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  • #41
It is good practice to get an air change in there every few weeks or so. I have also poked small holes in one or both sides of the bag to allow a bit of air exchange, but I don't usually do that. Either way, watch out for mold and the like. I have never seen any--probably because of the antiseptic properties of sphagnum--but I understand it can happen. A squirt of neem oil or sulphur-based anti-fungal in the bag is good practice if you have some lying around.

They are hard to find in the moss come spring. In the past, I just "milled" the sphag in the bag by hand. I removed all the air, then just rubbed it around a lot until it was all fairly uniform. I then spread the seed/moss mix on the top of an eight-inch pot of peat and perlite. Since you are trying to place them in individual trays, it is a bit more tricky. I have little experience with that. I actually just sowed a lot of leucophylla seeds in seed starter trays last month and have them stratifying in the garage. This is my first go using the one-per-seed-pot method. I usually have just gone communal and planted them out separately later. They stay tiny for so long, you know?
 
  • #42
I've been busy with work lately and haven't posted much of anything so here's a good update post. The seedling tray worked out nicely. There's not a whole lot falling through. I filled most of the holes with a peat: perlite mix and a few with peat:sand. I think I read somewhere that perlite can be harmful to VFT seedlings so the VFT seeds went in those with a few spots left over to do a little experiment with some Sarracenia seeds to see how they grow in sand vs perlite. I sowed the VFT seeds about a week ago and the Sarr seeds should be going in in a week or two. They have been in the fridge for almost a month now, no mold or anything that I've seen.

Also filled two holes with regular miracle grow organic choice potting soil to germinate some mimosa pudica seeds in. In retrospect I probably should have put them in a separate pot, but I don't think it will cause any issues but feel free to tell me otherwise haha.

I had one small order come in with a P. moctezumae and two tiny unidentified sarrs. They are temporarily potted in pure LFS until I find the time to get them in separate pots. Also I placed my order with Andrew last week. and received everything this past Tuesday, a few Sarr, 3 pings, a dentate flytrap, and some more dews. So without writing too much this time I'm just gonna post some pics, you know, the fun stuff.

The Sarracenia as they sit in the garage, the windowsill proved too cold for them, I had a scare where all the pots froze completely solid including the tiny 'B52 x Ginormous'. Everything looks ok though, VFT is now inside and seems to be starting to put out new growth:
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Oh and that S. purpurea ssp. purpurea is getting much more red color since I got it.

10g terrarium, the pot in the front towards the left has the P. moctezumae and tiny sarrs in it:
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Bird's eye shot:
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Started to run out of room so I set up a second 10g:
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P. Yucca do 1713:
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P. moranensis x ehlersiae:
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P. esseriana:
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D. adelae:
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D. capensis 'Albino':
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Dionaea muscipula 'Dentate':
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Seedling tray, the plastic bags have leaf pullings from the pings in them:
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Also got a 2nd regular capensis and red capensis from Andrew, not pictured.

My tasks this week are going to be to wrap 3 sides of the terrariums in reflective foil. I have some aluminum insulation stuff leftover from my emersed plant bins in the garage. May also use aluminum foil. Also might sow the Sarr seeds.

Bonus pics:
Corydora Schwartzi:
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Pantodon buchholzi (African Butterfly Fish):
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And an action shot of my dog running/pretending she's a kangaroo:
fu52ec.jpg
 
  • #43
I noticed two tiny plants growing today that I didn't sow any seeds for. No idea what they could be but I'm gonna let them go for now.

This first one popped up in a gallon size ziplock of LFS that I had soaking in some light to try to get some live sphagnum:
2qtjwhw.jpg


This one popped up out of nowhere in my seedling tray in a slot far from where any seeds were placed yet. The peat moss used was hoffman organic canadian peat:
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Both are gonna stay in the seedling tray at least until I can start to figure out what they might be.
 
  • #44
The butterfly fish is beautiful. Do you grow any aquatic Utricularia in that tank? The second seedling looks noncarnivorous but I'm not sure about the first. It looks like there is a tuber underneath the new foliage instead of roots.
 
  • #45
The butterfly fish is beautiful. Do you grow any aquatic Utricularia in that tank? The second seedling looks noncarnivorous but I'm not sure about the first. It looks like there is a tuber underneath the new foliage instead of roots.

Thanks, he's one of my favorites, and a lot of fun to feed. I feed him bloodworms with some tweezers because the other fish in the tank are pushy. He's started to jump out of the water and grab the bloodworms out of the tweezers.

The only aquatic utrics I have are U. gibba, which is actually a bit of a pest sometimes and I mostly have growing entangled in some java moss, and some U. graminifolia. I have U. graminifolia growing both submersed and emersed right now.

I agree about those two plants. The second most likely isn't carnivorous but I'm gonna let it go for now anyways. I thought that first one was either a rhizome or tuber. The LFS was sold to me as New Zealand LFS.
 
  • #46
Two seedling tray issues. The first is I'm getting a fuzzy white mold growth in a couple spots. I guess this has to do with air circulation because of the greenhouse cover over the tray. I'm not entirely sure what I can do to combat it though besides removing the cover a couple times a day for a few minutes.

Second issue. A few of the spots are developing blue green algae. Is this something I should really be concerned over? When I sow the LFS with the seeds in it will it do anything to combat the BGA? What else could I do to get rid of it?
 
  • #47
First plant is a Sarracenia rhizome with a dismal amount of roots. Second's a weed.
 
  • #48
Two seedling tray issues. The first is I'm getting a fuzzy white mold growth in a couple spots. I guess this has to do with air circulation because of the greenhouse cover over the tray. I'm not entirely sure what I can do to combat it though besides removing the cover a couple times a day for a few minutes.

Second issue. A few of the spots are developing blue green algae. Is this something I should really be concerned over? When I sow the LFS with the seeds in it will it do anything to combat the BGA? What else could I do to get rid of it?

The easiest thing to do is to allow a bit more of an opening to the outside. A few very small holes might do it, maybe poked with a needle. You can deter fungus with a suspension of cinnamon in water applied with an eye dropper directly to the spots needed. I've never seen it hurt a plant and it is surprisingly effective.

I rarely if ever do anything to fight blue green algae. As long as it doesn't actually cover the plants it shouldn't do any harm. It's ugly as sin, tho'. I have read that a very light application of hydrogen peroxide will kill it but this could be hard on plants as well. Rinsing your media before using it will minimize bga growth. I don't usually see it on sphagnum.

'Wishing you success.
 
  • #49
First plant is a Sarracenia rhizome with a dismal amount of roots. Second's a weed.

If that's the case should I be assuming my LFS isn't from New Zealand seeing that sarracenia are North American plants?

The easiest thing to do is to allow a bit more of an opening to the outside. A few very small holes might do it, maybe poked with a needle. You can deter fungus with a suspension of cinnamon in water applied with an eye dropper directly to the spots needed. I've never seen it hurt a plant and it is surprisingly effective.

I rarely if ever do anything to fight blue green algae. As long as it doesn't actually cover the plants it shouldn't do any harm. It's ugly as sin, tho'. I have read that a very light application of hydrogen peroxide will kill it but this could be hard on plants as well. Rinsing your media before using it will minimize bga growth. I don't usually see it on sphagnum.

'Wishing you success.

Thanks, I'm gonna let the BGA be and see if a few holes fixes the mold issue. I'll keep that cinnamon in mind though.
 
  • #50
The first mystery plant does look like a Sarracenia, but only time will tell. I am sure your moss is from NZ if it says so on the bag or from the manufacturer. Maybe it ended up in there during a recent potting adventure you had? I know most folks say that Sarrs have to stay really wet, but I have seen even small chunks of rhizome dry our for quite a while then come back to life. Don't get me wrong: they aren't tulip bulbs.

I can vouch for the effects of cinnamon. It is one handy tool in the orchid bizz.
 
  • #51
The first mystery plant does look like a Sarracenia, but only time will tell. I am sure your moss is from NZ if it says so on the bag or from the manufacturer. Maybe it ended up in there during a recent potting adventure you had? I know most folks say that Sarrs have to stay really wet, but I have seen even small chunks of rhizome dry our for quite a while then come back to life. Don't get me wrong: they aren't tulip bulbs.

I can vouch for the effects of cinnamon. It is one handy tool in the orchid bizz.

I didn't exactly get the moss from a manufacturer or traceable source. I'm a little unclear on the rules with posting names still but lets just say its more of a secondhand re-seller that I bought it from.

There was moss from two sources in the bag. Both said it was NZ.
I don't really know where the rhizome could've come from unless it snuck it from a seller, one seller was a nursery so it's not too unlikely I guess.

Anyways I sowed most of my Sarracenia seeds after they were stratifying in the fridge for 5 weeks. I tried to leave open spots in the tray in between seeds just in case a couple decided to jump over or something.

ezg0tg.jpg
 
  • #52
Question now. I want to set up a little mini terrarium type deal in my office at work. No windows just standard office lighting of a few t8s up in the ceiling. I'm thinking a odd shaped bowl or something to keep the humidity up. I was also thinking a ping or two of some sort but that is up for debate. My questions I guess are what is the lowest light requiring small easy plants I could get away with and what sort of discrete lighting could I use to support them?

There are some 3w led clip on lights I've seen used for planted aquaria bowls, dunno if one would be enough though. I don't exactly want a large brooder lamp clipped on anywhere but I guess the largest least discrete I could do is maybe a desk lamp with a cfl.
 
  • #53
One of my plants isn't really growing so great anymore. One of my D. capensis 'red' hasn't been putting out much new growth and is starting to look rather sparse. The other Drosera in the terrarium are still growing well. Actually the aliciae is growing rather slow as well but it has always been a little more sluggish than the others. Humidity is usually around 70-85% and temp around 70-83F or so depending on how long the lights have been on. 10g terrarium with 2x24w t5ho about 6" from the plants, 12-14 hour photoperiod. The only thing that changed recently is I added some reflective insulation on 3 sides to help maximize the light. Any ideas what may be causing the plant to not do so great?

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  • #54
I'm thinking maybe temperature. I've been monitoring it a bit more and it has dropped down to 65F at night. 82F seems to be around the hottest it gets. I thought capensis could tolerate this but maybe the swings are affecting it?
 
  • #55
Hmm, I grow capensis year round in my backyard where there can be temperature swings of 30 degrees sometimes and it still does fine. Could there be pests on the plant?
 
  • #56
My experience with capensis suggests that these plants just go through swings like that. Mine go through periods of looking awesome and then sulking some. They usually perk up within a month or so. I know not what causes this, but if they don't perk up after a few months I repot them and that always does the trick: they look show room new within a couple weeks of repotting.

*shrugs* May be there is just something about how I care for mine. Capensis are so bullet proof that I often become quite negligent in their care. None have died for me in a few years of growing, though. Not to suggest you are doing anything wrong. Rather, I am saying if they survive my lack of attention yours will probably perk up in no time with your attentiveness.
 
  • #57
Hmm, I grow capensis year round in my backyard where there can be temperature swings of 30 degrees sometimes and it still does fine. Could there be pests on the plant?

Maybe a few fungus gnats but I doubt anything else.
I will add some more mosquito dunks to the water just in case there are some fungus gnats still hiding.

My experience with capensis suggests that these plants just go through swings like that. Mine go through periods of looking awesome and then sulking some. They usually perk up within a month or so. I know not what causes this, but if they don't perk up after a few months I repot them and that always does the trick: they look show room new within a couple weeks of repotting.

*shrugs* May be there is just something about how I care for mine. Capensis are so bullet proof that I often become quite negligent in their care. None have died for me in a few years of growing, though. Not to suggest you are doing anything wrong. Rather, I am saying if they survive my lack of attention yours will probably perk up in no time with your attentiveness.

Repotting actually sounds like a good idea. I'll work on that. I didn't pot this one the best to start and after watering, the crown of the plant is a bit more exposed than I would like. I'm not sure if this would cause the lack of growth, but we'll see how the plant does after I fix it up.
 
  • #58
Nep troubles?

My ventrata has had a lot of the older lower leaves yellowing lately. Is this just old leaves dying off. Or could there be an issue with the plant? No conditions have changed recently and it still seems to be putting off new growth at the top of the vine.

2ivjztw.jpg
 
  • #59
Just old leaves dying, nothing to worry about. It's only if you see new leaves disappearing that you should start worrying.
 
  • #60
Thanks, so I should expect a lower bald spot on the main vine then?

Also my D. aliciae hasn't been the most vigorous grower since I got it and hasn't ever really looked amazing. Any care guides I can find specific to this species list a wide range of temps and such. Can anyone narrow it down for me? It hasn't been suffering and puts out new growth just slowly and never really looked 100% the way I think it should based on pics I've seen.
 
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