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Five degrees

Here's an observation that may interest some of you:

Recently I got my old grow chamber up and running and my CP's have been much happier with the new living arrangement.

I have a Nepenthes growing in the tank that I believe is N. ventrata. It has been "almost growing" in my chamber for a few weeks following a year of *obscene* neglect -don't ask. I was pretty happy when I noticed that my Nep's were starting to liven up again and pitcher after a bit of a vaction. "Golly gee" I thought, "why not make these puppies even MORE happy by placing an aquarium heater in the tank?"

The temp stood around 72-75degrees F, and I felt it may be a little too cold for my plants. I used an aquarium heater to raise the temp to around 79-80degrees F.

Welll... both of my Nepenthes promptly ceased pitchering within a few days of the temp increase. One of the new leaves of my N. ventrata that was just about to begin unfurling showed a disturbing growth distortion -all bent over and twisted, you know the sight. I did not really think that such a subtle temp increase would cause them to stop pitchering, but even after several weeks there was no sign of new pitcher development.
That really bummed me out, because I have been very anxious to see my N.ventrata to start pitchering once again, and it stopped development with one pitcher 1/5th developed! Bummer
Recently I removed the aquarium heater, and the pitcher development resumed almost instantly.

To make a long story short, an increase of merely ~5 degrees F was all it took to cause my Nep's to cease pitcher development.
That was news to me
-Trev
 
When you say 79-80 do you mean all day and all night??

N. xVentrata is a highland plant even though it is quite tolerant to a wide range of temperatures and conditions. I am guessing it was not allowed to cool off at night??

Tony
 
Was the heater in water? If not perhaps that 5 degrees also dropped you humidity.

Just a guess.

joe
 
How much light do you give your plants?  Very high humidity and low light will result in gnarled growth, in my experience.
 
The aquarium heater tunrned off at night to provide a temp drop down to about 65degrees.
See, the light in my chamber is not *optimum* but it is decent enough. I am designing a new hood at the moment that will utilize six 48" tubes. Currently I use four 48" tubes. My pitchers color up and appear realatively happy, but I know they could use a bit more light.

Regarding the gnarled growth that appeared when I started heating the tank: That gnarled growth appeared only when the heater was introduced. All of the other elements of the tank had been constant for a few weeks. The only thing that I can think of that caused the gnarled growth and the halted pitcher development was either the introduction of the heater or... something else.
 
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