Orchidarium 4

The ongoing saga of adapting a commercial Wardian case as an intermediate orchid growing case, my orchidarium.

As you can tell from the photographs in previous posts I tried at first to use natural lighting for my Wardian case. This was not satisfactory because 1) it was very hard to adjust the amount of light, and 2) all the plants oriented leaves and growth toward the window and away from my view.

I am now installing a single LED lamp (Kessil Tuna Sun A160WE, designed for aquarium plants), which will be mounted above the cabinet and will shine through a pane of glass covering a hole I will cut in the steel top. I will probably want to use 2 of these lamps, but I will see how this one works first. The lamp is not cheap, but it has a good spectrum for plant growth but appears natural to the eye (unlike the purple lamps commonly used to grow "recreational" plants), an important consideration if you are going to view your plants rather than smoking them. It is also dimmable so that I can adjust the brightness according the plant response. The lamp has an excellent reputation among aquarists and it is quiet and produces little heat, and none inside the orchidarium (except from the light itself of course). Finally, because the light cone will come from a high point source, I can site plants nearer the center or to the sides (as well as high and low) to meet their specific needs.

As for the earlier vent fan installation, I will be cutting the steel Wardian case top with a Dremel steel cutting wheel and a keyhole hacksaw, which is unpleasant but fairly easy.

Much to my disappointment, lux measurement low in the case from the single A160WE lamp was much lower than I had hoped. I added an A360WE lamp, which together triples the amount of light, and I will be adding reflective material on the back and side walls. I will see how things go. All of my orchidarium plants were intentionally selected to like low light levels (no more than Phalaenopsis light), so I think this will work. Altogether this makes the lighting the most expensive part of the whole project. High intensity fluorescent is still much cheaper, but with the design of my case it would be difficult to mount them outside the case (the entire top is a sheet of steel) and heat would be an issue. The LED lights vent their waste heat outside the case.