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What happened to my Neps?

I bought 3 Nepenthes about a month ago, 2 Ampullaria and one Bicalcarata, they are in a terrarium with day temps around 25c - 30c humidity 60-80 night 20c - 25c humidity 90-100.
Lighting- 30w equivilent to 150w daylight 6500k cfl bulb 5-6 inches from plants.
There is also good ventilation.

They all lost leaves and pitchers and one looks dead! the other 2 look nearly dead, what went wrong here, and is there any hope for any of these plants.

I would add pictures but I don't know how.
 
Peat moss, perlite, little orchid bark, top layer of live sphagnum moss.
 
I would guess too much daytime heat, too much nighttime cold, too damp and not enough light. N. amp and bical both need stable temperatures all day long - 25c is fine so long as it stays constant. A single 30w compact fluorescent could be sufficient if you had the other conditions down, but as a beginner who's bound to have a few hiccups, you should splurge on lights because it's easy to provide plenty of lights as opposed to, say, having your watering on a perfect schedule. Also, high humidity will tend to make the leaves grow thin and papery, which in turn makes them more sensitive to sudden changes in conditions. 75% is plenty.
What do you mean by "good ventilation?" Do you have a fan blowing on your plants? Are they enclosed in the terrarium or is the top open? Are you using a humidifier to keep them wetter at night? Also, amp's question of what media you're using would tell us a lot.
To post pictures, use the button on top of the post editor that's a yellow square with a little picture of a mountain landscape on it - it's in between the globe/chain link button for hyperlinks and the quotation bubble button for quote boxes.
~Joe
 
i would take a few observations then:

is the media corrupted? ---notice slime growing on the moss? other kinds of mosses or bryophytes? probably cyanobacteria or algae, indicates a presence of excess nitrates. could be killing your plants that way. usually happens because fertilizer is not flushed out of the pot the day after or too much fertilization....

keep on the lookout for pests---aphids, fungus, spidermites, etc.

how about watering? most neps do not like having their roots constantly waterlogged---better to abandon the tray method when keeping neps.

i would also try keeping your temps at a constant level. LLs dont need night time drops, infact, they would prefer that it be warm constantly. the warmer you can get it the better---20C is a little bit low in my opinion.

other than that---i dont know why your plants are failing. your specs look good enough to me. anybody else want to chime in?
 
I originally had two 30w cfls closer to the plants which burn't them bad and redded and browned the leaves at first, so i changed the lid and used the one bulb. Should I revert back to the two bulbs?

The media seems ok but pretty damp, these are my first lowlanders I have only grown highlanders before, so I am in need of some help.

There are gaps in the lid for air movement, the pots are on a crate at the bottom, which is about an inch high. the water level is below this so they don't sit in water, but this provides alot of humidity and when the lights go out it goes up to 90+ every night.

When I hear about people growing them successfully without terrariums I wander weather I should use one.

http://img708.imageshack.us/g/060l.jpg/







 
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I grow my LL neps, including ampullaria, with daytime temps of 85F and nights of 68-70F with no issues at all, so so I don't think it was a temperature thing.
 
Also...my humidity is 75% day and 85% night.....also seems fine, so your higher humidity is probably not needed, but I wouldn't think it would kill the plants.
 
I say keep constant temps around 25-28C, and increase the lights, and look for pests. I'm kinda wanting to say there are some sort of pests, since I'm seeing some good live sphagnum. Usually, health live LFS is a good indicator of whether or not plants will be happy, which makes me really surprised to see nearly dead plants and healthy LFS.
 
  • #10
Thanks for trying to help guys.
Do they all look nearly dead, or does one look dead? is there any hope for the all brown amp that has no green left on it?
I might up the lighting then, there are some small springtails in the tank but I was told they are harmless, and some of the sphagnum has been added recently to try to help the plants.

I am a little worried about increasing the light, the lid that holds two bulbs is much lower and closer to the plants, so am I better off leaving them with one?
Is there anything else I can do to try to help these plants.
 
  • #11
Hi there,

I keep both plants successfully in the following conditions: 25-30 C, 80-100% humidity, custom mixture of sphagnum+sand+peat+perlite, 400 W metal halide lighting. I agree that too little lighting may be the problem here, even 60 W may not suffice. The problem here is that while LL Nepenthes demand a lot of light, they don't welcome the extra heat. If you want to avoid burning your plants, place a thin sheet of glass between the lamps and the plants. This will absorb UV and keep off the extra-heated air.

I don't think all your plants are dead yet. When my N. bilcalcatratas first arrived, I assumed they were going to die. They looked brownish with black tips. It took a few months for them to adapt, not to mention the correct lighting. Here, compare and contrast the Nepenthes in these pictures:

12UnhappyPlants.jpg

03OtherPlantsLR.jpg


The brownish, pitcherless plants in the first picture are N. bicalcatrata. Don't throw away plants unless you're absolutely positive that they're dead. I'm not an experienced keeper, but I hope I can help.
 
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