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cobra lily experiment

We know cobra lilies like two things:

- cool water on the roots
- moving, aerated water on the roots (the most important I think)

So I had some cobras I was taking out of dormancy, and I had an old 2.5 gallon aquarium lying around with some grungy old filters, and figured I'd try something.

I used another filter's intake extenders on this filter in order to get its intake to touch the bottom of the aquarium. The water level is about halfway up the sphagnum.

For those who aren't familiar with aquarium filters, this filter sucks water from the bottom of the tank and pours that water down from the top (normally there would be some kind of foam for filtration but all it would do in this case is slow the water down).

If I felt like trying the ice cube method I could drop ice cubes into the filter and they'd melt on their own time, cooling the falling water as they did, but I don't think it'll be necessary.

An even faster filter would have been nice, but this is what I had that wasn't being used. We'll see what happens.

cobratest.jpg
 
How do you keep it from getting clogged?

Cheers
 
I know a little about experimenting with cobra lilys! Aside from my failures, which are well-documented and commented upon, it was Tony Paroubek who suggested something very simple and very successful. I bought one from Lowes last August, when the temps were still hitting the 80's. Since it was kicking around at the store for awhile, I felt it necessary to repot and acclimate. I put into a plastic pot and suspended it on the edge of one of the cube's halves. I then placed it at the lab's front desk, where the temps would be ~70. I watered it so that that it would drain through. When September came and the temps were close enough to that of the lab, I put it outside, for the next two months, where it naturally entered dormancy. For the past 3 months, it has been in our cold attic - resting. It is just now beginning to resume growth. Hey, it's very simple and very successful.

But I like your setup. I hope it works out well for ya!

AF003601.jpg
 
nepenthes_ak: There's a strainer at the end of the filter intake tube. So far it's done fine. The nice thing about using an aquarium filter rather than just a pump is that it's designed to let various crap run through it without a problem.

jimscott: My other cobra lily is growing beautifully in a self-watering pot. I'm just seeing if this will cause explosive growth rather than just great growth.
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I've thought about doing that... only instead of a fishtank, using my outdoor fish pond's waterfall.
 
Ive heard of water falls often befor, but wouldnt you need to divert the water (so its not so strong to turn the soil up and away, and to have Relitivly pure water with no adatives) Often though of it might work just would take some planing, I like the SEt up though, havent had luck with D. californica yet so. more power to you guys who can!!

Cheers
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]We know cobra lilies like two things:

- cool water on the roots
- moving, aerated water on the roots (the most important I think)

Do they though? In my experience cobras are fine as long as the roots aren't cooked, which is pretty hard to do. Keep the water table reasonably high and they'll be happy in heat and sun.

I really don't know why people build contraptions for them
smile_l_32.gif
 
I havent been able to keep them alive, well maybe its just me trying to save them from stores?

Cheers
 
  • #10
It's largely hit or miss with those Lowes cubes. If you time it with a new shipment, your chances are good. If you wait a few weeks, you take your chances. Mine was one that was kicking around for awhile and I got lucky, beyond the acclimating process.
 
  • #11
I took the easy route. I have my Cobra planted in a glazed/undrained ceramic pot. I just come buy every few days and fill it back up to the top with water.
 
  • #12
[b said:
Quote[/b] (CopcarFC @ Mar. 17 2006,4:59)]I took the easy route.  I have my Cobra planted in a glazed/undrained ceramic pot.  I just come buy every few days and fill it back up to the top with water.
inside on a window sill or outside in the Texas heat?

I like the filter contraption.I thought of something similar,but have not done it yet. Let us know how it does in the summer heat!
 
  • #13
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Alvin Meister @ Mar. 17 2006,1:56)]Do they though? In my experience cobras are fine as long as the roots aren't cooked, which is pretty hard to do. Keep the water table reasonably high and they'll be happy in heat and sun.

I really don't know why people build contraptions for them  
smile_l_32.gif
Look at a photo of one growing out of a stream of melting snow from a mountaintop, and the meaning of "fine" starts to change a bit.
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I wish I had a picture of one like that but I can't find any.

Again, I've done fine. I'm just curious what spectacular looks like.
 
  • #14
[b said:
Quote[/b] (CP30 @ Mar. 17 2006,8:35)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] (CopcarFC @ Mar. 17 2006,4:59)]I took the easy route. I have my Cobra planted in a glazed/undrained ceramic pot. I just come buy every few days and fill it back up to the top with water.
inside on a window sill or outside in the Texas heat?

I like the filter contraption.I thought of something similar,but have not done it yet. Let us know how it does in the summer heat!
Right now both of them are indoors under CF lights. But last year they delt with the 110 degree/full sun outdoor days like a champ. I did'nt even give them cold water. They are true survivers.
 
  • #15
jimscott: how is your process done?
 
  • #16
So far it looks like the first new pitchers are about 50% bigger than the old pitchers.

Is this typical at all coming out of dormancy? I haven't done it with cobras before.

They're also getting a little more natural light than they were pre-sleep, but I have a pot of cobras in the same location that aren't getting the moving water, and they haven't been growing larger due to the sunlight at all.
 
  • #17
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Look at a photo of one growing out of a stream of melting snow from a mountaintop, and the meaning of "fine" starts to change a bit.

My plant has three flowers and grows pitchers 40cm sitting in still water in a hot greenhouse - seems fine to me
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smile.gif
 
  • #18
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Alvin Meister @ April 17 2006,9:07)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Look at a photo of one growing out of a stream of melting snow from a mountaintop, and the meaning of "fine" starts to change a bit.

My plant has three flowers and grows pitchers 40cm sitting in still water in a hot greenhouse  - seems fine to me  
smile_n_32.gif
 
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You and Pyro both have said that, basically, if the plant is healthy and acclimated, it can take the heat. Just so ya know, most Americans, particlarly if they're not on the immediate west coast, which has a similar enough maritime climate to that of the UK, are buying their cobra lily's from a DIY store called Lowes. Those plants are cooped up in plastic cubes that sit around, unexposed to the air, unfed, underlighted, and thus totally stressed out by the time someone buys one. Then they get repotted, which is a good and bad thing, depending, and then either put outside to be further stressed out by the significant change in conditions or set up with distilled water ice cubes or.... In short, you have a whole mess of people buying a stressed out plant to begin with and enough knowledge out there to be dangerous and confused.
 
  • #19
Indeed Jim! I managed to keep a scraggly thing from Lowes alive after many tries. Now it is a very nice plant after a few years just growing in pure sphagnum in with the highland Nepenthes. It gets watered every morning and is not sitting in any water.

The thing is getting it to survive if you buy a cheap one from a diy store.. they may look ok in the store but they are in the process of dying and they don't come back to life easily. Not like the scraggly vft which will rebound in a month if there is just about any bit of green left on the plant.

Tony
 
  • #20
And I have adopted & adapted an approach that Tony suggested to me last year. Instead of a mini-terrarium "deathtrap", I have a repotted plant resting atop / suspended in part of the Lowes cube, very much like a Nep in a hanging basket. The plant is in a much larger pot, now, and outside, having just emerged from dormancy

AF003601.jpg
 
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