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CP barnacle project

neon-eon

Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring li
I've had a huge empty barnacle sitting on my desk for about a year now, and I decided to do something with it...so I drilled holles in the bottom, washed it out, and filled each barnacle with peat moss and perlite. In the right barnacle I planted a little plug of U. sandersonii 'blue', and the left has a pinguicula in it. (I'm actually not sure weather it's p 'florian', ot esseriana, so if you could ID it for me that would be great!) I've included a pic below:

[URL=http://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=barnacleproject1gr7.jpg][/URL]

-Gabe
 
Hey very creative!
The only thing I can see as a "possible" problem would be the calcium carbonate of the shell eventually saturating the soil and making it too alkaline. If possible you could maybe pull the soil plugs out, coat the inside with a glaze or shelac so the shell can't leach into the soil. Then again it may never happen since it's not blended into the soil like crushed oyster shell is (when used to raise the PH of soil mixes). Just something to be aware of.
 
That's actually a smart idea and I may just give it a shot...I might be going up to the washington coast this week, so I'm going to look for a few more barnacles with a similar structure as this one...I'm actually keeping the barnacle on the floor of my nepenthes terrerium...I have the nepenthes raised on a platform, and I fill it with a little bit of water to up the humidity, but that also allows me to add a few plants that prefer bottom watering.

-thanks,
-Gabe
 
False bottoms (raised eggcrate platforms) rock don't they?! You never have to worry about low humidity or flooding soils of things like neps or orchids when using them - even if the tank is filled to capacity with plants-humidity stays near perfect. I've seen some people put an aquarium bubbler in the water resivor (to "keep the water evaporating" I guess) but I've never actually found a need to.

Is it easy to drill drainage in the shells without cracking them? That really does make a neat looking weird pot for weird plants! How big are the barnacles? The only one I've ever seen was on a piece of live rock in my SW tank many years ago, it was way small but I assume these must be pretty large.
 
It's about two and a half inches at its highest point...they're both hanging out over the edge of the flat rock that they're stuck too...since they were hanging over the edge, I figured that I should drill a hole underneath...I found this at the the beach, but you can buy things like this at coastal gift stores as well I think...I might buy a few large shells as well, and try them out...drilling was fairly simple, I had my bro do it, but it didn't crack or anything, because it was pretty thick...the thicker one took maybe about 20 seconds, and the thinner one took only a few seconds.

-Gabe
 
Peter D'Amato uses abalone shells to pot some pings... according to him, they like it.
 
but that is an entirely different animal. shell composition im not sure of.... an abalone is like a snail and a barnacle is related to anenomes etc.. entirely different functions or both animals... it may or may not work...try something like capensis or a vigorous plant like that and watch the effects nd work your way to less hardy plants
 
If it works out definetly post some pices:-D
 
The shell should not have a detrimental effect on the Ping as Mexi-Pings enjoy the calcium carbonate (and calcium carbonate is the same whether it comes from an abalone or a barnacle or an egg shell)

The sandersonii can probably take it too as I have had sandersonii grow rogue in all kinds of media including my old crushed coral Ping media
 
  • #10
I'm quite sure my conchology books state that all seashells are created of calcium carbonate, so the effects of leaching should be the same. The difference is whether or not the plant species in question likes/will tolerate the higher Ph the soil may wind up with over time.
If the inside were coated it wouldn't be an issue either way - It would simply be like a pot made of plaster (gypsum = calcium sulfonate) and coated inside.
 
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