Nathan!
WOW! That sure is looking great! Congratulations!
Ana :)

Hey Nath, Just wondering what sort of light your running this off. Whats your globe?

I'm using an off the shelf fluorescent strip light (120cm long, 36W, 6500k). I considered using a triphosphor type light, but comparing the spectra of the triphosphor light to the biphosphor lights I found that the plants actually get more energy that way (biphosphor has two phosphors, one centred around orange and one centred around blue).

The light fitting was a freebie that came with one of the many donated aquaria... I just replaced the starter and plonked in a new light (the old light was a pink fish light, but I found the pink colour off putting, and couldn't find any evidence that they work any better for plants).

The light is on a timer for 13 hours, but it rests against a south facing window that gets a good deal of indirect light.

Very nice indeed, Nathan! I can't believe how much better terrariums look after a few months for everything to settle in and grow! Oh yeah, orange light doesn't do much for plants, so I would just keep using your fluo's, not the biphosphor lights.

Hey, sorry to be pumping out the questions nath, but Im in the process of setting up a viv for a couple of aussie green tree frogs (or red eyes or daintys depending on availablity). Just wondering whats some good plants to use in it. I want them to be small, hardy and love humidity. I dont want to fertilise much cause of the frogs. Also it would be good if they can stand a frog sitting on them without breaking! I want a couple of air plants to attach to some branches (although not very aust. but they look cool). Any ideas???

Well most of the Australian rainforest plants are suitable (perhaps avoid dendrocnide family, although the frog will no doubt not be worried ;) Good trees would include Nothofagus moorii or cunninghamii(what I have), lillypillies, blueberry ash, and some of the smaller leafed figs (ficus auricola or similar). Maybe small leafed tamarind (diploglottis).

For the smaller leaved plants, any ferns would be fine (You can see in my terrarium that 'alpine water fern, which I thought would be picky about the constant warmth, is taking over completely), maybe dichondra (kidney weed), clematis aristata or microphylla, rhododendron lochae, any of the zillions of epiphytes (dendrobium kingianum is a very easy one, maybe you'd get away with dockrllia sp). There are several native violets - Viola hederacea or betonicifolia should be able to cope with the light levels.

Finally there are plenty of mosses to choose from, you can buy 'tree moss' for mounting plants that comes from NSW forests. I've had no trouble with moss from a friend's farm in gippsland.

Email me if you want places to buy from.

Those are all Australian suggestions - you can get exotic suggestions by just looking through other discussions on this forum, but I think we should look at our own beautiful environment before importing culture from elsewhere :)

D. kingianum would not bloom in the warm environment of a terrarium, so go for some other native Dends. The orchids forum could help you more there, if you're into orchids.

thanks!!!