Soil mix for Mexican pings out of what I have

[jeff 2]

suite

no cat litier ( with in base sepiolite or attapulgite more alcalin )( easely to find) with others elements?

the sciarides grub love the peat substrat and the plants that are with

I try now for my temperate acid specie ' kanuma' a bonzaï clay more acid than 'akadama' more neutral

jeff

 

[TheFury]

I'm going to have to start experimenting with this stuff too. For what it's worth, I use a mix that's basically one part vermiculite, one part peat, and one part sand. All my pings are planted in this mix. I water these things using the tray method alongside my dews.

My P. 'Sethos' seems by far the happiest - it grows like a weed and flowers and divides like nobodies business. My P. 'Titan' flourishes after repotting but eventually slows down... perhaps the media becomes too compact? My P. esseriana just doesn't seem to like it too much, and I've killed so many P. moctezumae to keep experimenting with that species.

If only I could find APS at a local pet/aquarium store, but no dice. I don't really want to have a 20-lb bag shipped to me from Amazon, but I may have to bite the bullet and do it.

Definitely keep us posted on how your new soil mix works for you!

 

[gill_za]

no cat litier ( with in base sepiolite or attapulgite more alcalin )( easely to find) with others elements?

the sciarides grub love the peat substrat and the plants that are with

I try now for my temperate acid specie ' kanuma' a bonzaï clay more acid than 'akadama' more neutral

jeff

I browsed cat litter offered in local stores and it all contained either clumping additives or scenting additives

I'm going to have to start experimenting with this stuff too. For what it's worth, I use a mix that's basically one part vermiculite, one part peat, and one part sand. All my pings are planted in this mix. I water these things using the tray method alongside my dews.

My P. 'Sethos' seems by far the happiest - it grows like a weed and flowers and divides like nobodies business. My P. 'Titan' flourishes after repotting but eventually slows down... perhaps the media becomes too compact? My P. esseriana just doesn't seem to like it too much, and I've killed so many P. moctezumae to keep experimenting with that species.


If only I could find APS at a local pet/aquarium store, but no dice. I don't really want to have a 20-lb bag shipped to me from Amazon, but I may have to bite the bullet and do it.

Definitely keep us posted on how your new soil mix works for you.

If finding aps localy is a problem you can find a substitute in Lesco. It sells aps under brand name turface. Or on turface.com look up other distributors in your area.

 

[gill_za]

I was experimenting with various of soils for pings and noticed that I have a problem with all of the pings that grow in vermiculite/perlite soil. So this little experiment was setup (all components washed):

Pot 1) Soil: 1:1:1 Turface : CoarseSand : Perlite

Pot 2) Soil: 3:2 perlite:vermiculite

The plants all came from here: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1051122&postcount=11


So fast forward to now:

Pot 1) Aphrodite

Pot 2) Aphrodite

Pot 1) gracilis x moctezumae

Pot 2) gracilis x moctezumae

Aphrodite and gracilis x moctezumae are the only plants that survived in vermiculite/perlite experimental mix (well maybe that other one in the center, but I forgot to label it). I have also noticed that other pings that are grown in pure perlite or in perlite/vermiculite grow much slower and often decline completely.

 

[DJ57]

Nice comparison pics. I have never heard of Turface, what does it look like and where can I find some? Forgive my ignorance, trying to learn.

 

[MICKEY]

my pings seem to like 3/4 pumice/1/4 peat watered with a tray ,its well drained ,only problem ever was over watering a hybrid that was coming out of dormancy , but the plant made it ok with a little less water

 

[mato]

DJ, just ask for aquatic plant soil at any nursery. It's the stuff that often has a koi on the bag.

 

[gill_za]

Nice comparison pics. I have never heard of Turface, what does it look like and where can I find some? Forgive my ignorance, trying to learn.

I get my Turface from two sources:
1) Nursery that sells "Pondcare Aquatic Planting Media", it is actually a mixture of coarse turface and some other mineral the name of which I cant remember.
2) Lesco or John Deere sells several brands of pure Turface. The one you'd want is called Turface MVP (this is large particle turface http://www.turface.com/sites/default/files/Turface_MVP_MSDS.pdf )

Turface like any other planting soil needs to be very thoroughly washed to leach out as much minerals as possible. Otherwise you are risking algae growth followed by other pests. But mineral soil for pings beats any Peat based mixes anyday.

I was replanting some plants recently from a propagation pot into a separate one and the young pants had very healthy inch long white roots with no rotting. I'll post some picks later. By the way plants that grew in perlite/vermiculite had very small roots.

 

[zlookup]

Some JD locations will only carry Turface All Sport. Essentially the same thing as MVP is just All Sport rebranded and given color options as I was told.

To reiterate what gill_za stated, it should be washed thoroughly. I have found it to be EXTREMELY dusty when handling so be careful disturbing it too much while dry or you'll be engulfed in a dust storm. Notice it compacts a lot due to the amount of fine particles as well when not washed. I go through a ton of water rinsing it as it seems to have a lot of fine dust that doesn't easily rinse out. I go through about 10 rinses with tap water before doing a final 2 or 3 with RO water.

 

[gill_za]

Yep. According to this: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124010 all-sport was re-branded as MVP. Just make sure you get the uncolored one. And also do not get something called Pro League (or anything that has Pro in it) the particles are far too fine in it. In addition some offer Field Fairway Natural - this is even finer stuff .

I also soak mine for 24hrs in Tap water twice. And considering that my tap water is 140ppm the reading I get from those soakings are in 600-400 range. Than I flush it couple of times to remove leached out minerals and soak the stuff overnight in DI water (1turface:2water ratio) 4 or 5 times or until the readings drop to 4-8ppm and stay in this range consistently.

I dunno whoever claimed that turface is good for other CPs as is, but in my experience only pings and Epiphytic utrics can handle it. Dews hate it!

 

[mato]

I've got aps in every cp mix I make, with no problems. I don't wash mine either, but I guess if your pots don't freely drain, you may want to do this.

 

[gill_za]

I've got aps in every cp mix I make, with no problems. I don't wash mine either, but I guess if your pots don't freely drain, you may want to do this.

Oh mine are freely draining, but this is what they start to look like after a while:
http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061958&postcount=18

 

[jeff 2]

suite

Bonjour

use with the vermiculite or perlite , river sand for a good capillarity.

you can find the river sand in a aquariophily shop

jeff

 

[gill_za]

jeff 2
as i have mentioned before my experience with vermiculite is less than satisfactory. other mixes that had vermiculite as component plus sand, perlite, lava rocks, turface did not work too good either. Joseph Clemens' mix seems to work the best

 

[jeff 2]

for me the calcareous(alcalin) notion,their substrate 'in situ' , is not on your mix , it is the problem .


jeff

 

[gill_za]

Jeff, are you saying that absence of minerals that raise alcalinity is the problem?

I also had another experiment where I tried growing P. gypsicola x moctezumae in a mix with added dolomitic lime and similar mix without lime, with no apparent difference to the plant. The only notable difference between the two was in the growth of moss on the surface of the mix with lime.
Unfortunately i dont have pictures.

 

[mato]

Oh mine are freely draining, but this is what they start to look like after a while:
http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061958&postcount=18

Gill, all of those pots are sitting in containers. How is that freely draining?

 

[gill_za]

Gill, all of those pots are sitting in containers. How is that freely draining?

They are top watered via squirt bottle. The trays are changed often to remove the buildup of minerals. They stay in water until the water evaporates. Then I wait a bit and top-water again.
The water from the pot drains into the container. That is how they are freely draining imo.

 

[mato]

I guess free-draining could be interpreted differently. Typically, when I use the term, I assume it means the plants never sit in water, and are somehow above where the water would sit. I'd just refer to what you're doing as the tray system, but I guess the water is still technically draining freely..

Regardless, that is a lot of slime!

 

[Brie]

Its interesting to see your results.. I've never tried an experiment like that. I originally had all of my pings in a mix with peat, when I first started and they were far from happy.. Then the fungas gnats set in and I figured something had to be done so switched to all mineral mix that your first pot is using. Never looked back, everything loves it.. When using all mineral media, its important that they sit in water, I think Joseph talks about that on his site.. They'll go dormant on you really quick if you dont keep the water level high enough(i've learned that the hard way lol).