How dose one determine air flow in this T tank with a built in 12v fan? Simple place a candle in each section and watch how the candle flutters.

Don't worry the rate of air flow will just be enough.

Thanks for your concerns and advice. Keep em comming.

I have ordered the perspex and should get it by Friday.

That is a reasonable price to pay for perspex tanks IMO and they are a nice size.

Now on my side I prefer to work with glass, as it is cheaper and I'm not so worried of messing it up.

What is your View for your spider room?
As you have spent R1800 for unit to control the environment in your spider room.
Are you making these new tanks for space and functionality, to work with this new system that you got made? or do you just like perspex Cages?

I'm just running through some of my thoughts with regards to keeping spider and your units.

How big will the holes be that are drilled into the dividers? and how many?
This will work well for shark caging, to get the male use to the female for your Agro killer species.
But the one issue I see with having dividers with holes drilled in and have spider next door to each other, is legs going through and just making it very unpleasant environment for different species to stay next to each other.
Unless you are going to have 2.5mm holes drilled into the divider.

What is the main reason for you wanting to use Fans in your design?

Depending on the size of the holes drilled this will decrease the flow of air, as the 12v fans are not that strong at distance, you will battle to have air flow straight throw to the last tank or even tank 3 4 5 6, It is a different story if the tanks are going to pressurized then the air will flow through all the drilled holes and gapes found, flowing like water, due to the unit not being pressurized your fans productivity will decrease.

You got to worry how the fan gets mounted to the tank and gets sealed with some kind of material to prevent a spider from getting chopped up in the blades (might be plastic but it still hurts fingers if you stick them into the blades) this will also decrease the air flow.
I think every one with a computer will know about dust, with a fan blowing into your spider tank you will increase the dust that gets sucked into the units(not that important but need to be thought about) even if you got humidity in your room.


None the less I like the Idea and it should look awesome when they are complete.

The fan idea is not going to work imo.
Who knows what pheremones spiders use to communicate with each other? Plus all the other points brought up by cascade. Plus it is just not necessary.
I know you just want the best for your spiders, but you are over complicating everything. This thread plus the thread on the room temperature control unit is just not needed. There are just more things to go wrong.
If i were you, i would just keep it simple.

I got a suggestions for a design that will allow air flow.
and you do not have to drill a hole in the divider!

You don't need to use a PVC pipe you can also make a square box out of perspex that you drill holes into. this will also make cutting the dividers easier.

PDF should show it. just a ruff thrown together drawn.

+1 Cerat

Keeping it simple works for me

Yes, but remember, you will have a huge airflow at number 1 and slower airflow at number 6. So the spider in number 1 might get stressed because you will have to increase airspeed at number 1 to have sufficient airflow at 6.