vivarium in a fishroom

[PsYcHoTiCMaDmAn]

try to keep this short and too the point.

in the process of sorting out a fishroom. (technically fish shed - but it will be properly insulated, and will be kept at about 25-26c all year (provided the non-existent Welsh summers dont cause temperature spikes)) and there would be space to fit in a 6by2by2 vivarium.

the plan is wood back & sides, glass front (4 panels, 2 fixed, the other 2 sliding past to allow about 3foot opening in the middle) and mesh top.

I'd also have a Dubia colony already (got them for my crested gecko, who refuses to eat them, lives off Repashy 2part) but tempted to try to do a locust colony as well

however my concern is humidity. anyone who owns/been in a fishroom knows they are humid. care sheets I''ve read state that 50% humidity is the upper limit for beardies, and am wondering if anyone has tried keeping them in a fishroom, and if there are issues.

I cant give definite humidity figures (the shed isn't built) I have seen a formula that states that an air temperature 1c higher than the water temperature would result in humidity levels around 50-65% (this was for swimming pools). adding a dehumidifier to the vivarium would seem to be a losing battle.

thoughts please

 

[Goonie]

[Moved from General to Enclosures]

 

[PsYcHoTiCMaDmAn]

another question, lighting.

would a single 48" 32w Zoomed Reptisun 10.0 (10%UVB, 30%UVA) be enough for UVA/B exposure?? or is it going to need multiple bulbs...

in addition to this, how big a basking lamp. I was hoping that I could limit it to 50/60w on the basis of keeping lighting below 100w

 

[PsYcHoTiCMaDmAn]

nothing???

come on I cant be the only person keeping fish and reptiles.... (only cresties at the mo admittedly)

 

[AndyT]

A single reptiSUN should be sufficient if he can get between 6-8 inches of it while basking. I'm not an expert on lighting, but if you plan to have such a large enclosure, you will need more than one basking bulb. And they will need to be at least 100 watts.

 

[PsYcHoTiCMaDmAn]

ty, any ideas regarding humidity??

 

[AndyT]

Well, if its in a fish room, there is definitely going to be humidity. I would say to measure the humidity in the room before putting the dragon's tank in there. If its over 50, you would either need to find a way to lower it, or you couldn't have a dragon there.

 

[paul23]

Humidity is an issue. I am facing the same troubles, except my problem is that the ambient humidity and temperature is high, so I need to dehumidify to viv. I am a refrigeration/air conditioning engineer, so this is easy(ish) for me to do and get parts for etc.

One thing that a lot of people do not seem to grasp about humidity (I am not saying you don´t understand, just people in general) is that it is not the amount of water in the air, it is the percentage of water that the air can hold. The warmer the air, the more moisture the air can hold. In colder places this is handy if you are trying to maintaining a warm environment, when the air is heated the humidity drops (even though there is the same amount of water in the air).

You can simply pull fresh air from outside in and drop the humidity levels in the room. But there is issues with temperature control using this method, which can be overcome but is inefficient.

An alternative, is to dehumidify the room with a dehumidifier. If sized correctly, you will be able to achieve an acceptable level of humidity in the room. Limiting to the amount of evaporation from the tanks is going to help. That depends on how your aquariums are set up and the temperatures in which they are operating at, how much surface area there is and room temp. It´s still going to be expensive and inefficient.

The most efficient way is to control the climate within the viv itself and ignore the room conditions. Say your room is 4m x 4m x 3m, then you need to maintain 48m3 of air at a specific value (temp, humidity, etc), when all you really need is control the conditions of the viv, which is only 0.648m3. It takes much less energy to do this, but is much harder to design.

My viv will be more or less the same as yours (0.583m3) but my calculations will not apply to yours as I live in a much warmer and humid climate. Mine will also be insulated on 5 sides. The basic principle of what you need to do is this. Take the air from the viv, mix it with a little fresh air, cool it down below the dew point of the air, heat it back up again to the temperature that you want and supply it back to the viv. The two methods I am looking at are either peltier modules or a refrigeration based system. I am trying to do it with peltiers if I can, because I need it as quiet as possible, for you this is not an issue I guess. But you need to have a licence to work with refrigerants, so that is maybe a problem for you. If you are any good at electronics, you can go the peltier route.

The figures you got of 50-65% are not correct, disregard them. Its much more complicated than that. Without reasonable figures of what your room conditions will be, it´s difficult to advise any further on what you would need to do exactly. But controlling the climate within the viv is the most efficient way.