TheFury
Oh, the humanity!!
Man, the n00b blunders again.
I'm whipping up a new batch of media. I decided to do it right this time after screwing up first by not rinsing anything, second by adding vermiculite. Now I'm doing it right: 3 parts peat, a little less than 1 part perlite, a little more than 2 parts sand. First I rinsed the sand. Now I'm sterilizing the whole mix with bleach. Next I'll soak it several times in boiling water. I'm tired of algae and fuzzy crap growing in my pots!
I digress. The last batch I made, I used Hoffman Western Desert sand. It's a nice coarse white sand. Thought it would be great. And I had read several previous threads where there was no clear thumbs down given on the stuff. But in my infinite stupidity I forgot to double-check by giving it the white vinegar test.
While making this current batch, I tested my new sand (Mosser Lee Desert sand) with vinegar. No bubbles. Nice. I went to add a bit of Hoffman sand and decided to test that too. What do you know, bubbles all over the place. This stuff is chock full of carbonate minerals!
Now here's my problem: over half of my CPs are potted in a mix that contains a healthy portion of this mineral-rich sand! So far they seem to be OK, but it's been less than 2 weeks. Should I take drastic action and repot everything, or is it not as big an emergency as I think it is?
Man, I'm gonna get this right SOME day...
I'm whipping up a new batch of media. I decided to do it right this time after screwing up first by not rinsing anything, second by adding vermiculite. Now I'm doing it right: 3 parts peat, a little less than 1 part perlite, a little more than 2 parts sand. First I rinsed the sand. Now I'm sterilizing the whole mix with bleach. Next I'll soak it several times in boiling water. I'm tired of algae and fuzzy crap growing in my pots!
I digress. The last batch I made, I used Hoffman Western Desert sand. It's a nice coarse white sand. Thought it would be great. And I had read several previous threads where there was no clear thumbs down given on the stuff. But in my infinite stupidity I forgot to double-check by giving it the white vinegar test.
While making this current batch, I tested my new sand (Mosser Lee Desert sand) with vinegar. No bubbles. Nice. I went to add a bit of Hoffman sand and decided to test that too. What do you know, bubbles all over the place. This stuff is chock full of carbonate minerals!
Now here's my problem: over half of my CPs are potted in a mix that contains a healthy portion of this mineral-rich sand! So far they seem to be OK, but it's been less than 2 weeks. Should I take drastic action and repot everything, or is it not as big an emergency as I think it is?
Man, I'm gonna get this right SOME day...
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