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  • #21
@Presto - Yes, it seems that I am an addict of various bad habits when it comes to CP cultivation. My last big fix was humidity domes. I guess misting is my new poison. I wonder what's next...

@eou - Well, if my eyes were crusted with as much humic acid as my sundews are, then I imagine a nice spritz with pure RO filtered water might feel pretty nice :)

@CPlantaholic - so you use the tray method for the most part except for a quarterly top-watering? Hey, if it works for you, I'll start that system right away. I do have all sides of my rack surrounded so more light doesn't escape. This grow rack is in my study, and being that my girlfriend is a student right now, I wanted to keep it so that she doesn't need to work directly under the lights of time square! I also don't want my landlord getting sketched out because I have all these bright lights on even when I'm not home. But, since it's not necessary, I'll probably just raise the flaps until someone needs to study in that room.

I always liked your setup because you can raise and lower your lights quite easily. For me, I have to fidget with hooks and chains and hold my lights up precariously above my fragile plants while I re-hang the lights at a different height.

EDIT: even just one day after raising the photoperiod to 16 hours, I believe I see dewier leaves throughout my grow rack already. I think this might be the ticket!
 
  • #22
What's the old proverb? "If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain.": Instead of lowering your lights elevate your plants. An overturned pot, cup or anything will do. It means individual trays or saucers on the raised pot but then if you're growing species with different watering requirements then you have to address that somehow anyways.
 
  • #23
(Going off your grow list...) Nepenthes ventricosa should be just fine without misting. Utrics too. I think you might be...a Misting addict. It's all going to be okay man...put down the spray bottle and just walk away. We're all friends and we're here for you.

:jester: (I'm a former misting addict myself. It's kinda fun in an odd way but there really are very few CPs that actually need it.)

I've never met a Nepenthes that didn't react well to misting. :0o:


But dews, are a different story.
 
  • #24
I've never met a Nepenthes that didn't react well to misting. :0o:

They may enjoy it, but many of them don't NEED it. For example, I never mist any of my highlanders or intermediates, and they're all doing well and pitchering:

003.JPG
 
  • #25
No, very true, they do not need it. I was just defending my misting addiction. :D


I'm afraid to let them go without it now. It's kind of like training wheels for Nepenthes. :-))
 
  • #26
Those Nepenthes are gorgeous! I actually just got a rather large N. mirabilis basal from a very generous TF member and am currently in the process of rooting it up. Hoping it can make a happy windowsill plant like yours, Presto.

Even after just a few days, this increased photoperiod is really having an effect. Dew production has definitely ramped up. Hopefully after another week or two I'll start seeing more color and resumed growth!

I just took some wet Q-tips to the crowns of my D. aliciae. Even after 5 Q-tips, using both sides, the largest of my D. aliciae was still giving off tons of brown goo. After that, I hit the crowns with a jet of pure RO water from a syringe. The humic acid isn't all gone, but hopefully I got rid of enough of it to allow normal growth to resume.

Now - let's say, hypothetically, that after changing my watering habits and stopping all this misting nonsense, I still have problems with humic acid buildup. That would definitely indicate a problem with the soil, right? I noticed that the top of the media in my D. aliciae pot looks like mainly sand... as if the peat has sunk beneath the surface. Is this a problem? Should I repot into some peatier mix or are sundews such as these more or less tolerant to sand-heavy mixes?
 
  • #27
Generally speaking, I find that top-watering D. aliciae works as a preventative to blackening crowns.
 
  • #28
As I said previously,
To get rid of it permanently flush your media out to remove the excess substances from the mix.

Discard the runoff. The compounds will eventually flush out and no more problem. I tried the swabbing it off. It's a waste of time. If you rinse it off without flushing the media the compounds just get wicked up again. This tends to happen with newly mixed peat moss. Repotting will just start over with high levels of the compounds leading to this phenomenon. Unless you just happen to get a batch of peat moss out of the bag naturally low in the compounds. Refer to Tamlin's posts about thoroughly flushing peat moss before using.
 
  • #29
Alright alright, you caught me beating a dead horse :).

I just flushed the media by putting it under my RO tap for a good half hour. I'm guessing about a half gallon of water ran through it over that time. At first, I noticed water was sort of pooling up at the top of the pot. No good. So, I took the opportunity to examine the media a little more closely. I didn't uproot the plants but I did scoop them out with their root balls. Turns out that the top layer of the media was thick; almost stiff. I have no idea what it was. But I did break that cake up and loosen the media a little, and now it drains much better. Maybe that was why these plants were always mad at me - they were totally waterlogged all the time because their pot didn't drain well enough.

I will keep folks posted with results as they unfold!
 
  • #30
OK, What??

After just having swabbed the crowns of my D. aliciae a few days ago, one of them is ALREADY black with humic acid again. I've been careful with the water, and I've flushed the media out.

As the condition of these plants continues to worsen, I've decided to take some leaf cuttings in hopes of propagating a new generation of plants.

This weekend I might mix up another batch of media, following the method on growsundews.com to rinse the peat, and will use perlite rather than some random (and perhaps salty) sand that I'm using this time. After that I'll repot, cross my fingers, and wait.

How frustrating.
 
  • #31
Hey Fury,
If possible, I would HIGHLY recommend purchasing silica sand, since perlite will likely not help with the drainage problem. Are you pretty much letting the media dry out in that pot? If not, the humic acids will continue to wick up onto the crown. The key is letting the media dry out a lot more if it's still occurring.

Otherwise, it might be beneficial to start off with rinsed media (which is strongly recommended by Tamlin- whom I adapted that rinsing technique from)

As a side note, I actually tried a weird/funny thing that surprisingly worked- I one time had to uproot a plant of D. aliciae that was crowding out another of my sundews. I broke off the roots and tried placing the top of the plant in a shallow clear salad dressing container (not sure what to call it). My initial experiment was to see if the leaves would strike plantlets if the leaves were still attached to the mother plant. I put enough water so the plant was initially submerged, but now the leaves are all growing above the water level. But oddly enough, a year later, the plant has continued growing well, looks healthier than ever, and is developing some really nice-sized leaves and roots. Best part is that humic acids can't develop! I haven't fed it either, so I'm surprised that it's growing this well. So that would be another option for making a back-up... I will try to upload a pic of this in the next few weeks.
 
  • #32
Man, I have searched high and low in Brooklyn, and I can't find silica sand. I get blank stares at all the hardware stores, even Lowes and Home Depot. The drainage problem I had was probably a result of either packing the media itself too tight or packing the bottom dressing of LFS too tight (I use LFS to keep my media from falling out the bottom of my pots). The sand itself might also be far too fine - I don't have a good way to gauge what the ideal grit size is (20 or 30, right?) compared to this stuff--I use Mosser Lee Desert Sand.

If I want to use sand, it has to be stuff that I can get in small bags - not gonna purchase a huge 50 lb sack of play sand or something because it would take up my entire friggin' apartment. Anyone out there in NYC know where I can get some good silica?

The media I'm using is actually rinsed a few times with boiling water, sterilized with a 1/10 strength bleach solution, rinsed again, dechlorinated, and then rinsed a few more times. But what I didn't do is wring the peat out - I just poured as much water off as I could. That might be the problem. My next batch that I'm probably going to whip up this weekend will follow your method (I can't follow Tamlin's because I don't have an outdoor wire rack on which to place my many pots for the rainy season :))

Now you're saying you can grow your D. aliciae floating in nothing but water? And I can't even grow them in bloody peat moss??
 
  • #33
If cooking your peat moss in the microwave oven causes it to break down I willing to bet that using boiling water will have a similar effect.

A 50 lbs bag of sand isn't very big - maybe the size of a small pillow, surely you can find room under your bed or somewhere for that. If not buy mix from Andrew as you need it.

Quartz sand will do just as fine as silica. 16 mesh size is preferred, #20 will work but I wouldn't go any finer than that.Try a sand blasting supply or pool and spa supply. If you sweet talk somebody they might sell you 10 lb bags.
 
  • #34
Ya a 50lb bag of sand isnt like a 50 lb bag of moss lol. IT is just really dense. OMG i can imagine a 50pound bag of lightly pakced lfs
 
  • #35
forgot I already had the pics sorted thru and ready to upload...
This guy is sitting in the bottom of my tray, so it's around 7+inches from the lights.
Since I never feed it, though, it still colors up really nicely.
I'm surprised it hasn't shrunk down in growth yet, but we'll see how long that lasts.
If nothing else, it's just interesting to see that something like this worked for such a long time.
5391842887_e3184f59f7.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/5391842887_e3184f59f7_b.jpg

5392442606_3faa080c6c.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/5392442606_3faa080c6c_b.jpg

5392442570_f456592bbb.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/5392442570_f456592bbb_b.jpg
 
  • #36
Is that just a clear 2oz cup?
 
  • #37
Looks like one of those containers that you get soy sauce in when you order sushi take-out. That is fascinating. If I had the plants to spare I would definitely try that!

@NaN - I read somewhere on this forum about someone straight up boiling their peat. I didn't take it to that extreme, but I did want to use heat to sterilize the eager algae and mold spores that seem to proliferate in the only peat that I have access to (Hoffman). Also, yeah, I guess you're right that 50 lbs of sand won't be that big. I bought a big 50 lb bag of rock salt recently - THAT was a bulky bag. But I probably have room for this. The problem is that I don't have access to the stuff - as I said, hardware stores all around me have no idea what "sharp sand," "quartz sand," "silica sand," "pool filter sand," "blasting sand," etc. are. Totally blank stares. And being that this is NYC, I don't think there are enough swimming pools around to create a market for pool supply stores! LOL!

I'll keep my eye out though.

---------- Post added at 06:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:43 AM ----------

Hmm, would any of the stuff here work? Glass beads, aluminum oxide (I'm guessing this won't), ground glass, plastic grit, corn cob... This stuff I do have access to. It also comes in 10lb pails! I'm looking at "black beauty grit." It says the stuff is inert, moisture free, and the best alternative to silica sand... for the purposes of blasting, at least.
 
  • #38
Pool supply places have pool filter sand and the play sand at H.D., etc.... is acceptable. Just rinse everything first.
 
  • #39
Do you have pets in NY? How 'bout aquariums. Try pet supply stores and look at fresh water aquarium sand. Comes in different colors, and if it's safe for fresh water aquaria, then it will work fine for CP.
 
  • #40
Check some contractors they often have sand. Not sure what type, but they need it so they usually sell some also
 
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