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Planting materials

Hey,
Does anybody know what the exact mixture is for the sand to peat in the terrarium.

Some people have been telling me that I should use sphagnum moss and others say peat and others Canadian peat what do you guys use? What works?

I am also a little inquisative as to what sand is suggested to go with the items above stated?

When you get these together do you mix them or layer them?

Keep in mind that I will be creating a terrarium for VFTs thanks for your help.
 
50/50 sand to canadian spaghnum peat works well. You can also us 2:1 canadian spaghnum peat to perlite also, although the sand mix seems to work better. Some people also use pure lfs,live lfs and pure canadian spaghnum peat. I am doing an experiment on all of these mixes except for live lfs, and I will notify you on my results in a couple of months.
 
For my terrarium, I poured a 2 inch layer of perlite on the bottom of the terrarium so it would have good drainage. As for the soil mixture I used 1:1 perlite/peat mixture.

Since then I have switched and prefer not to use perlite at all since it is not naturally occuring. I like to use a mixture of 2:1:1 LFS/sand/peat. All my plants are doing very well. I grind up the LFS in the blender and then I mix them all together (not in the blender
smile.gif
). I use pots, but for a terrarium you could use this mix, and put a couple inches of sand at the bottom for drainage. Good luck!

Joel
 
I have a question about terrariums. Do you guys use a filter for the water? Do you change the water periodicaly? Does the soil get changed? How often? Reason I am asking is I setup a terrarium with just plain gravel on the bottom, and suck three VFT pots and all down in the gravel and added distilled water. Well, all three traps died. I asked a guy in my OS (Orchid society) who knows some about CPs and he said not all Distilled water is created equal. Since you add water as its evaporated any impurities compond over time, and very low levels of impurities can kill a VFT so I have heard. Has anyone had this happen or had any ill effect? I guess what would be great for someone contimplating a terrarium would be some pichures and how to threads on the subject. I may have missed then and will be going to do a search for them now. Thanks everyone!!
blues.gif
 
I think you may have kept the VFTs too wet but since I only have once spot where they will grow don't listen to my growing advice. Distilled water should be okay but rainwater is best.
 
I use distilled water and all my plants are doing great. Distilled water really should be created equal......if it's distilled, there should be no minerals in it.

Like Treaqum said, you may have kept it too wet. Try to let the soil dry out a little longer maybe. I transplanted some plants out of my terrarium and the soil stunk pretty bad. A sign that it was time to replant I guess. Anybody know why it stunk like that?

I have heard it is best to try and repot every year or two as well. I've had mine for about a year now, and will probably wait for another before I start transplanting.

Good luck!
 
I think the distilled water was fine. It may have been the gravel. Minerals may have leached out of the gravel into the water the pots were sitting in. Remember that salts and minerals will be lethal to CPs over time.

Also if you are using a terrarium to grow your VFTs in, you need to make sure there is good air circulation. VFTs don't need high humidity so you don't need to be overly concerned with that. Also if there was sunlight on your terrarium, temps can soar inside an enclosed or mostly enclosed container. I have found that my VFTs do MUCH better just in pots kept outside. If you want to go for the terrarium, try some longfiber sphagnum moss instead of gravel. The amount of water shouldn't matter...these plants CAN grow under water for periods of time.

Perhaps do some research on the native environment of VFTs and that might help you to match your environment.
 
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