Saturday, 14 May 2011

TV Terrarium Goal Setting

Today I'm going to start gathering the materials for this project. I'm hoping that by the end of today, I have an old TV ready to be taken apart.

If you are also thinking about doing this project, my suggestion is to start by thinking about what you are going to do with it. Will it be an aquarium, terrarium, paludarium, vivarium, etc.?

Answering this question will greatly effect the materials you need and the time you spend working on it. It may also be the difference between free and costly.

Right now, I'm going to start with a pretty basic terrarium for carnivorous plants (I'll be keeping them in separate pots and sitting at the bottom of the tank). But eventually I'd like to do somethings like this:



Carnivorous plants are mostly a bog type of plant, I'd like to eventually create a "bog" like terrarium, maybe even a paludarium (a terrarium with fish).

Anyway, right now, for the basics I'll need the following:

  • 1 old console TV (I've found several for free on Craigslist and kijiji)


  • 1 Aquarium that fits inside (which I may have to get a little creative with, but there are plenty of free ones on craigslist and kijiji as well).


  • A light fixture (Which I may have to buy)


  • Full Spectrum light (Which I may also have to buy)


Things that I already have:
Plants, soil, Pots.

If you don't have any plants, if you look on kijiji, cragslist, etc., you can generally find plants, pots, and even soil for free (if you aren't picky about what your growing). I thought another cool idea for this project would be to grow vegetables or strawberries inside it. I live in a basement that doesn't get a lot of light and I love plants, so I'm hoping that this turns out really successful.

Other things you may want to add are things like timers and automatic watering systems. If I ever get around to it, those may be future projects that I work on, I'll keep you posted!

Monday, 9 May 2011

About what I'm trying to do.

My goals with this blog is to post things that I am doing that has cost me very little to make. My aim is a "free project", but I don't have a car so some of the bigger items I may need I might have to bribe someone to help me out. Also in doing a "free project" there may be little things that I just can't find that I need to complete the project. 

But right now, my aim is to do free or mostly free.

So what am I planning on doing? For my first project I want to take an old tube tv and turn it into a terrarium.


This one is actually an aquarium, but it's the same concept. I would make one for fish, but I have this nasty habit of killing them. I'm much better with plants.

I actually have some seeds for some carnivorous plants, so I was almost thinking of trying to make some sort of carnivorous plant terrarium, but I'll have to look into their requirements a lot more before I decide.

Next post will be more about what I'll need for this project and how I plan on getting them for free.