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Cephalotus tank build progress

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After some heavy watering, I flushed the tank today to get rid of any salt/mineral buildup. The mosses sure appreciated the extra watering as they all perked up. Need to get a tiny lawn mower haha

As for the mother pot, I’m just about done with the wood box and soaking the peat.

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Got around to building the “bonsai” style display. Ended up using a ikea container and building a wooden frame around it. It’s to make future repotting easier. Mixed up my perlite/sand heavy mix and did the transplant. This ceph should take over and spill over the entire setup and hopefully the sphagnum takes off and grows into the wood frame.

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Yes it’s is. In the second to last pic, you can see the white tray on the left side. I’m probably going to line the whole thing with live sphagnum and see if it grows ok.
 
Seeing the before and after photos together its funny how that patch of sand has completely filled in with moss. It's a real treat to see what could pass for a section of hill from their native habitat.
 
I tried my best to keep that little area sandy but the moss had their own ideas. Ended up looking better imo haha.

Forgot to update you guys on the mother plant. I found a nice 13” pot and dropped the entire plant in. I didn’t like the setup before. This plant never misses a beat, no shock after two transplants. Can’t wait till it fills in to the brim.

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PVC's?

Your tank set up is the first and most amazing set up I've seen with cephs!!! I just bought two (one is sitting with my lowlanders and the other is being tested outside) so hopefully they grow big without me accidentally causing the whole "sudden death" thing. Anyways I wanted to ask what those pvc's running width wise at the bottom of the tank are for? Do you have a few pieces running evenly throughout the bottom?
 
Time flew by and so did the tank! The mother plant was also repotted last December and I never even knew it grew so fast!

The 10 (gotta love the Utricularia graminifolia taking off too!)
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December ‘17
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November ‘18
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For fun
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Wow! incredible, amazing plant husbandry! Teach me your ways master! haha. It seems like your substrate is really working out for you, maybe I should consider the same for the cephalotus I'm getting in bareroot on Saturday
 
I absolutely love this ceph tank ��
Couple questions if you don't mind?
#1 Is the tank completely sealed or open top? And If its sealed how do you control humidity and air flow?
#2 what's your day/night light cycle?
#3 how do you flush the salt buildup? Did you incorporate a drain in the build?
An final question sry ...how do I get my hand on a clone of this weed like cephalotus ? it's growth rate is phenomenal
Hat's off to you good sir���� Beautiful tank
 
Thanks :)

I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

1. It’s a open top tank. Humidity is probably just slightly higher than the household % due to the tank walls and moist soil, but I’ve never measured. The tank sits about 3” under four rows of 6500k LEDs and they do produce some heat.

2. The light cycle is 16 hours

3. There’s a 1” drainage layer at the bottom and I occasionally will run a water flush on the tank and drain it.

As for this particular ceph. I am probably going to start propagation soon and might consider giving it a name, it really is a weed and un-killable (haven’t lost a cutting/pulling/accidental rip out yet!)
 
...bump

So you said there's a drainage layer, I'm assuming you have a few of the 1" PVC laid out flat around the tank? Did you silicone them so they stay in place or are they loose?

I picked up some 1/2" PVC. I think I'm going to lay them flat, maybe disperse some aquarium gravel around in case the bottom layer would be a bit visible, and put egg crate with weed cloth on top of that, and then build up the soil.

I noticed you added a plastic tube, is that what you decided to use for drainage? Do you just attach something to it and vac it up? I picked up a 3/4" coupler I'm gonna silicone down, that way I can just stick airline tubing in it to suck the water up (and I'll cap & hide it with some rock / wood features)

In short, the layers:

1/2" PVC laid flat, aquarium gravel (or LECA) around the PVC

Egg crate with weed cloth

Soil (peat / sand / perlite), plants, features

Thoughts? I went with 1/2" PVC because I don't really want the bottom layer to be that visible, I figure that + egg crate layer should be enough space
 
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