Part II Lighting and other supplemental Hardware (continued ...)

2.3 Humidity control

The first step to get a balanced climate in the terrarium was already taken when doing the modiifcatons recommended at paragraph 2.1. Though we need to guarantee a relatively high humidtiy at a day average, but avoid any mildewing of the planting substrate or other base materiial.

2.3.1 The substrates for planting

I have decided to use hydroculture substrate for the planting bases. I chose a mixture of orchidee and common indoor plant substrates (Seramis actually), and filled up the ground and planting bays with it. 

I prefer the stable, controllable ceramic substrate over plain garden mold, or even cocohum cocos fibre substrate.

2

The frequently necessary moisturiing can be done either manually, using an appropriiate mister, or installing an automated irrigation plant.
I have decided to choose the latter option, because it wiill serve more reliable than me ;-).

2.3.2 Installing an automated irrigation plant

I have bought an automated irrgation plant, to eliminate my sometimes lazy behavior with the daily dues about zoo & plants keeping:

M.R.S. Micro Rain

It's easy to install, just screw it up through the metal gaze at the top. The orifice are light weight enough to directly mount them.

My first nstallation attempt was a bit flawed:

• I forgot to apply the rubber knobs at the bottom side of the pump case. It vibrated heavily, and even wandered over it's place.
• The connecting hose to the 1st orifice must be kept as short as possible, to avoid dripping water from the frst orifice.
  If this doesn't help, or if you can't make the hose shorter for some reason, the installation of a back pressure valve may solve the problem. (After I had just shortened the connecting hose, the problem was solved at least for me).

If you obey the points about installaton, mentioned above, the M.R.S Micro rain is a high quality irrigation plant that nebulizes the water very fine and in a fairly controllable way. I use osmotic water for driivng it, and you should also obey, that the water tank is placed at a lower level than the orifice, to avoid pressure anomalies and water drippng from connectors.

2.4 Timing and programming the lightning and irrigation

For timer programming of the power sources I have chosen an  EnerGenie EG-PMS2 USB programmable power dstribution plug. There's also a (maybe) more convenient WLAN controllable version.
But considering the price, and what you actually need (program the system timings once), it may not worth it for this purpose.

I can setup the necessary timings for each of the power sockets quite conveniently, using a USB connection, and the bundled software.

One important thing to notice, about running a basking sun heat spot:
The installation of my heat spot socket (installed inside) is in the 'fireline' of one of the irrigation orifice. Thus you'll need to separate times of running the features.

My first (stupid, even not aware) attempt, to have a (fully heated) spot lamp, and running the irrigation plant , resulted in thousands of fine broken glass pieces of the lamp (that ended it life with a loud "Pouff", when it was hit by the even smallest drop of cold water).

So: Break off times of running the sun heat spot, and the irrigation plant widely, thus the irrigation won't ever hit a heated lamp!