Indoor mini greenhouse questions

[Palms Brisbane]

Hi All,

Had a bit of a cold snap in Brisbane. Have some tropicals I do not want to loose. Mapu's in particular.

Outside Day max temperatures about 22C and Night temperatures of 5C.

Inside house gets down to 15C min.

I wasn't sure how to keep palms warm. So I bought a mini greenhouse and put aquarium on bottom level with heater/thermostat set to 28C.

With the shadehouse closed its sitting stable at 21C with 75% humidity.

My issue is ventilation... I read you need ventilation. My thoughts are if I vent it with indoor air.. it will cool down. So how can you heat and vent at same time?

Any ideas or other ways to keep palms warm over winter will be appreciated. What I setup was just random off top of head.

Thanks

 

[PalmsandLiszt]

I have one exactly like that on the other side of the world; whoever makes them obviously does a good job getting them around! The worst thing about it I found were the flimsy, wide-gauge shelves that are evidently not designed for small pots.

2 hours ago, Palms Brisbane said:

My issue is ventilation... I read you need ventilation. My thoughts are if I vent it with indoor air.. it will cool down. So how can you heat and vent at same time?

If you put all the plants into the top section, you have approximately the same volume of warm air in the bottom section. So you could use a small fan on a timer to run periodically to suck out the air from the top and suck in about the same volume of cooler air from below (where it will stay until warm enough to rise) and the plants won't feel a drop in temperature. One of those small 12V fans used in desktop computers would probably work. You'd want to know the volume of air in the top section, the volume your fan moves per second and the approximate time it takes the aquarium to heat the top half from cold.

That overly-complicated system was my first thought, but then it occurs to me that you could just put adjustable vents at the top and calibrate them through trial and error to allow warm air to escape upwards at the same rate that it is being heated at the bottom. Whether this would provide enough ventilation, I don't know, as the rate of air throughput will depend on how powerful your aquarium heater is.

[Fishinsteeg234]

Keeping your zippers open like you have in the pic may be enough ventilation. 

[Missi]

I have 3 of those for some of my more tender palm seedlings and some Aroids that need higher humidity. My biggest issue is keeping milder from growing all over the dang things on the inside  I have to scrub them off with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser every few months. As far as ventilation goes, I haven't had an issue. They get their ventilation when I open to water.

[Palms Brisbane]

Thanks everyone for feedback.

I lost one from damping off with zipper down and no fan got to near 100% humidity. I have since opened up zipper and have a fan.. seems a lot better now.