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Wash your PEAT!

Be sure to wash your Sphagnum Peat Moss!  Just today I was bored and decided to see if the sand in the peat that I always use was clear.  To my amazment when I washed about three hand fulls of Peat, quite alot of sand came out.  The color of the sand was tanish with mixed particles of black, and other colors. Then I added the vinegar to the sand to see if it bubbled, and sure enough it did! The bubbles contained in the sand was not air since the air bubbles were shaken out; and I left the sand sitting in the vinegar for 15 min. and bubbles were still flowing out like crazy.  So not all peat mosses are good.  The peat that I was using was Scotts, and according to the label it is pure Sphagnum Peat moss.
Maybe that is why most of my plants seem to prospure for a few months, then their roots die, greatly affecting the health of the plant for no apparent reason.  (I always thought it was the soggy conditions!)
Do you guys think that I should repot all of my plants in new Shultz Canadien Peat moss which has no sand which I also tested?  Because I'm afraid of stressing the plants.

Is there a difference between Canadian Peat, and Sphagnum Peat moss? Because I'm pretty sure both are made out of Sphag moss origanally.

And one more question, what is the difference between those humongous bags of Canadien Peat moss, and those little specialty bags of Peat Moss?  Is there a difference in quality?  Because the prices for those smaller bags is 3.50, and one big bag containing like 5x as much is only 7.00.

Thanks
 
i dunno the difference, but i will surely not use scott's moss now that I know that. i don't know if there really is a difference. i think if the plants that you were using the scott's peat moss with are not doing good then replant. i myself would replant all my pots for the safety if you know scott's can do harm to them just to be on the safe side.
 
What I do with my peat is first microwave it, then put it in a bucket of water and stir well. Stir again after a while. Then, a few hours later, the bad stuff will have sunk to the bottom, and the good peat keeps floating. I carefully grab handfulls of floating peat and squeeze it out, taking care not to stir it all up too much. When I've got most of what I can get, I dump the rest. The stuff that settles to the bottom is dark, slimy sludge. The stuff that keeps floating is springy, spongy peat.

Since doing both of these things, I've had no problems with algae and much less moss.

Capslock
 
I microwave it when it's dry, and I have a big bowl that takes 4 minutes to really get hot. You really want to cook it! It will depend on how big your bowl is and how powerfull your microwave is. My bowl is like a big popcorn bowl or salad bowl, or like a large mixing bowl.

Capslock
 
oooh ok well i found a store that doesn't sell live peat moss but they have it in bundles. i think there's a nursery that sells the live moss though.
 
wolfpackgurl, there is no live PEAT moss. Peat moss is what dead long fibered sphagnum moss turns into after a LONG time. Decades even. Pure long-fibered sphagnum moss is sold dry, or occaisionally live. The dry stuff is very light colored and stringy. Peat moss is the dark brown stuff that looks essentially like dirt.

Capslock
 
ooooooh. ok well now that i know that i feel smarter. well i want to get the live moss.
 
  • #10
Pardon my ignorance. But, what is vinegar used to test for?
 
  • #11
sand/rock containing calcium and other basic (pH) minerals will fizzle slightly when put into vinegar as the minerals are dissolved and CO2 is released. Depending on the amount of these minerals and the strength of the vinegar(acid) you might see a steady stream of bubbles or just the occasional bubble so you need to observe closely.

It is a general test to determine the sand doesn't have any easily dissolved minerals that will raise the pH of the potting mix and raise the level of minerals in the potting mix. Both of which would be bad for your cps.
Tony
 
  • #12
Hi All,

As an old killifish breeder I have been in an intimate relationship with peat moss for 30 years :). Let me give you a few tips from using peat to breed fish that might help with cps. Killifish breeders boil their peat moss before they use it. You must use a pot that has no exposed metal -- all glass, the blue enamel coated Mexican pots, etc. The acid peat can pick up metals from boiling if you use a regular stainless steel pot. We boil it for about 30 minutes to work the extra acidity out of it and to water log it. Afterwards, we rinse it well in a 10" fish net to rinse off more acidity. Then we use it for breeding. If we want it to alter water chemistry, we do not boil it but just soak it for several days until it sinks. That way we keep the intense acid content of the peat to use in changing hard alkaline water into more acidic soft water -- takes alot of peat to alter hard water! We try to buy half bushel and full bushels of peat moss. I go to a place called Southwest Fertilizer that specializes in serious lanscape and gardening needs so they have several brands of bushel size peat. The best brands list the pH of their peat on the bag or give a 800 number where you can call and ask them all about their peat. I will also buy peat at small nurseries that sell organic potting soil and the like as they usually find and sell a truly pure brand of peat. I avoid the small bags of peat sold by large mass market companies. We also use "peat fiber". It is wonderful stuff more like course hair than soil. It is common and cheap in Europe but rare here. A fish hobby equipment manufactor named "Hagen" does sell small boxes of it but they cost around $5 on line. It might be great for cps as it would be more like dried spaghnum moss. Also a bonsai company in Dallas sells a peat that I hear is close to this fiber peat but I do not have the website address. I use Premier Peat Moss. It comes in a black bag and it is 100% pure peat. I have never seen sand in it. I am trying 2 new brands -- Sunshine and something else -- I need to look and see what it is. Sunshine brand looks good.

Bobby
 
  • #13
Updates-  I have repotted most of my plants except for my utics and some other plants.  This is how bad my peat was, I was repotting my pygmy sundews and half of the peat on the bottom was the bad peat made by Scotts, and the top half was a good peat mixture from Schultz.  Well, to my amazment the roots stopped right at the line where the two types of peat touched!
Hopefully everything will start to turn out better.  
Man repotting takes a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time to do.  it took me several hours just to repot ten pots and wash the peat.  And theres still lots more pots to go...
sad.gif

But my spirits are still high because know I now the reason why the plants aren't healthy, and some died wasn't because of me mostly...I hope...
biggrin.gif
 
  • #14
Capslock,

I have been nuking my peat for some time too. I usually do a small cardboard box for three minutes. I use to go as high as nine, but the peat started burning(in the olden days, it was used as fuel), lol. I sometimes wonder if that would be fun to play with for tuberous Drosera seed of Byblis gigantea.
Anyway, I usually put it in large baggies and keep adding water and kneeding it until it's saturated. I have never heard of floating peat vs sinking. I have seen that with orchid bark though.
Funny enough, sand is in dried LF sphagnum too. I used to boil that and I would end up with sand on the bottom. The problem with boiling LF sphagnum is if you do it too long, it really kills it's immunity to fungus.

Regards,

Joe
 
  • #16
Most garden centers carry Canadian peat, which is what I use. I think most of what is available in the US should be acceptable. Just be sure you don't get "sedge peat" which is a totally different product, and not acceptable for CP cultivation.
 
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