Question
Hello!
I have a couple of questions, I'm planning on making my aquarium into a highland nepenthes tank. It's kind of small, 50x33x27 cm, but I think that it's big enough for the moment, since 8 pots fits inside and there's still allot of space between them.
I know this tank isn't big enough for long time growing but I'm going to start with smaller plants and then when it's needed I'm going to buy a new, bigger tank. I've been thinking about getting some species from Sumatra, Nepenthes Aristolochiodes and Jacquelineae for example.
The light fixture I have is a T5HO fixture, 2x24 watt tubes(http://www.wexthuset.com/vaxtbelysning/t5-lampor-lysror/lightwave-t5-2x24-w-p1) with 3300 lumen.
I'm going to buy a small computer fan to get some air circulation as soon as possible.
The humidity in the tank is around 88% and the temperature during the day is about 23 C.
But my big problem is the night temperature. Right now it stays at about 23 C during the night, and with frozen water bottles I'm able to get it down to about 14 C, but the humidity drops drastically from 88 % to about 62 %. And these Nepenthes need around 10-13 C and about 80 % humidity during the night and 70 % during the day if I'm correct, and I've been searching like crazy for a solution for this problem. The best I've found is thermo electric cooling, some say it works, some say it doesn't. But I have no experience at all with that so I have no idea.
Another thing I've found is to get an AC and hook it up with a humidifier, but that seems pretty overkill for a tank this size.


Do you know any efficient solutions to this problem?
Thanks! :)

PS. I asked Christopher but he said that he had no experience with growing nepenthes in a terrarium,
but then I remembered that I've talked with you before and that you said that you have a highland setup.

Answer
Hello Otto :)

Your setup look like ok. In fact, i grow all my highland nepenthes with 70-75%RH, with daytime temp at 25C and nights at 18C. And everything thrive with giants pitchers.

For your setup, down your night temp at 17C, your RH will be at 65%-70%, and its perfect. If your plants have 80% all day, 65% at night will not affect them at all.

Right now i have a A/C just for my plants(and for my girlfriend when she moanh) but before that, i was with icepaks :)