# 12 x 18 Mini orchid/fern build



## inka4040

So my last iteration of the mini orch tank is getting a bit crowded. I recently came into a 12 x 18 zoo med for free, so it seemed like a good opportunity to upsize the enclosure. The plan was to do a GS background, a sizable false bottom, with a GS wall creating a planting pocket. The front of the tank will be about 1" of water, which I plan on growing small anubias and utricularia gramineum in. It will also function as an accessible drainage area so that the tank can occasionally be fertilized without worrying about salt buildup up over time. The GS will be covered with hygrolon, and all the mini orchs from the 12 X 8 will be moving over. This is my first attempt at a GS background, and I probably would have cocked it up were it not for significant help from Mellowvision. Thanks dude!

In any case, I foamed up the structure the other day. Got to carving everything this evening, and this is where I'm at right now.


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## inka4040

So this is the 8 x 12 that will be shifted over into the larger viv. As you can see, the davallia repens is starting to choke out some of the orchids, as are the pyrossia nummularfolia and lemmaphyllum. It's also kind of hard to get a variety of microclimes in such a small space, so hopefully the larger quarters will give me a bit more flexibility in placing plants.


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## Adogowo

Very nice 12x8 what is the blue flower on the floor? It is quite striking. I too like the mini vivs I have a 4x4x6 inch tall viv with native Colorado mosses and iso's only. Possible expansion in the future.

Sent from my VS840 4G using Tapatalk


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## Mohlerbear

Adogowo said:


> Very nice 12x8 what is the blue flower on the floor? It is quite striking. I too like the mini vivs I have a 4x4x6 inch tall viv with native Colorado mosses and iso's only. Possible expansion in the future.
> 
> Sent from my VS840 4G using Tapatalk


Would you post a pic of the 4x4x6? Would love to see that and native colorado moss. I'm doing a backcountry trip there this summer and hope to find some cool moss. I also have a 8x6x6 I want to make cool, your pic would fire up my imagination.


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## Adogowo

Let me see what I can do.







pic 1is overall pic 2 is a closeup pic 3 is the whole viv and 4 is another overall.
I hope they all come through I'm on my phone. We have native Selaginella, liverworts and my favorite silver moss (Argenteum?).

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## Adogowo

We also have some small fern that are easy to grow from spores. The viv I showed has been up for about 15 months. After adding the isopods some of the mosses disappeared because there wasn't enough food for the isopods. It is watered on a timer by a humidifier randomly set. There is a drain pressure fitted to the wall of the viv so water logging is avoided. Light is simply a 6500 K compact florescent from Lowe's in a custom fixture. 

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## inka4040

Adogowo said:


> Very nice 12x8 what is the blue flower on the floor? It is quite striking. I too like the mini vivs I have a 4x4x6 inch tall viv with native Colorado mosses and iso's only. Possible expansion in the future.
> 
> Sent from my VS840 4G using Tapatalk



The blue flowers on the bottom are micro mini sinningias. Forgot where I got them, and what the cultivar names are, unfortunately. 

That 4 x 4 x 6 is really awesome. Very evocative use of such tight quarters!


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## Adogowo

Thanks, I looked up the sinningia wow! What a beautiful tank plant for the lower portions knot taken up by orchids. Thanks for the name I had not heard of it before.







in its prime.

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## CTM75

Like the look of this..really natural...have seen some of your planted tanks on other sites...good stuff


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## inka4040

Very cool! Thanks for the complement!


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## inka4040

Finally got the foam pieces skinned with hygrolon. No process pics for this part, on account of glue hands. 



















test fit:









and where it lives:


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## diggenem

Nice. Can't wait to see this guy planted

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## inka4040

Thanks! Got some preliminary plants in there now, but waiting to have a piece of glass cut for the top before shifting over the stuff in the old terrarium. Hopefully should have this thing fully planted by next week!


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## KarmaPolice

Subscribed of course. 
Are you just moving over the plants from the previous build or are you also adding other goodies? Hopefully I can help with some of the selections


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## inka4040

Just got the majority of plants over yesterday. Have a couple more coming from Ecuagenera, and I'm already stressing the placement, lol. Kept telling myself that the new one is as wide across as the old one was tall, meaning so much extra space... Unfortunately not the case.


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## inka4040

Man... Where does the space go? Got room for really really tiny plants along the left edge, and maybe a couple creeping light loving plants up top, but other than that, this thing seems so packed already.


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## mellowvision

This tank is looking great. I was over at Ricky's on sunday, and it was really taking shape. He did a really nice job with the hygrolon. I snapped a few quick photos while I was there... enjoy!


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## inka4040

Got some really awesome plants in a trade with KarmaPolice. Thanks again, dude! Looking pretty tight at this point, and probably moreso after Saturday's orchid festival. 

here's how its looking with all the new additions.


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## KarmaPolice

Don't worry about it, I'm glad I could help. I'm sure I'll be coming back to you when I see how good they are doing in your care


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## rigel10

Very nice tank! And great choise of plants! It looks to me schoenorchis in the top right. In my viv Schoenorchis fragrans lasted from Christmas to St. Stephen's!


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## inka4040

rigel10 said:


> Very nice tank! And great choise of plants! It looks to me schoenorchis in the top right. In my viv Schoenorchis fragrans lasted from Christmas to St. Stephen's!


Thank you!. Sorry about your fragrans. I wouldn't say that mine is doing awesome, but it's not dead yet, so hopefully the change in growing conditions will be to its liking. 

Went a bit overboard at the orchid show. The folks at Ecuagenera had a ton of awesome viv suitable plants. As you can see, there's not a lot of space left in this thing. 










Current list of inhabitants is as follows:

Anubias nana (short and sharp, narrow leaf)
Ascocentrum pumilum
Bulbophyllum odontopetalum
Davallia repens
Davallia parvula
Dendrobium torressae 
Diodonopsis erinacea 
Dryadella cristata
Elaphoglossum peltatum coarse
Erycina pusilla
Haraella retrocalla
Lemmaphyllum microphyllum
Lepanthes calodictyon x telipogoniflora
Lepanthes telipogoniflora
Lepanthes? NOID 
Pleurothallis alata
Pleurothallis allenni
Pleurothallis brighamii
Pleurothallis grobyi
Pleurothallis grobyi "small form"
Pleurothallis peperomiodes
Pleurothallis spp.
Pyrosellia nummularifolia
Pyrossia noid
Restrepia striata 
Riccardia spp. 
Sinningia 
Schoenorchis fragrans
Tectaria zeylanica 
Utricularia gramineum
Zootropion hirtzii 

Think that's it.


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## epiphytes etc.

What are you using for lighting?


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## inka4040

2 10 watt LED flood lights I picked up on amazon in the front, and a 12" fugeray in the back. Hopefully it's not too much light for some of the pleuros. Think that the asco, the schoenorchis, and the dendrobium will probably benefit from the new fixture though.


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## rigel10

I can't wait to see how your tank will be in a few months! Keep us updated!


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## inka4040

Apparently it's been a month or so since the last post. Things have been growing really well, and for the most part, everything is pushing out new growth. The davallia parvula in particular, really seems to be liking the new setup. It's put out more growth since being moved over, than it did the entire year plus that it was in the other enclosure. Likewise the pleurothallis brighamii, which has 2 new growths coming in. It didn't die in the old setup, but it probably put out that many growths the entire time it was in the 8 x 12. Really good to see these guys starting to do better. Gotta say, I am absolutely in love with the lepanthese telipogoniflora x caliodictyon. Say what you want about hybrids, but this plant is just such an exuberant grower, and it is literally vomiting forth a constant stream of flowers. Such a gratifying plant to have in there. 

Sorry if the photos aren't resizing properly. Seems to be about 50/50 on my computer. 

FTS









D. parvula (humata?)









Little sinningia up on the wall









A perennial favorite









Love the color of the new growth on the teli cross. The veining from the calodictyon is much more apparent on the newer leaves. Anyone want to hazard an ID on the dichaea looking thing in this shot? It's another one that only managed to hold on in the last enclosure, but never did particularly well. I got it in a trade on the forums, but forget who it came from.


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## hydrophyte

That looks awesome! You put such cool plants in there.

Man, these photos took all night to load.


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## mellowvision

Looking awesome!


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## rigel10

Very nice! I see that Schoenorchis is okay. My fragrans did not last long!


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## inka4040

hydrophyte said:


> That looks awesome! You put such cool plants in there.
> 
> Man, these photos took all night to load.


Thanks, dude! Yeah... My apologies about that. I thought imgur was supposed to automatically resize all the photos. Not sure what to do about that in retrospect. 



mellowvision said:


> Looking awesome!


Thanks, bro!



rigel10 said:


> Very nice! I see that Schoenorchis is okay. My fragrans did not last long!


Haha. Yeah, it's still holding on, but until I see new growth, my fingers will remain crossed.


Added a pleurothallis dressleri to this tank, and need to take tectaria zeylanica off the list. Think that one came from a setup that was significantly more humid than mine, because it desiccated very quickly after the fan was installed.


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## NathanB

how well does the hygolon work? do you still need to mist them often?


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## inka4040

I was afraid that if too much of the hygrolon came into contact with the water table, that the soil would also stay soaked constantly, so there is only 1 tiny bit of it that actually touches water. As such, I still mist every day to ensure that the stuff on top and opposite that corner stays sufficiently watered.


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## DragonSpirit1185

inka4040 said:


> Finally got the foam pieces skinned with hygrolon. No process pics for this part, on account of glue hands.
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what did you use to adhere the hygrolon to the g/s?


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## inka4040

gorilla glue


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## Frogsarefun

Thank you for posting such detailed build photos.
Very helpful to new folks!

Any frogs destin to call this home?


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## inka4040

Thank you! No frogs or livestock planned for this tank.

You can check out updates here. 

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/plants/195930-mini-orch-terrarium-updates.html


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## Drteeth

Beautiful tank! I plan to make something like this with hygrolon and enjoyed seeing your process. Before gluing it to the foam, it looks like there are staples or some sort of wire holding it to parts of the egg crate to make it look pinched in at certain spots. Did you only use glue to have it stick to the background?

Also, In my tank I plan to put a tropical mantis (hopefully an orchid mantis someday) due to the small size - I know it's not large enough for frogs, so just an idea. 

Lastly, did you just use sphagnum in the back areas under the log on the bottom where it is not foam and hygrolon? I have cocofiber and nepenthes mix, so I'm not sure what would be best.


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