# DIY Viv ventilation



## luke 413 (Sep 25, 2009)

after drawing up a silly amount of designs i have finally decided on my final viv plans for my bearded dragon

I have just one question - How much ventilation is required i have searched the internet with no luck and looking at other peoples vivs some have 2 small round vents others have 4 very large square vents. Is there some sort of rule of thumb to go by???


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## Nismo75 (Mar 23, 2009)

General rule of thumb I think is one vent per foot of viv. ie 3ft viv needs 3 vents


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## Jaz_knos (Oct 21, 2009)

80mm Chrome computer fan grills are quite easy to get hold of and look better than some of the alternatives.... if it helps. 
And easy to install.


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## luke 413 (Sep 25, 2009)

i thought i read that somewhere cheers :2thumb:

and will look into computer fan covers could be quite cool and my dads probably got a couple laying around!

Is it the norm to have the vents top and bottom or is just at the top ok?


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## dpfb (Jul 1, 2009)

lol, does that mean if i got a 3ft viv i can have 3 massive vents, or 3 8mm holes? lol, is there any sort of serface area they should be.
i see some with big wall vents in them. would they just need 1 each end?


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## cmmercer (Aug 6, 2008)

luke 413 said:


> Is it the norm to have the vents top and bottom or is just at the top ok?


The idea for top and bottom is that you have the vents at the top of the hot end, and at the bottom on the cool end. The reason being that as heat rises at hot end, the air comes out of the vents at the top, sucking in nice fresh cooler air from the vents at the bottom at the other end. Resulting in a certain degree of air circulation depending on how efficient your vents are. If you search some of the build threads where people have put on full air-flow systems into their vivs - give you a good idea of what can be done.

As a rough idea, I have 4 70mm vents in my 4ft viv, two top of hot end, and two at bottom of cool end. This seems good for me.


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## Jim2109 (Mar 30, 2009)

it depends on the habitat youre trying to replicate to some extent. in a desert environment humidity is fairly easy to deal with since you want it low, so you can move as much air as you like and you only have to worry about temperature.

in a rainforest environment where high humidity is required its harder, because you need good air circulation for both air quality and also to reduce mould. but air circulation reduces the humidity. also with high humidity the glass doors can steam up very easily.

my solution is to have a couple of decent sized fans blowing across the glass at the front of the viv from the hot end, and then 2 extractor fans higher up at the cool end (being a tall arboreal setup i have the top hot and bottom cooler, with a diagonal gradient. so this setup balances this out the best). keeping the air moving in front of the glass (or perspex in my case) will keep condensation to a minimum. ive got a misting system on a timer which over-humidifies the air, and then use a humidity controller to "de-humidify" using the fans as its easier this way than trying to balance the humidity the other way around.

with regards specific vent size, i dont think there are any set rules. in a desert viv probably just a standard 70mm vent for every foot of the viv. if you use fans then you need less area as youll be physically moving the air around. in a rainforest viv you need more ventilation IMO to keep mould from forming (and i think using fans is essential as you need to recycle the air more frequently), which means you need a very efficient humidifying setup to balance it all out.


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