FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi guys! My name is Sam and this is my first post on this website so sorry if I do anything poorly. I just picked up a 100 gallon aquarium of craigslist for free as a woman was moving and trying to get rid of it. My questions for anyone out there is what kind of plants do well in a terrarium? Currently I grow flytraps, sarracenias, nepenthes, butterworts, sundews, and cephalotus. I'm just wondering what plants should I put in there? My plants that do well on windowsills and my porch I believe should stay there, but are there any plants that really require a terrarium, or any plants that do better in a terrarium setup than a window or outdoors? Ideally what I would like to do is not have the plants in individual pots in the tank but all in the same soil maybe in a sort of vivarium tank. Has anybody had any success growing anything else in their terrariums like orchids, or maybe even chameleons or bugs, as I've read and seen videos on that. I live in northern California where its currently above 100 degrees daily with night temperatures dropping to the 80s. I'm not too sure how terrariums are watered as there is no drainage, which I know is a must, or how temperatures are regulated. I'm also thinking about buying this fogger to keep humidity up and running it on an outlet timer once or twice a day. https://www.amazon.com/Reptile-Humidifi ... rra+fogger. For a thermometer and hygrometer, I've noticed online that they are all very cheap, but tend to have poor reviews and don't work well. So if anyone has any recommendations I'd love that. If anyone has any advice or any experiences they've had I'd love to hear it. Thank you so much to everyone and this website has already been a ton of help just looking at all the posts!

Hi Sam,
Wow! That's a big aquarium! Must have been heavy. I could barely get a 30 gal breeder tank that I used for tissue culture into my car on my own. Of your list, I can tell you for sure that d. capensis and capillaris will do well in a terrarium. I think nepenthes and cephalotus do too, but am less certain. North american butterworts might work, but I don't think Mexican butterworts would like it. Flytraps don't tend to do well long term in terrariums. Phalaenopsis might work IF it is mounted hanging sideways or upside down. Otherwise condensation can settle in the crown and quickly rot it.

All that being said, I'm not sure that each of those that can live in terrarium would prefer the same growing medium. But your tank is probably large enough to accomodate several.

Thanks a lot! That's a great idea to use different growing mediums throughout the tank. When I finish the setup I will definitely post pictures.

Ive been doing a lot of research myself for my own tank I want to build. House of hydro has what seems to be the best ultrasonic foggers on the market, unfortunately they say not to use it with distilled water. It wont work with the low water level sensor and mess up the unit, they say the bottom PPM limit is low, just don't know it exactly. they are going to do some experiments for me in the next coming weeks. (customer service is amazing)

As for a hygrometer they recommend the WLIHI brand, even sell it in their store(for a small markup). Not one to just listen and believe, I did some searching. For the price it seems they were correct, it will be off by 5% or so but you can calibrate it to fix that. It was the best one I could find without going commercial quality.

just got the results, the lower limit for the fogger is 12 PPM. Low enough for us CP growers!

You should consider something like highland or lowland plants that wouldn't thrive on a windowsill. IMO it's easer to heat things up than cool them down though. I grow 95% highlanders but I have a lowland tank and wish it was bigger. You can never have too many Nepenthes bicalcarata(Smooter80 waits for Hollyhock to make fun of him and that last statement)

Thanks for the help guys I'm now planning a trip down to California Carnivores and House of Hydro. Also after scouring the internet I've come to the conclusion that heliamphora, nepenthes, and cephalotus are the only plants that really "need" a terrarium. Only issue is I have no clue how you make a terrarium colder and have a fogger with grow lights without things getting really expensive (especially the energy bill.)

lol, we are currently working on that over on this thread. We decided on peltier cooling elements.

http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/maint ... 35147.html

Yeah, that terrarium is coming along, I just need to order my thermostat for peltier control. Drainage is very simple with my 29 gallon, I just put lots of dried sphagnum moss down and pick it up when it gets to wet, I then squeeze the water out and put it back in (I only have to do this like every other month or so too)