After months and months of work, I finally finished my new orchidarium. Since I got some good ideas from the people of this forum, I thought you might like to see the results. There aren't any animals in it, but I figure some people might be able to benefit to some of the work I did. The whole thing is on a very small scale, Front viewing area is no bigger then 15"x15". I built it to hold my collection of miniature orchids. The biggest orchid is 9" tall and the smallest, full grown, is no bigger then your thumbnail. You can see some pictures of the tank here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/gzollinger
I will probably break this post into several smaller posts describing the different parts of construction.
THE TANK:
The acrylic tank I built myself using 1/4" acrylic with a sheet of 1/8" lexan for the front and the cover between the lights and tank. All around the front of the tank I routered out an 1/8"x1/8" grove so that when the door swings closed it is recessed into the grove and seals pretty tight. Like this:
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Each Corner has a piece of acrylic cutting it off so the usable space is shaped like a trapezoid with the big side facing out. Top View:
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The right side seals all the way to the bottom, and is used as a reservoir to hold distilled water that feeds the mister. The left side is open at the bottom and only goes down to the level of the raised floor. This side is for access to the pump, the pump power cord and for siphoning out the water under the raised floor for cleaning.
The door was glued on using tiny acrylic hinges like these:
http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=122&
I also bought my cements and other plastic from this supplier, they were very good. I bought a nice clear knob and latch, but the door fit so tight that I didn't need the latch.
To join most of the plastic, I used the dip method. However, instead of using a tray, and waste all my cement, I tried something a little different. I bought some 1/2" aluminum C Channel from Home depot. I cut it a bit bigger then my biggest join, and plugged both ends with some hot wax. Then I poured a little cement in there and it worked like a charm.
