A Cooled Wardian Case

While living in Thailand, in an apartment got to about 40c in the day sometimes and with a fish tank that I was not able to use due to body corporate idiocy, I converted it into a cooled wardian case. This was using the fish tank, lights, an aquarium water chiller and a mile of tubes and other bits and pieces.

I am now back in Australia and have modified an old display cabinet I had stored away along the same lines. Luckily I also brought most of my aquarium equipment back too. The water in a reservoir is chilled to 18c, and pumped into the wardian case to filter through a radiator with fans. The air blowing over the cold radiator chills the air in the case to a nice 22c (constant in summer) and now its winter to about 17c at night and 22c day. It oddly seems to stop the temps dropping too low also. I presume even though its cool, the radiator is at night warmer than ambient in the room. Eventually I want to get a larger chiller so to drop the water to really cold temps, and get a comp controller so that I can drop the temps at night by 10c or so. This chiller is rated to drop water to 4c, but it cant handle it for this volume of water and heat exchange as it has not got enough horse power (aquarium chillers are rated up to 4hp and this one is only 1/4hp I think).

Here are some photos.
The case with the 150 watt metal halide (5700K tube). I cut a hole in the top of the case to fit it. No heat gets in as the case has a glass false ceiling.

 

The shelves made from egg crate and some bonding glue.

 

The chiller, reservoir.



The radiator fan (computer cooling radiator that I have powered by a laptop power source.)

Pipes going in.

 

Partly stocked up.

 

Housing a lot of seedlings now until they get going in mounts and can go home to the greenhouse in spring. Doing very well with Polyrhiza lindenii seedlings in here. This is what's in there for now until spring.

Seedlings are:

Bulbophyllum tingabarinum alba
Bulbophyllum ipanemensis "The Girl" x self
Dendrobium subuliferum
Chaubardiella pubescens
Lepanthes ingridiana
Lepanthes JMcalsa (calodictyon x saltatrix)
Lepanthes saltatrix
Lepanthes elata x sijmii
Lepanthes escobariana x elegantula
Lepanthes niesseniae
Lepanthes calodictyon
Lepanthes culprimulgus
Lepanthes grandiflora
Polyrhiza lindenii
Psychopsiella liminghii
Sophronitis cernua 'flava" x self
Trichocentrum albo-cocinnum

Flowering size plants are;

Dendrobium leavifolium
Dracula bella
Masdevallia richardsiana
Masdevallia paiveana
Masdevallia yungasensis
Masdevallia yungasensis 'calodon'
Restrepia guttulatta
Restrepia elegans

 

I guess you could use any water chilling maching, but the main thing with an aquarium water chiller is it allows you to precisely control the water temperature. If a water cooler can do the same, then no reason why not to use it.

 

The clamps are easy to get at any hardware store here Marni. Yes, much easier to use than the normal screw types.

 

I just added another fan for more Air Flow. It perplexed me how to add more fans easily, so I got this low voltage fan and modified a plant hanger which could be hung from 3M hook (glued to the glass ceiling with silcone). I then glued the fan for updraft to the hanger.. Easy to move if the location doesn't suit.