Questions...HL

[kentosaurs]

Hey guys.....I was thinking the next round i would get neps i wanna get some HL neps...I can provide the temps but certainly not the 100% humidity at night..In fact it could be quite low, around 60% could be slight more....So i was thinking would there be any neps which would do well in lower humidity In ur case would normally be called as a windowsill plant...

Also if possible a nep which also remains quite compact....

Ken

---------- Post added at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:36 PM ----------

Oh yea and i don't intend to get something like a truncata or something...too common..

 

[swords]

My old HL Neps didn't have 100% humidity at night. 100% is saturation point (wet) and you really don't want to have water sitting on the leaves for very long as it tends to lead to black mold spots on the leaves. Spraying the leaves and having the water evaporate is one thing but to stay perpetually wet at night is not good. At most my Neps got 80% which was supplied by an ultrasonic humidifier from the pharmacy. NOT a reptile fogger or one made for use inside a terrarium. Those are junky. I have tried them - $126 reptile fogger lasted about a week before it wouldn't make fog anymore no matter what I tried. A pharmacy humidifier is cheaper ($35), holds it's own water (2 gallons of R/O or distilled) and works over the long haul. I used the same pharmacy humidifier on my large HL chamber for 6 years running day/night hooked up to a greenhouse humidistat to keep the air 80% RH. A Humidistat controls the humidifiers on and off settings. When it reaches 80% it shuts off the humidifier, when it gets below 70% it turns back on.

You're going to to spend some big $ on the plants since HL are the most expensive as you know. So spend far less than you will on even one of them and get yourself setup to grow them properly and successfully first.

Are you SURE you can provide the cool day/night temps as well? What have you got planned to make sure they don't stay too warm? Not ice bottles I hope...

 

[kentosaurs]

Swords, Pharmacy?? Don't pharmacies sell medicines drugs etc etc?

Anyway no matter...In fact this so called "terr" is just during the nights..And i've been thinking of getting those foggers but looks like they suck I need something to raise humidity yet being small if possible...

I laugfhed when u say ice bottles cos thats exactly what i'm doing In fact i should even be calling that "thing" a terra cos its made out of styrofoam thingy? which can hold in coolness for hours...

Like i posted here ones bout the ice bottles..they suck out the humidity from the surrouding thats why i'm only getting about 60% RH

---------- Post added at 09:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 PM ----------

Oh yea i was thinking maybe start out with something easy like a ventricosa or sanguinea...Considering they both are quite compact

 

[swords]

Yes they do sell drugs but Pharmacys sells things other than just medicines. They sell bandages and also things to help you breathe when you have a head cold or lung problems - which is why they sell humidifiers. The humidifier is too large to put in a terrarium/grow chamber but what you do to modify it is take out the flow director from the top (this piece of plastic just aims the fog) and you put a hose in the hole and tape it securely then you aim the hose into the terrarium.

A styrofoam cooler is not a good place to grow these plants. If you grow them well they will grow quite rapidly. The only HL plants which did not do well for me was an N. macrophylla clone from Germany which never made roots in all the years I had it so it just lingered on life/death for about six years and N. lowii which I nicknamed "N. slowii", one of the most boring plants I've ever owned! It may have been a clone as well who knows anymore. But all the others did very well as I treated them like HL orchids, fertilizing lightly at least twice a month with 2 or 3 pot flushes with pure water a week and crickets fed every week or two into all active pitchers. I had them in a 4 ft L x 4 ft H x 2 ft D chamber and they turned it into a jungle within a few years necessitating chopping back/trading/selling the ones who were too big and getting new small specimens. I hated to get rid of nice sized plants but I have no greenhouse to grow a number of mature species 3+ feet in diameter.

If you want to continue using a foam growing area go to the hardware / building supply store and buy a few 2" thick home insulation panels and make a large growing area/terrarium box from that, put a plexiglass lid and lights on top and grow in there. That will give you the insulating qualities of the foam and much better in size.

A good way to cool is using a PC fan blowing through a duct tube intersected by the hose from the humidifier and then that air in the duct empties into the chamber. You will have to have cool air for the fan to pull in though to start with. What are your night time temperatures outside? I put the fan in my window and it's cold enough all year except June July and August when I put the fan infront of an air conditioner which drops the temps for the summer months.