drip irrigation in viv

[darksolace66]

ok so i just got a 55 tall ( 18x24x31) hinged glass terrarium. On black jungle they talk about building your background with GS and driftwood and putting in a drip manifold to drip water onto the back, cutting the 1/8 tubes flush with the background etc. My question is does the drip flow depend on the pump you use? and for my size viv should i get the 9 or like a 5 port manifold? i dont want to flood the plants when i plant. thanks guys

[jpstod]

Yes the amount of water flowing will depend on your pump and the heigth of the rise from the pump to the outlet.

Are you doing a water feature?
What Plants do you want to use?

The placement of the Tubes depend on those features.

The Manifold if Necessary depends on your placement of the tubes.

[darksolace66]

i think im gonna skip the irrigation and drip and just mist instead. i dont want to drown any plants or over saturate the substrate even though i plan on having a drainage layer. i was gonna do a bunch of bromeliads and air plants, which all say to not super saturate and maybe a pitcher plant which again is not to be super saturated. I do have a water features in mind but it has its own pump and the height for that isn't significant enough to need another pump or irrigation system. i was going to use the drip to keep the moisture high but i think the water features can do that

[Grimm]

To be honest I would do the drip irrigation...Just make sure you have good drainage...And buy a pump with variable flow. Misting is annoying especially if you leave town like I do sometimes. It will be more work but I think its worth it. Just make sure you buy a pump that can easily pump water to the required hight, then you can adjust the flow if it is too much. Each branch of tubing will result in a loss of achievable hight anyways so you may not need to reduce the flow by much.