So because of my onw stupidity I might have condemmed 90% of my Ping collection to painful death. The reason? Dolomite.
I picked this up at the store the other day after I had a long conversation with the garden center guy. It is a pelleted form of dolomite and I thought it might be an ideal substitute to my crushed coral for Mexi-Pings. Most dolomite I have seen before has always been powdered for quick solubility. I specifically asked the garden center guy if the pellets disolved and he assured me that they were ment to stay as pellets to act as an aerator as well as a mineral additive. Turns out he was wrong.
Long story short, I repotted every single one of my Mexis in a 1:1:1:1 dolomite/perlite/vermiculite/peat mix last Sunday. Yesterday I had to drop a fet boxes in the sunroom and I smelled a horrid stench. It was coming from the Pings. All the trays were full of black water and the media in all the pots had dropped to about half the depth of the pot. The domolite had totally disolved and basically everything was getting lime burned.
I repotted everything in my original crushed coral mix and am hoping for the best.
The moral of the story: When you are trying out new media, only do it on one plant and preferably an expendable one at that!!
I picked this up at the store the other day after I had a long conversation with the garden center guy. It is a pelleted form of dolomite and I thought it might be an ideal substitute to my crushed coral for Mexi-Pings. Most dolomite I have seen before has always been powdered for quick solubility. I specifically asked the garden center guy if the pellets disolved and he assured me that they were ment to stay as pellets to act as an aerator as well as a mineral additive. Turns out he was wrong.
Long story short, I repotted every single one of my Mexis in a 1:1:1:1 dolomite/perlite/vermiculite/peat mix last Sunday. Yesterday I had to drop a fet boxes in the sunroom and I smelled a horrid stench. It was coming from the Pings. All the trays were full of black water and the media in all the pots had dropped to about half the depth of the pot. The domolite had totally disolved and basically everything was getting lime burned.
I repotted everything in my original crushed coral mix and am hoping for the best.
The moral of the story: When you are trying out new media, only do it on one plant and preferably an expendable one at that!!