Yellowing leaves

[cfg]

I have had my nepenthes ventricosa for about 6 months. It was a bare root plant with 4 leaves when it arrived. Currentally it has 10 leaves with more forming in the center.

For some reason it's leaves have gone from a dark green to a yellow-green in color. The pitchers are on the leaf ends but none have developed.

The temperature goes from 80 during the day to 75 at night. Humidity is 50% during the day and a bit higher at night. My  plant is in a 10 gallon fish tank with four 20 watt florescent bulbs on 13 hours a day and aluminum foil on all sides of the tank.

Any suggestions on what to do?

 

[Darcie]

I think maybe your temperature is a little high, either that or their is some root rot from stagnent water. Also, I've found mine pitchures more with less light.

 

[NickHubbell]

How are you watering your plant? Nepenthes do not like to have wet roots for any long periods of time.

 

[Phil traper2]

The biggest problem you have with your plant is temps. N. ventricosa is a highland not a lowland. The day temps should be 75*F, and th night temps 62*F-67*F. Also the humidity should be around the 67%- 85% or higher it would make the plant really happy. What kind of lighting do you have? Also do not have neps in standing water. The neps that like a lot of water would be N. amp, N. Bica, and N. x coccinea etc etc . Have you feed the plant lately? Plus your lights should be turned on 15 hours a day. If you have a Hygrometer check what the humidity is during the night, do the same with a Thermometer.

Things you can do to cool your 10 gallon tank (at night).
1: Take frozen bottles about 3 and place them around the plant. I doesnt matter is you dont putdistilled water into the bottles as long as you don't have any of the water go into the plants soil.

2:If you have more then one highlnd nep in your ten gallon take reuseable cups and put ice in them.

Have Fun,

PT2

 

[Jmenprkr]

or if you have your plants in your basment like me you have norm cooling

 

[Phil traper2]

if the plants were in the basement with highland temps then there wouldn't be a problem. Since she says that the temps at night are 75*F that doesnt sound like night temps in a basement.

 

[Jmenprkr]

i have about 60s in my basement

 

[agustinfranco]

Hi all:

I have an issue with N. ventricosa. mine does not want to pitcher in winter time. temps during the day are about 75-80 F and at night go down between 45-55 F. I don't thing that the cooler temperatures might have an effect on this plant, but i think they do. my ovata, veitchii highland, and couple of other highland hybrids are pitchering under these temperatures. the question then is, is ventricosa a real highland?? or maybe it is an intermediate. If it comes from the philippines, how cold it gets there?. Truncata comes from the same region and it is considered a lowland. However, there is a truncata variety which is a highland!!. Any ideas??

Gus

 

[cfg]

Thanks for the suggestions
the plant is elevated above the floor of the tank and is not sitting in water, drainage looks good.

I will increase the light to 15 hours.
I will try to get the humidity meter to read above 50%
I will add Ice around the plant to cool it

Thanks again

 

[Keely]

Well I am new to Neps (4 months?) but since I have a very green thumb for other plants for 20 years and aquatic plants for 10 I find a lot of the conventional wisdom about Nepenthes very peculiar and not entirely logical, and I experiment with some success. But feel free to ignore me because I'm no expert and don't keep any exotic species.

It could surely be a heat problem, but... You have a monstrous amount of light already, if you have 80 watts over a 10 gallon wrapped in tinfoil. I need sunglasses just thinking about it

Jacking up the light intensity or duration still further is not what I would do for a plant getting progressively more yellow under that light. Yellow plants are missing something. I think we can rule out light.

I'm betting you have a nutrient deficiency which is only being made worse by the fact that the high light is inspiring it to try to grow even faster. If the plant has no pitchers, and you don't fertilize, and it gets distilled water, whatever is missing is not going to get fixed too quickly.  Having looked at a lot of people's plant collections online, it seems there are a lot of yellow Nepenthes around and maybe this is because of the worry about killing them with feeding.

My experience with feeding has been fine. I had a little ventricosa growing and pitchering like mad under 45 watts (3x15 bulbs) in a 20 gallon tall tank (it's now outside.) It was pale when I got it though it was under good light and temperature at the greenhouse. After a couple months of just water and light, because I was paranoid to do anything else, it was growing at a good rate but not good colour. I said what the #### and fertilized it with slow release fertilizer pellets at the surface at 1/4 - 1/3 amount and I add a small amount of micronutrient supplement to the rainwater (Kent, for aquariums, just a bit) I was using. I water heavily every day and let it drain, nothing gets a chance to build up.

When it grew pitchers I fed them dried bugs meant for reptiles that were dusted with some vitamin/mineral complex, because that's all I had in the house.... Perhaps all of this was a stupid thing to do or the improvement was just coincidence but the thing greened up in 6-8 weeks or so and is pitchering profusely despite my humidity outside not being great all the time. It just looks very healthy now, very green and the pitchers are nice.

Not recommending you do anything I did, but just a suggestion to look at what else besides humidity might be missing. Cheers.

 

[Phil traper2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (cfg @ Aug. 04 2003,11:41)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Thanks for the suggestions
   the plant is elevated above the floor of the tank and is not sitting in water, drainage looks good.

  I will increase the light to 15 hours.
  I will try to get the humidity meter to read above 50%
  I will add Ice around the plant to cool it

Thanks again[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Always have the humidity high, like in the 80s. Why dont you just buy a humidifer from PFT. They are great, I use it for my highlands.

PT2

 

[Stefano1]

i think the temps are fine,.. i have a ventrosica here in florida and the basic day temps are aruond 85-90 ad night temps 75-80, with almost always high humidity, but the sun dries things out quick,...my ventrosica is growing real well here, and i noticed that when i put it in a small green house with 100% humidity and not so much light, (i think 4-6 hrs of morning sunshine) its doing really well, before i had it hangning under a ficus tree and it was growing slowly, once i put it in the g house i noticed it growing super fast


i think its the water, check the tank and see how much water you have,,.. i killed a adalea and a baby ventrosica and almost my 1st nep, a N raff,... because i over watered and they were sitting in water but i had no idea,.. my raff had its leaves turning yellow like you said, i am pretty sure its the water problem,


i would like to try the terrarrium again with heliamporahs, but pft isnt selling any

hope i helped

 

[sarracenialuver]

Hello,
N. Ventricosa can tolerate intemediate and sometimes even lowland conditions, and is a fairly forgiving plant...though the humidity is to low. Nepenthes need at least 60%-70% with an increase at night.
Kevin

 

[Tony Paroubek]

Humidity meters are notoreously inaccurate.  Is there a cover on the 10gal tank? If there is, then there is no way the humidity is too low for N. ventricosa.  

Paleness in leaves is and indication of a problem with nutrients and environmental factors.  Warm temperatures and high light will cause the plant to burn up its nutrients faster.  For the plant to get back into a healthy green color things need to balance again.  Less light intensity, cooler temperatures, more feeding.

Have a look at this photo.  This is a flat of N. burkei (very similar to N. ventricosa) that I felt was paler than it should have been.  I felt the temperatures were fine and the light intensity was not too much.  I fed the plants quickly one day and what you see is the result.  Notice that some are still small and pale in color while others are large and greener.  All the plants looked similiar when I applied the food.  Obviously I did not do a very good job at the time.  

Ideally I recommend people to feed their Nepenthes the natural way with insects.  When you have a plant that is not producing pitchers then this becomes a problem.  Perhaps in this case reducing the light to 40 watts total and remove some of the foil.  This might help keep the tank cooler also which might help the plant get back into producing pitchers.  You can then feed naturally.  Watering with a dilute fertilizer solution is another alternative but any time you start dealing with added fertilizers you risk damaging the plants so this takes lots of careful observation and experimentation.

I would also recommend you read the pinned post at the top of this forum on feeding Nepenthes

Tony