Suggestions for adding more colour to my Carnivorous Terrarium? - Page 2 - Orchid Board

Ceapy · #11 04-14-2021, 03:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fishkeeper

Rabbit's foot fern will grow as an epiphyte if you make sure to keep some water on it. If you buy one potted, it'll probably come with dirt, which your carnivores of course won't like. You'd want to either really thoroughly clean the roots and replant it into something else, or take rhizome cuttings (just cut off a piece with some leaves on it, preferably with a few roots) and root those into sphagnum. Or both! Clean the dirt off, keep the full plant, and spread a few cuttings around. You could put a pot of it on the floor and let it grow up from there, or you could organize something with moss on the wall. I've seen pictures of them grown on rocks with almost nothing around the roots, and that works as long as you make sure they get enough moisture.

P. emarginata, or other suitable pinguicula species, wouldn't need to be in a pot at all. As long as it has some moss around its roots that you keep lightly moist, and you make sure it gets some food (freeze-dried daphnia is good), it'll do great. In the wild, they can be found growing in the moss on cliff faces.

Another potential difficulty: fertilizer. Orchids like mild enough fertilizer that you could probably just dab a little around their roots, and not have enough runoff to harm the carnivores. Especially the nepenthes, some people actually fertilize those. But non-orchids are going to want some amount of fertilizer, and could potentially be tricky to feed enough without bothering your carnivores. Epiphytes in general will need less fertilizer, so are probably best to go with.

The ruby necklace is interesting, I haven't seen that one before. I see it looks like it's in dirt, though. Is that cup it's in water-tight, to contain the runoff?

Awesome I'm going to get some more spaghnum moss and stuff it into the crevice of the log and see how it does in a couple of months. I usually use a spray bottle every few days just to keep humidity up and the plants like it, but with a waterfall behind the log the rabbits foot fern hopefully shouldn't have any issues!

Maybe I can also put a few P. emarginata into the same spaghnum moss as the rabbits foot fern and get a cool combination going on.

I actually use seamax fertilizer for all my carnivorous plants. I either put a few diluted drops into the nepenthes pitchers, or on the leaves of my drosera. I also have bloodworms, but I find that because the humidity is so high the bloodworms usually turn into this black goo like substance (on the drosera) so I'm a bit worried about mold.

Do orchids need to be fertilized from the roots? Or would it be possible to just put a few drops of seamax into the mouth of the orchids and they can get the nutrients that way?

For the ruby necklace, it's actually in a plastic pot with drain holes... I should switch to a water tight container so the minerals in the soil don't leach into the rest of the water in the terrarium.

---------- Post added at 12:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:55 AM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaphMadMan

Jewel orchids - Macodes, Dossinia, Anoectochilus, Ludisia. With the right choices you'll have constant color and pattern for interest. With well controlled temperature and moderately high humidity they should adapt to fairly bright light, but still leave the brightest spots for your carnivores.

WOW the pattern on those leaves look amazing! It seems like their requirements would match my terrariums environment. I'll definitely look more into those as well. Thanks for the suggestion!

Ceapy · #12 04-14-2021, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by harpspiel

Actually, only some carnivorous plants want much higher light levels than orchids. A setup geared toward Nepenthes will probably have what orchid growers would consider medium light (Dendrobium-Cattleya light) whereas Droseras usually need higher light, Pings need higher light if you want color, and Heliamphoras need full blast, intense light. I have a Nepenthes, some Pings and some Droseras in my orchid tank right now and the Nepenthes has consistently red leaves (a sign of light stress, though not necessarily a bad thing) at Cattleya light.

Here are some plants I have grown alongside my Nepenthes and that I think would give you interesting color and texture:

Pleurothallis prolifera - gets deep red under high light, likes much more light and slightly less water than most of the genus
Dendrobium cuthbertsonii - cute bumpy leaves that can have shades of red and purple under high light, brilliant flowers that last for months. This one has a reputation for not wanting to go above 80F but I got mine from a seller who says his temps go into the 90s in summer and I think night temperature drop and pure water are more important. Needs R/O or distilled water, constant moisture, and brighter light than most Dendrobiums.
Meiracyllium trinasutum - Cattleya relative, leaves turn purple under very bright (Vanda) light but it will bloom under less, wants to dry out between watering. Mine came from Andy's with beautiful purple leaves and they reverted to green within months, I don't think I have a spot in my tank that is bright enough to color them up again.
Lepanthopsis astrophora - I grew this in the pot with the Nepenthes for a year and its leaves turned purple which isn’t recommended for the plant, but it bloomed like crazy. Wonderful flushes of tiny starry blooms, wants constant moisture and low-medium light.
Mediocalcar decoratum ‘variegated’ - just got this one so not as certain of care requirements but I believe it wants consistent moisture and lower light. The specimen I got has a slight pink blush at the edges of the leaves which is really cute, and I’m wondering if that’s a response to medium-high light. I’m going to experiment with placement to see if I can get more of that pink coloring.
Epidendrum porpax - grows like a weed and leaves will turn red under high light
Racinaea crispa - strange, ruffled and curled bromeliad that gets deep red under high light, the most important care tip I have heard is that it needs very pure water.

There may be some Neoregelias that could work for you as well, although they may not like the constant moisture as much as most of the plants I listed.

How are you able to tell which light level your grow lights are? I have the 45W Aerogarden AG4501. It has 3 bands of LED lights (red, blue and daylight colour spectrum), I can't find any other info on the lights unfortunately.

I've attached a couple pics of my sundew and pitcher plants (
Nepenthes ampullaria x aristolochiodes and glandulifera x hamata). I'm pretty sure the sundew is supposed to turn red, but with my pitcher plants, the new leaf growth is green so I don't think there's any light stress going on... Honestly not sure though. Maybe they will turn red further down the road?

Something to note though... I covered my terrarium with a blanket about 2 months ago for a few nights and the leaves on the pitcher plants started turning a red hue(a few developed black dots). The vents were covered so there was no air circulation. Really stupid idea but I'm still very new to growing carnivorous plants in terrariums 😢

I'll definitely look into those recommendations as well, thank you!

harpspiel · #13 04-14-2021, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ceapy

How are you able to tell which light level your grow lights are? I have the 45W Aerogarden AG4501. It has 3 bands of LED lights (red, blue and daylight colour spectrum), I can't find any other info on the lights unfortunately.

I've attached a couple pics of my sundew and pitcher plants (
Nepenthes ampullaria x aristolochiodes and glandulifera x hamata). I'm pretty sure the sundew is supposed to turn red, but with my pitcher plants, the new leaf growth is green so I don't think there's any light stress going on... Honestly not sure though. Maybe they will turn red further down the road?

Something to note though... I covered my terrarium with a blanket about 2 months ago for a few nights and the leaves on the pitcher plants started turning a red hue(a few developed black dots). The vents were covered so there was no air circulation. Really stupid idea but I'm still very new to growing carnivorous plants in terrariums 😢

I'll definitely look into those recommendations as well, thank you!

You definitely have a lot of reds on your Nepenthes leaves, so the light you have is on the high end for them. That's not necessarily a bad thing, lots of Nepenthes will grow perfectly happily with a little bit of "sunburn". Mine is also an ampullaria hybrid and it's growing and pitchering like crazy with a strong red blush on its leaves.

How can you tell your light levels? Well, that's complicated. The current best unit of measurement for plant lights is PAR, and sometimes a bulb will indicate the PAR on it (I use an aquarium LED fixture and the company has PAR readings), but the accuracy of that is arguable - companies might try to boost their readings. You can drop a couple hundred bucks on a PAR meter if you want to know for certain. Or you can just pay attention to your plants and have a general idea of which plants need more or less light. Plants that have red flowers tend to get red or purple coloring on their leaves under high light, and they tend to be happy and flower well under conditions where they have a slight red blush on their leaves (not solid bright red, and not solid dark green). But this can vary plant to plant. Light intensity also drops off steeply the farther you get from the light.

Looking at the red blush on your Nepenthes leaves and your sundews, which are at the bottom of your tank, I would say that you can try medium to high light orchids near the bottom and high light orchids going up the background. Jewel orchids are all low light plants, so you could try them but they might be "light stressed" and not show off their best colors. I also didn't realize that you were new to terrariums when you first posted, so you might want to scratch my suggestion of the Pleurothallis and the Dendrobium (both known to be difficult plants).

You could try Lepanthopsis astrophora and Mediocalcar decoratum mounted on the background as close to the bottom as possible, Epidendrum porpax up a little higher, and Meiracyllium trinasutum up really high near the lights (as long as it can dry out). Someone else suggested Lepanthes calodictyon and that is beautiful, but your light levels might stress it out - usually I would say that your light levels would stress out the Lepanthopsis as well, except that I grew it so successfully in high light for a while. You could also try a few of the higher-light Bulbophyllums, but I can't say much about bulbos because they hate me. I have a Bulbophyllum planibulbe that Andy said likes higher light and that I have all but killed.

Your problem isn't going to be that your light is too bright for orchids, but instead that, for orchids, brighter light usually corresponds with dryer conditions. I'm not sure what kind of misting system you have, but if you can actually let things on the background dry out between watering then you have lots of mini-Cattleya and Vandaceous options. If the background is going to be very bright while also staying quite wet, then Dendrobium cuthbertsonii really is a wonderful option (and so many different flower colors), it just has a difficult reputation.

Fishkeeper · #14 04-14-2021, 07:36 PM

Orchids don't have mouths. Do you mean the flowers? They don't absorb nutrients from that. Supposedly some orchids can absorb nutrients through their leaves, but the roots are a much better bet. If you mean the spot where all the leaves come together on monopodal orchids, where new leaves grow from, do NOT put anything there. Water in the crown for too long will cause them to rot. I would just put tiny amounts of very dilute fertilizer on the roots of anything that wants it, since carnivorous plants can handle a tiny bit of fertilizer in the soil fine. Especially nepenthes.

Putting the necklace in a watertight pot will mean you'll have to be very careful not to overwater it. It may not be the best choice for a carnivorous plant environment. Not least because I'm pretty sure that's a desert plant, and if so, it'll want to dry out completely between waterings. It may not like the high humidity, either.

If the food turns into goo/mold on your sundews, that was too much food at one time. Try freeze-dried daphnia instead, they're a fine dust.