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Yes or no

  • Thread starter Leakystill
  • Start date
I have a 210 gal terrarium. My soil is, 1 part soil, 1 part sand, 1 part bark chips, and 3 parts sphagnum moss. My lighting is, 400 watt metal halide 6500k bulbs. It’s heavily misted, but there is spots that get plenty of light and don’t get hit with the misters. In those spots my soil stays moist but not saturated. Do I stand a chance of growing carnivores plants?
Thanks for the info, Josh,1AD7E6C9-FA25-407D-B734-0636292A7729.jpg
 
Is it soil ( garden soil) or moss peat? I also presume it's dead sphagnum not live.
 
If the 1 part soil is a conventional plant soil you cannot grow carnivores in there.
 
Yes the sphagnum moss is dead and cleaned. The 1 part soil is an organic potting soil. No added fertilizer or anything like that.
Thanks for the reply’s.
 
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Yes the sphagnum moss is dead and cleaned. The 1 part soil is an organic potting soil. No added fertilizer or anything like that.
Thanks for the reply’s.

I personally would give it a shot if there are no fertilizers and I had something to spare. You won't know for sure until you try. Just put something cheap in there to start with and see what happens. Maybe a CP that is more tolerant of nutrient-rich soil. Sarrs can benefit from light fertilizer in the soil, so maybe a small sarr to start with? It just might not work out in the long-term.
 
Yes the sphagnum moss is dead and cleaned. The 1 part soil is an organic potting soil. No added fertilizer or anything like that.
Thanks for the reply’s.
Potting soil is different from sphagnum peat moss. Some potting soils are made from other decayed plant matter which increases the nutrients in the soil. Others are made from peat and are ok. You just need to be sure it's 100% sphagnum peat moss.
 
Thanks everyone for all the help! I’m going to give it a try. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Thanks again, Josh
 
Yes the sphagnum moss is dead and cleaned. The 1 part soil is an organic potting soil. No added fertilizer or anything like that.
Thanks for the reply’s.

The potting soil you used probably contains too much nutrient for CPs. However, since you mixed only 1 part of it to 5 parts of other things, like Chrono mentioned, you might be OK with some nutrient tolerant CPs. Although, sarr may not be a good choice since they (adult sarrs) need dormancy. Unless you plan on digging them out each winter. An alternative would be to wad up a ball/clump of sphagnum moss and tie it together with fishing line. Attach that to a log, rock, or branch above the soil line (use fishing line or zip tie, do not use anything metal). Make sure the wad is large enough to grow whatever CP you're interested in planting. As long as the sphagnum moss stay continuously moist, you can plant many different CPs in that. Go with CPs that don't require dormancy since they're growing indoors with tropicals. Good luck.
 
Personal experience, but mine may differ.
The only Sarracenia I've had I bought from a nursery in Utah (species unknown) and was planted in a soil/peat mix. The nursery was a very good one that specialized in succulents and tropical plants, but they admitted to this being their very first time with carnivorous plants.
Not knowing much about them myself, other than to only use distilled or rain water, I took it home and put it on an east facing windowsill. It really took off!
Within about 2 months I had to re-pot it. By this time I had gained a little more knowledge on care, but still put the entire plug of soil/peat into the new pot of long fiber sphagnum.
I even decided to fertilize it every 2 weeks with some African Violet foam fertilizer I had laying around. This plant just gobbled it up and showed its appreciation by tripling the number of pitchers, and the new ones were over twice the size.
The point is, between the nursery and me, there was a lot done that most experts will say no, no, NO! to. However, it shows that Sarracenia might be a good one to try, unless you want to clean out the terrarium and start over.
Good luck, and, if you try it, post some pics to show us your progress,
Chef
 
  • #10
Sarracenia can take more heavy fertilization and benefit from it. However, I still would not add them to that terrarium. They'll need dormancy to survive long term, which will not be easy to simulate in a set up like that.
 
  • #11
Sarracenia can take more heavy fertilization and benefit from it. However, I still would not add them to that terrarium. They'll need dormancy to survive long term, which will not be easy to simulate in a set up like that.
Yeah I missed the part about this being a tropical terrarium. Sarr is probably not ideal. From what I understand, most dews are not tolerant of fertilizers either. Not sure about others.

The moss ball idea is probably the best bet.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
  • #14
Thanks everybody for the info. I’ve got orchids tied up in moss balls and they are doing well. Might try that.
Thanks again everybody for the info. It’s nice to have help.
 
  • #15
Sarracenia can take more heavy fertilization and benefit from it. However, I still would not add them to that terrarium. They'll need dormancy to survive long term, which will not be easy to simulate in a set up like that.


Sweet terr ... lots of potential.

Whether the soil will be an issue will depend upon how much fertilizer it contains and what is planted in it. Worse case scenario, you could remove the media and use it for different plants elsewhere. You could also plant some non-cps directly in the media. Depending upon the media, there are even a few orchids that might be planted directly in the media.

Sarrs would be doable provided you don't choose ones that will quickly get too tall for the terr. If concerned as to the compatibility of the media with what sarrs can handle and their dormancy needs, you could simply pot the sarrs and place them in a cache pot (an exterior pot which lacks drainage holes). You then plant the cache pot in the media. If you make your own cache pot or find one that looks like stone, it could sit on top of the media. Otherwise, plant the cache pot so it is level with the media or place some other item -- rock, piece of driftwood, plants planted in the media, etc -- in front of of the cache pot to hide it. In the fall, the sarr could be removed for overwintering.

I would avoid the use of fertilizers as salts tend to build up too quickly unless you have it set up to flush the media regularly.
 
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  • #16
I'm not sure if this was covered (as I only skimmed the other posts) but what water are you using in the terrarium? This will greatly affect the ability to grow Carnivorous Plants.

As for plants, I'd just sprinkle in some easy Sundew seeds (like Cape Sundews) and let them grow. Sudnews are often adaptable when grown form seed in a new environment. I once grew some on an alkaline rock with sphagnum moss packed into it. They grew, produced dew and fed, but they were stunted and stayed about an inch tall. It was an interesting experiment.

Good Luck and I hope you return in a few months with some cool photos!
 
  • #17
I'm not sure if this was covered (as I only skimmed the other posts) but what water are you using in the terrarium? This will greatly affect the ability to grow Carnivorous Plants.

Unless there is a false bottom system set up to allow for flushing the media of mineral salts, the water being used will affect the ability to grow any type of plants in there long term.

 
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