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mo89_gw

terrarium or seperate?

mo89
17 years ago

I have a little terrarium with cobra lily's, sundews, and venus fly traps together. Would it be better to repot all of them together or seperate them into different pots?

also, my sundew catches bugs but doesn't eat them, the bugs just mold, is this bad?

Comments (4)

  • jonocross
    17 years ago

    What type of terrarium is it?

    Different pots would be my recomendation. Did you grow the plants from seed?

    What type of sundew is it?

    Technically a sundew doesn't eat it's prey like the others do. You get to see the bug caught on the leaf where it's neutrients are slowly absorbed by the plant. The bugs sometimes mold. Personally, if the mold seems to be spreading past where the bug is, I cut the leaf off if the plant can afford it.

    One other thing about the terrarium... I'm not sure exactly how you've got all yours set up but in my house I have almost all my plants in 10 or 20 gallon aquariums, potted in water trays. Don't know if that helps.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Tangled Web of Aracknight

  • petiolaris
    17 years ago

    Sounds as if you have a Lowes cube - the 3 in 1 minin-terrarium. Do you have these:

    {{gwi:430450}}

    {{gwi:428435}}

    I would very definitely separate them into differnt pots, especially the sundews from the cobra lily and VFT's. The latter 2 have very similar requirements, but the cobra lily needs a lot more root room.

  • hunterkiller03
    17 years ago

    petiolaris is right, separate the cobra lily form the rest. I personally don't trust terrariums anymore, lost to many plants that way unless its really required. As you can see with petiolaris' photos, i keep them out in the 'open'. Your plants mold easily because it lacks air circulation. I don't put my plants in terrariums. right now I have mines in a book shelf and I have my N. alata, N. trucanta "highland variety", my three variety of D. paradoxa, one D. capensis 'alba', D. tokaiensis, D. brumanii (that's refusing to die after it flowered, its and annual), both my pygmy sundews and my 3 Utricularia bisquamata, pubescens, and ramisformis. I only make sure that i kept their media moist to their requirements and they are doing just fine. Because i'm renting an apartment, dont have much room in my bedroom but i was allowed to build a small green house in the backyard as long as i keep the yard tiddy (I think its a good deal).

  • jonocross
    17 years ago

    Well, I'll step up to the defence of the terrarium for a sec. I currently only have one nep in a terrarium and that would be because it's a humidity lover. The rest of my neps live hanging from the celing in my basement semi-under a shop light.

    The rest of my plants live in aquariums. (with a couple exceptions) The aquariums are open topped and they stay around a cozy 50 percent humidity.(give or take 10 percent depending on time of day or night) I realize that sooner or later I'll have some kind of fungus problem but I have an anti-fungal so I'm prepaired. The big plus for my aquariums are that I can control their microclimates a little better than I could if they were just sitting in the same room all together. (and the real reason I got into using aquariums in the first place is... I have a cat who loves to pick up small green plants and run off and play with them. The aquariums keep him at bay since he can't get on the table with the top of it sheilded by the aquarium glass.)

    Now I'll be the first to admit, it can complicate some things. As plants get bigger they can outgrow an aquarium pretty fast. Until I build a greenhouse however, its the only way to keep the cat out so I try to look at the positives LOL.

    I might also point out that the only fungal "problem" I've had yet was in a nepenthes pot that wasn't being kept in an aquarium at the time. Funny that.

    Ok staying with the spirit of the question. Though I keep mine in aquariums, they all live in their own pots. Some share the same water tray but they all have their own seperate soil.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Tangled Web of Aracknight

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