temp was when you took the temp measurements?
Any thoughts on how the air might circulate differently if the water was not heated?
In my collection, I've never had to think about adding a heater, as the lights usually heat everything pretty well. I'm usually trying to come up with a way to keep things a little cooler.
How effective do you suppose cooling the water in the same set-up would work?
For example, a tank designed for mantella aurantiaca?
Thanks again,


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

Brian,

The ambient room temp.was about 20°C. I think the air will not circulate differently if you not heat up the water. The temp. inside will be lower. In the summer I disconnect the heater to get lower temperatures, and sometimes I have to switch-off the lights. If you will have lower temperatures than you don't use all the heating of the lamps and ballasts. A smaller gap above the front glass will transport less heat to the inside of the paludarium, and more or bigger holes on the backside of the lighthood will transport more heat out of the lighthood. Those paludariums are 100 till 110 cm high (39 till 43 inch) and there fore much cooler than those you normaly use. Cooling water is verry difficult and not efficient. But there are special thermo coolers for this purpose.


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## HansV (Apr 15, 2004)

I had promist some pictures of oakleaves. So here they are.


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## Darks!de (Nov 16, 2004)

Very nice wood Hans. I'm actually trying to figure out the ventiliation for my viv. It's a 115gl tank (36 x 24 x 30). The top of the tank has 1/4" glass braces to stabilize it shown here. The braces extend about 3" into the tank on all sides. Since this will be a show tank, i want the front pane to be fog free. I will soon have the top glass peice which will basically just rest on these braces leaving a small slit of 1" between the glass top and the front brace. This will be where the ventiliation will take place, and hopefully keep the front pane clear. There will be 3x96w compact flourescents on top of the glass top, inclosed in a hood and these will be cooled by 2 computer fans (hopefully that will be enough). I'm wondering if i should include any other design modifications of the hood so that the front pane stays clear. Suggestions?

Luke

P.S. Does anybody have any experience with 96w compacts? How far away should i keep them from the glass? How should I place the fans to maximize cooling?


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## dmartin72 (Oct 27, 2004)

I bought 4 x 96 watt kits from AHSupply and they run really hot. I use them for my aquarium, which doesn't need a heater now! I would think that you would need at least 6+ inches. The aquatic plants love the 6400k bulbs though.



Darks!de said:


> P.S. Does anybody have any experience with 96w compacts? How far away should i keep them from the glass? How should I place the fans to maximize cooling?


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