FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello!

Today after weeks of work, I finished my new highland setup! I was going to have a petleir cooler in there, although it's just going to cost more energy than a few strategically placed fans and a humidifier. I wheeled it under my desk and put the Helis and Utrics inside. Now some pictures.

I'm going to see how much they like it in there, I still saved my previous grow space, just in case of dissaster . The lights are hooked up to heat syncs and fans so they don't get too hot and kill the helis.

Thanks for looking,
Nepenthes0260

Wow, that's pretty neat! Awesome Helis!
Hope it all works out for you
-CpKid

Are those 100 watt cob lights? I once made a cob led flashlight but I never looked into how effective they are for plants. Does it work well?

CpKid wrote:Wow, that's pretty neat! Awesome Helis!
Hope it all works out for you
-CpKid

Thanks! So far the Helis are doing well! I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Copper2 wrote:Are those 100 watt cob lights? I once made a cob led flashlight but I never looked into how effective they are for plants. Does it work well?

Yes, they are citizen clu048-1818 I got from cobkits.com (highly recommended). They can go up to 250 watts, but I have them at about 75 watts each for better efficiency, which gives me about 150 lumens per watt. I have them hooked up to a mean well driver and mounted to a fan-cooled CPU heat sync.

So far, after more than a month in their new setup, they're doing good! I had to thin out the XXL Heterodoxa a bit, and some of the other pitchers browned, but their new growth looks great. Here's some pics.

Wow, that's one heck of a sun pitcher collection! In your experience with them, how finicky are they? I've flirted with adding these to my collection, but the price of them hinders experimentation for me. If they give a little wiggle room in cultivation, that would be nice.

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dewyray wrote:Wow, that's one heck of a sun pitcher collection! In your experience with them, how finicky are they? I've flirted with adding these to my collection, but the price of them hinders experimentation for me. If they give a little wiggle room in cultivation, that would be nice.

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Thanks! I've found that the species H. minor, H. heterodoxa, and most hybrids are easier. They'll take down to 60% humidity (low for Heliamphora) and tolerate a wide variety of light conditions. Some species (I'm looking at you, ceracea) have to have strict 90% humidity all day and strict 1600 lumens of light per square foot in their grow space. I have seen H. heterodoxa x minor acclimated to windowsill conditions.

Near two year update. Helis outgrew this setup in January 2020 or so, so I transferred them to another one. In December 2020 they outgrew that one (oh boy, the addiction is real ) so I transferred them to another (their current) setup. The old setup from 2019 is now currently housing my ceph collection, but they're outgrowing that too so have plans for a ceph bench this summer. I'm still using the same lights (CobKits are great!) which give the cephs amazing color.

The "XXL" heli heterodoxa has turned into an XXXXL specimen and I have no plans to divide it any time soon. In the summer/fall of 2020 I repotted it and took off a few flowering size growth points, but other than that its stayed intact. Some older pitchers are looking a bit ratty because of the lighting change, but I'm loving the new ones. All the other plants I had in 2019 such as the Wistuba H. ceracea, tatei x pulchella, and tatei x folliculata are doing well and have grown massive, but they're tucked behind some other guys and I can't get good shots of them.

Very very nice! I could crawl into that setup, freeze my ass off and take a nap.

StaatS+17+ wrote:Very very nice! I could crawl into that setup, freeze my ass off and take a nap.

Thanks! I know, right? If I could make the room... It's already filled up quite considerably.