Twisty leaves!?

[Homedawg76]

Recently this little problem has started again. On my cape sundews that are overall doing good (flowering prolifically, nice coloration etc...) they occasionally send up leaves that fold up or twist on themselves. Instead of having to "unhinge" one fold in the leaf at the transition point between petiole and lamina, the lamina is also folded once.
Ive been having this problem for a little while now, but I havent been able to pinpoint the cause. Im pretty sure its not pests, I've gone through soil and plant with a magnifying glass to check for anything out of the ordinary.
Other symptoms (maybe) include the flowers not opening completely.

Growing conditions

Watering: refill trays, when they're almost dry, to .5 inches or less.
Pot size: 4.5 inches wide 4 inches deep.
Soil: peat sand 1:1
Water:distilled, rain, or RO only.
Feeding: once every month, sometimes more if they catch an occasional moth or other bug.
Photoperiod:16hr
Lighting:48'' t8 bulbs (mix of warm/cool) about 3 inches from leaf tips. I dont think the lights are burning the leaves like they did before, this time even the beginning leaves are growing twisted.
Humidity:low usually. Relative humidity in my area ~9%
Probably a little higher than that over the trays, but definitely not above 20%.

How the deformed leaves look like when they are first forming

How they look like after they're done unfurling.

 

[mcmcnair]

they look perfectly healthy to me they look like they've caught bugs. If there are no bugs look for white fuzzy spots on the leaves, i've seen twisting like that come from mealybugs.

 

[Plant Planter]

That happened to my flytraps recently. Everyone says it's stagnant air or high humidity and stagnant air or low light or whatever. It's stopped happening for me, but for you it could have something to do with those. Probably it's the low humidity that's getting the best of them.

 

[JMN16150]

Try to look for crown or stem rot

 

[Homedawg76]

Nope, no bug in the traps that do this. No white fuzzy spots. Not stagnant air, i get good circulation. Possibly could be low humidity, but my other upright species are doing perfectly fine, its only the capes. They dont even do this all of the time, it seems to have fits, where every leaf it sends up is deformed, then the week after it sends up normal leaves. Doesnt look like stem or crown rot either.
Could this be root rot? I've never had experience with root rot before so i dont know what happens with that. The roots sometimes go out of the pots and grow into the water in the trays.

 

[Maiden]

i Had the same thing on some drosera and others plants. The problem was the watering cycle. Too much water.

If your RH% is very high, water once or twice a week, from the top. Or repotting in something more airy.

Hope this help!

 

[Homedawg76]

K, I'll try giving them a bit less water and see if that fixes the problem.

 

[Plant Planter]

You say that you have a mix of warm and cool color temperature bulbs. Cool bulbs have a color temperature nearest to sunlight--about 5,000-6,500 includes natural sun color temperature, whereas warm bulbs tend to be more in the range of firelight. Possibly it might be that they might not be getting the right kind of light. Plants need a certain color temperature of light in order to perform photosynthesis. From what I've gathered, only use cool white bulbs.

 

[Homedawg76]

I've heard otherwise, and from experience, the mix seems to make my plants much more colorful as compared when I used only cool bulbs. I really highly doubt this problem is from lack of light, or lack of "photosynthesizable" light.

The bulbs I'm using are 2 6500k and 2 3500k. Separated evenly between 2 2-bulbed 48'' ballasts.

 

[corky]

Only ever had this when greenfly or aphids have been present have a real good look as they are not always easy to spot

 

[Homedawg76]

well, I'll check again to be sure.

 

[Homedawg76]

still didnt see any bugs (using a 30x magnifying lens). Ive had aphids before so its not like I dont know what to look for. there's just no sign of any pests in the soil or on the plants this time.

 

[corky]

no ferts leaching from other pots

 

[Homedawg76]

The plant pictured is in its own tray along with some binata leaf cutting plantlets, their soil is the same and those arent having any problems now that I started paying attention to them. I had actually just repotted this plant from its nasty old soil awhile ago, the old silica sand I had been using was full of nasty salts and other sollubles, but that was at least a month ago.
ive tested the new sand and peat with distilled water and a tds meter and it didnt raise the tds. so no, It's not fertilzers.
I've lowered water levels, but I havent seen any improvement so far.
this is probablly not the problem, but could this have anything to do with my elevation? I live at about 5,000 feet. I know humans have a harder time getting oxygen from the air at higher altitudes, could it be that the plants are having a hard time gettin co2 or o2?