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Post by dschreiber on Jun 2, 2013 9:26:46 GMT -5
I grow my carnivorous plants in terrariums and over the past year have lost many of my butterworts and sundews to green algae. I have tried re-potting my plants and moving them into a clean terrarium, but the algae comes back with vengeance. I'm down to sundews only. I have tried to find a safe way to deal with the algae in hopes of keeping my remaining plants, but haven't had any luck. Any suggestions?
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Post by shoggoths on Jun 2, 2013 12:35:38 GMT -5
Do you wash your media thoroughly before filling your terrarium ?
This is a way to lower the risk of algae.
Also, you could try a potted terrarium.
Do you have some pics ?
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Post by lloyd on Jun 2, 2013 19:35:22 GMT -5
My U. gibba is growing absurdly well in the bottom of my terraria in sludgy water with algae and mould. I never found the gunk hurts the plants although it can outgrow them.
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gp
Seed
Posts: 20
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Post by gp on Jun 2, 2013 21:26:15 GMT -5
Ok, even though you're probably already aware of this I'm going to point out that algae requires nutrients. They get these nutrients without roots because they live in an aqueous environment. Now, nutrients in high enough concentrations to support algae are probably going to be harmful to cp's since they are extra sensitive. I guess certain species like aquatic utrics can survive with algae because the nutrient concentration isn't actually that high but more nutrients are available to any algae because they have a fluid environment. The only source of excess nutrients from a cp medium that I've found is washed sand which in my experience isn't nearly as clean as it sounds. One way to actually wash it is to mix it with water in a large bucket then pour of most off it.
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Post by lloyd on Jun 2, 2013 23:26:55 GMT -5
I find that water plus anything plus light -> algae. Of course you want to use ideally H2O with zero TDS and wash ingredients like sand. I washed my sand with tap water and drained it well so there is a minimum of the TDS from the tap water.
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Post by 31drew31 on Jun 3, 2013 9:39:51 GMT -5
Is the algae growing on the surface of the media and drowning out the plants? or is it in the bottom of your terrarium? Ive found the latter to cause no problems at all. Usually after a few months my trays have algae forming. I clean these out about once per year when repotting.
As shoggoth's said, some photos would help
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Post by Apoplast on Jun 3, 2013 20:33:35 GMT -5
I find that water plus anything plus light = algae. Definitely! I've done experiments where, for various reasons, I was applying an aqueous solution of dilute organic acids and most importantly no nitrogen. Still got algae. Had to clean out the darn lines every other day. Ugh.
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