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Tap water overflow..

Hey Guys,

I haven't logged on here in a couple weeks due to vacation and all.

I have a 10G paludarium that is divided (siliconed so no water can get from the land side to the water side). On the land side, I had some sundews and VFTs. They weren't growing too well because they were just moved there and I guess they were loosing leaves for new growth (?). Anyway, I had a small pond pump in the water area to make a sort of waterfall through these rocks. When I got back from vacation, I came home to a flooded paludarium, with half the water in the water side. It probably happened early in the week and my vfts lost all their leaves and the sundews lost the little hairs. The water area had tap water since I had some Vampire Crabs and freshwater shrimps.

I'm thinking about starting over with CPs and doing it right again. I switched the pump to a sponge filter which would benefit me a lot.

Could I just leave the land area to dry up and then just starting over or should I just replace everything with fresh new peat?

Any ideas?
 
You could start by flushing the peat really well with distilled/ro water. I'm not sure if that would be enough or not. Are you thinking about dews/vft's again?

Sorry 'bout the flood... that sucks.
 
For one, you'll never have nice vfts if they don't get alot of light. I don't know if such a setup would meet their requirements.

If you really wanted to do it right, I would get a 10g aquarium for something and use the other thing (not sure what a paludarium is) for the other something. Have a terrarium and an aquarium!

To be honest, I never have advocated terrariums. Grow your vfts outside. Half the fun is watching them catch their own meals anyway!

I am sorry about your loss. :-(
 
Hey Chris, I replied to your thread on AC so in case for whatever reason you check this one first go look there :)
 
I'm thinking about starting over with CPs and doing it right again.
Any ideas?

good idea! (starting over and doing it right)
if you really want to do it right, dont even consider growing CP's in the tank..
completely abandon the idea..use the tank/paludarium for something else, but not CP's..
here is why:

In my opinion, VFT's and Sarracenia should never be grown indoors or especially in terrariums..
the climate inside a terrarium is just all-wrong for them..
the climate is fine for a few months...but VFTs and Sarrs need very different climates at different times of year..

Keeping VFTs and Sarrs in a terrarum is the same as trying to grow maple tree bonsai in a terrarium..
you can replicate June - August ok in a terrarium..sunny and warm..but what about the other 9 months of the year?

Maple trees need a gradually warming spring to come out of dormancy, a gradually warmer and sunnier summer, a gradually cooler and darker autumn, then a cold and dark winter to be fully dormant.

...cycle repeats...

so do VFTs and Sarracenia.
its not an option..its a necessity.

If you grow a maple tree indoors it will die within a year...the non-changing environment of a terrarium will also eventually kill a VFT.

VFTs need it warm and REALLY sunny in the summer..DIRECT sunlight..
where can you find that? outdoors in the summer!
Nature provides the perfect light for free..
then you need gradually decreasing photoperiod and gradually decreasing temps from summer into autumn..
where can you find that? outdoors..again nature does all the work for us.

The only tricky season for those of us in the Northern states is the winter..Spring, Summer and Autumn are a breeze..just keep the plants outdoors April - October.
but the plants need a COOL winter..the winter of South Carolina..
but winters in the northern states are too severe and will kill them if the plants are left outdoors..

If you have a cool basement or attic, or a garage that stays in the 40's (4-10C) all winter, thats fine
for dormancy..or ideally, if you live in the southern US where winters are mild, just leave your plants outside 24/7/365! but right now I lack any of those conditions..hence, they are going in the fridge!

from: http://gold.mylargescale.com/scottychaos/cp

Scot
 
I always favored outdoor growing in trays in full sun. Provided your humidity is over 50% no additional covering is needed for most sundews, and all Vft's or pitcher plants. If you want a strictly outdoor scenario, you;ll need to do some homework on how to construct and maintain an outdoor bog. and which species can handle your lowest min. temps.(some sundews will be fine for warm months but need winter shelter) Tray growing allows for individual attention to particular plants.
 
The VFTs was supposed to be an experiment to see how well they grew and seeing that they don't grow too well, I'm not gonna try them again. I might start a small outdoor bog next spring or something.

I think I'll just call it quits for the paludarium with CPs and just grow CPs else where.
 
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