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Caring for baby neps

  • #21
Remeber though......

Go EASY on them. If your going for a tiny fridge GREAT...but try to fin one with adjustable temp and air flow (which most have) and give them mild nights. Aim for nights for these guys around 65F (since they are just little guys). Then once theyestablish and have a good root hold you can lower it to 60 then lower (once they get 3 inches across) to let's say 58F or so. Good luck with them! The 3 highlanders (N.ephippiata,N.spectabilis, and N.ovata) will do fine in the frisge with the night cooling and Amp should be the easiest guy in a room temp enclosure without cooling or heating and should form roots quickly. So remeber easy light conditions and mild temps for your highlanders. Good luck pal!
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  • #22
could you please define easy light condition? I was planning on buying a 175watt halide at home depot in the morning. would this be overkill or can they stand it when they get older??

joe
 
  • #23
You could save the Metal Halide money for later. When these guys get to 3" or so then you could put them under MH light but a good distance away from the light (3 feet or so) as these bulbs generate a lot of heat and will definately dry the air unless seperated by glass-and possibly even with glass seperating them. If you do put them under the MH now make sure it's at least 3 feet from the light with at least 50% shade cloth between the plants and light. I am an advocate of using as much light as possible but they do need to harden off a bit and acclimate to it.
From what I've read, most TC labs generally grow the plants in flasks on shelves using simple "lowlight" 2 tube flourescent units as they are mainly concentrating on growing a clump of plant material / growing points and not actual plants so the light need only be high enough to maintain cell growth and these little guys would probably not enjoy MHs for quite some time yet.
MH lighting may also change your plans for cooling them. You will most likely need to add a fan to keep the daytime temps low enough (under 80-85*F I actually find that my highlanders do better between 70-80*F). An airconditioner, is a good investment, only about $100 and will keep your plants from cooking in the summer. I bought one and on the hottest nights of summer my highland terrarium will generally stay about 50-60*F all summer long. when piping the airconditioned air in be sure to have the cool mist humidifier intersect the cool air and humidify it BEFORE it enters the terrarium/grow chamber so it's cool and humid otherwise you will wake up and see your pitchers have all closed their lids! It happened to me and I lost most of the pitchers on the plants (but didn't loose the plants) til I got the setup right. Now that it's autumn/winter here I am just using a 4" CPU fan from Radio Shack attached to a piece of 4" solid metal ducting which is a attached to the 4" duct hose which was attached to the A/C earlier this year. At night the fan sucks cool air from the window surface (window isn't even open) into the tank and brings it down to 55*F-65*F without AC and it will get colder as the temps here (Minneapolis) drop outside.

If you like tinkering/experimenting you will have fun setting up a highland tank! Things I consider essential for a highland setup (other than the enclosure itself) would be:
*bright/intense light (once the plants are 3" or so)
*airconditioner
*Thermostat to control AC if has timer Day/night settings even better!
*Ultrasonic humidifier (the type which has a small metal disk and makes fog not the "cool mist" fan & sponge type)
*humidistat to regulate the humidifier
*4" fan
*4" Ductwork to connect AC or fan to terrarium
*hose to make humidifier output intersect 4" duct hose

I don't reccomend having any large openings in the highland terrarium as the constant inflow of air from either fan or AC will keep the fresh air moving and any openings can lower the humidity which must remain very high as the lighting needs to be very intense for these guys to simulate the 'full sun' positions on mountainsides that many of the highlanders naturally occur in. Any drops in humidity can cause your plants to become cripsy very quick under such lighting especially young ones fresh out of TC such as yours.
 
  • #24
Hey swords I like the way you think, actually on the tinkering note I've been an electronics technician in the air force for six years and I'm only a year away from my Electrical Engineering degree.

My current plan is to build a terrarium with a cabinet underneath containing one of those cheap car coolers filled with water and a fogger that I've already picked out. duct work will run the warm/chilled for into the tank. As for the timer I'm planning on using a motorala 68hc11 microcontroller to run everything connected to the tank. I haven't found a humidistat yet so if you could point me to one that would help, also what type of fridge are you using?

also you mention airflow? i was under the impression I was to have stagnent wet air. is this incorrect?

thanks again

ps for the night my plants are in an igloo cooler with a small bowl of ice, but i'm having a little trouble with humidity.
 
  • #25
I do not use a fridge at all they are way too small for a growing collection and will not hold the plants very long once they actually begin growing and the cost of a decent sized fridge for my collection (something like you'd find in a grocery store) is thousands more than what it cost for me to build my highland enclosure from stuff I got at the hardware store.

I have the 4 ftW x 4 ftH x 2ft D terrarium sitting next to a window, in the window is either the AC or the fan panel depending upon the season. The air is directed into the tank from either the AC or fan by 4" flexible metal dryer vent hose from home depot (about $4.95 for 25 feet). The outlet for the hose is the only opening in my highland terrarium but there is plenty of fresh humidified air flowing through it.

Highland Neps like fresh humid air that is constantly moving (resembling thier habitats on cloudy mountain sides).
The lowland Neps like warm and stagnant air (down in the warm peat swamps). I don't run a fan or even vent my lowland terrarium other than when it's opened for attention/admiration (which is usually once a day). I just have a tiny water pump in the sump/pond beneath the false bottom of the lowland tank to exchange air and water to keep the air super humid.
 
  • #26
ok, i have some small fans I can add to my temporary terrarium. as for the fridge I don't actually intend to put the plants in it. I'm just going to use a cheap electric igloo cooler and cut to vent holes in it for ductwork and run the ducts into the top of the terrarium.
 
  • #27
You mean you plan to put some kind of tubing in the fridge and force the cool air from the fridge (via airpump) to the igloos where the plants will be kept?
The tubing will need to be insulated (try wrapping with several layers of duct tape) to keep the max coolness while the air is traveling to the plants.

Here's the first version of my highland tank which is made from plastic sheet and a 2x2 frame and two sheets of fiberglass. This shows (asside from my metal posters) the connection to the airconditioner during may or june of this year)
highland.jpg


the new version of my highland tank is the same frame covered in shower/tub wall surround (bright glossy white) with a sliding storm window it helps keep the humdiity higher too and illuminates the plants better from the sides due to reflection/more even light distribution.
.
highlandfog10-02.jpg


The above pic was taken during the height of the fog made by the humidifier
 
  • #28
nice chamber,

The plants would be in a terrarium seperate from the igloo, the igloo cooler actually has an electric cooling system powered by peltier chips, I was planning on running the cool air from the igloo into the terrarium. At least that is one possibilty, I may just buy a couple of peltier thermal chips and mount a small system to the back of the hood. Since I now know they desire airflow the fan off this cooler should benefit them.

I'm questioning the use of a fogger since I just found out they require maintenance every 600-800 hours. I don't like things that break or wear out so easily.

joe
 
  • #29
Mine has been up and fogging since purchase last march with no maintenance outside of occasionally dumping out the base and using a Qtip to swab deposits off the ultrasonic disk (even when using only RO or distilled water) and of course refilling when empty usually every other day since I hooked up to a humidistat. Otherwise I give my fogger (a Vicks V5100) no attention at all. Be sure you don't use tap water in it as that will clog the disk very fast and probably will require more attention.

BTW here's the place I bought my humidistat from, they may not be the cheapest (I didn't look further when I found this one) but they were cheap enough for me! fast service too.
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http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/accessories.shtml
 
  • #30
Ok my larger baby neps spent the night at around 62deg.  The smaller ones that may not have roots yet I left in the warmer grow chamber to help devope roots as per borneo's suggestion.  
nep1.jpg


nep2.jpg


nep3.jpg


Those pots are only about 4 inches across.
I tell ya there is nothing that tries ones patience like waiting to see if many baby plants are going to live or die. It is hard to just leave the cover on the grow chamber and let them be.

Hopefully within a month I will know which ones are growing and happy.
Does anyone else have methods of cooling thier neps at night???

thanks
joe
 
  • #31
I cool mine ideally (down to 60-50F) at night via ice bottles and those blue gel ice packs. They are excellent as far as lasting the night and chilling the plants. I would recommend them to ANYONE as they are cheap, and efficient IF you have a small collection of highlanders/Ultrahighlanders.
 
  • #32
Joe, wow, thous are small. do treat them like new born baby's. i know its hard to leave them alone but it is to the best of them. leave the cover be while they are in there cooler. what ya could do is take the cover off and replace it with a clear plastic so you can see threw it but, at the same time leaving the enviroment be. hope that helps some.
 
  • #33
but they are just too cute. i have to look at them often to see if they are growing. at night they go in the cooler when I go to bed that way they get a few hours of dormacy and quite. I just finished installing a muffin fan in thier daytime grow room. It is a little breezier than I expected but the humidity is pretty high so it shouldn't bother them. I think. I removed the bottoms off thier pots to prevent the peat from remaining saturated too long and I mist them a little more often. all of this attention will either make them happy or kill them. but like you said I try to disturb them as little as possible for hours at a time unless I need to do maintenance like installing the fan.

How long will it take for these things to make it to a few inches in diameter???

joe
 
  • #34
joe, it is like a pot of water that you are boiling if you look at it the longer it takes to boil. lol so the more you look at them the longer it takes to grow. just like Rob said, in a diff. posting forget abou them and check up on them once a month but, in your case until it is time to got to bed. it will take a couple of months for them to gain size longer for the slow growing ones. the smaller the plant the slower they grow.
 
  • #35
Joseph,

They look healthy enough at the moment, but boy are they right out of the flask! They have multiple shoots so are probably taken out of a media containing a chemical that promotes shoot multiplication, (probably BAP or Kinetin). If it's BAP, there may be a memory effect that will make them continue to multiply for some time even when out of the flask. They should really have been grown on for a while in sterile culture using some plain media without BAP and then hardened off in a greenhouse before shipping. I've never heard of anyone actually selling Nepenthes out of the flask without roots in that condition before.

Keeping them going will be a challenge and an achievement in itself. I think your biggest enemy will be rot of one sort or another. When tender plantlets are that clumped together so tightly, there is a higher likleyhood of that sort of problem.

Anyway, looks good so far!
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  • #36
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Oh yes! Nearly forgot, I suggest you don't fertilize them for several months. If recently out of sterile culture (which they are) they should be pumped full of nutrients already and the presence of any sort of fertilizer dramitically increases the chances of bacterial or fungal attack.
 
  • #37
Thanks Borneo, I did add a small amount of weak fertalizer, but I will wash it out at the next watering. I haven't been watering too often, I'm trying to keep the humidity extremely high and misting from time to time. I haven't seen any signs of rot yet but they still have a long way to go. Growth has been very slow, but I assume that will continue untill roots are established.

For anyone that is reading this, I don't reccommend Nep tissue cultures as a first cuttling attempt.

Thanks for the reassurance Borneo, I will post more pics as soon as I can see a difference.

joe
 
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