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By Nikson
Posts:  422
Joined:  Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:47 am
#417735
I have a pot of hitchhiker sundews I extracted out of my B52's LFSM at the end of last year, they were basically just little tiny plantlets that popped up out of the LFSM, no doubt from seed nearby.

I moved them all into a little pot to grow, and they've since grown into about a half an inch to an inch long.

I would just leave them in there, but the LFSM that they're stuck is starting to turn goopy and into mush that smells really, really bad, and I feel like I should repot them. Is that ok? It won't hurt them or shock them too much, will it? They look pretty healthy to me otherwise, and I feed them once a week with MaxSea.

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By Nikson
Posts:  422
Joined:  Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:47 am
#417741
Sounds good, got them repotted.

I didn't really want to move them since they were growing so well and none of them had roots long enough to go through the bottom of the pot yet, so they were kind of hard to repot, but the LFSM was just stinking really badly and was turning into a congealed mush.

I wasn't sure exactly how to handle them really well since they only have short roots, so I kind of just poked a small hole in the lfsm and stuck them into it and pushed the LFSM around it. Should be ok, I think!

I wonder if their growth was slowed down by being really crowded in the original small pot as well, or are they not effected as much by crowded conditions when small?

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By Intheswamp
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Joined:  Wed May 04, 2022 2:28 pm
#417742
I bet you don’t have much of a setback in growth…that new, fresh growing medium will probably make up for the uprooting if they were growing in rancid conditions beforehand! ;)
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By Nikson
Posts:  422
Joined:  Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:47 am
#417772
Intheswamp wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 2:32 am I bet you don’t have much of a setback in growth…that new, fresh growing medium will probably make up for the uprooting if they were growing in rancid conditions beforehand! ;)
Yeah here's hoping! They were just in the original LFSM they came in with my B52, and of course i couldn't take them out then since they were seedlings that just sprouted after the B52 was on my deck for a few weeks, but now its all mush and stinky so I had to get them out of there lol. Hope it makes them grow faster, since I'm giving them a little more space as well!
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By Hendre
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Joined:  Sun Mar 29, 2020 2:03 pm
#418434
I often start cuttings in a loose medium like LFS or peat-heavy mixes to make it easy to move them without disturbing roots too much. Otherwise small ones are often bulletproof :D
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By Intheswamp
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Joined:  Wed May 04, 2022 2:28 pm
#424898
Nikson wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 6:39 pm ... I had to get them out of there lol. Hope it makes them grow faster, since I'm giving them a little more space as well!
How's the sundews doing?
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By Nikson
Posts:  422
Joined:  Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:47 am
#425186
Intheswamp wrote:
Nikson wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 6:39 pm ... I had to get them out of there lol. Hope it makes them grow faster, since I'm giving them a little more space as well!
How's the sundews doing?
They look horrible unfortunately. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

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They sit indoors under my Yescom 225 growlights for 14 hours a day with a tray of distilled water. Why are they getting smaller and more ragged?
By Gary
Posts:  440
Joined:  Fri Jul 08, 2022 3:23 pm
#426356
I've repotted sundews both large and small. What I see after they recover (usually takes about 2 weeks) is that the new growth is always smaller, shorter leaves. It's taken as long as two months for larger leaves to start showing up.
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By Nikson
Posts:  422
Joined:  Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:47 am
#426361
Gary wrote:I've repotted sundews both large and small. What I see after they recover (usually takes about 2 weeks) is that the new growth is always smaller, shorter leaves. It's taken as long as two months for larger leaves to start showing up.
That's the weird part, it's been like 4 months now, and they're seriously dying off. Like there used to be at least 15 sundews in the pot at the start, and now there's nowhere near that amount. The larger sundews are alive but declining badly, and one of the biggest ones looks straight up dead, since its entirely brown.

I just uprooted everyone, rinsed their roots off, and repotting them into fresh peat moss/perlite.

I think I'm just going to switch to regular distilled water from here on out, I feel like there's something wrong with the dehumidifier water I was using before, even though it tests at just 5 ppm.
By Gary
Posts:  440
Joined:  Fri Jul 08, 2022 3:23 pm
#426376
Four months is a long recovery time.
The water could be a factor; I assume it's the condensate from the dehumidifier. Most TDS meters measure conductivity to determine what's in the water.
18 Mohm resistance is the gold standard for deionized water used in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
If there's something in the dehumidifier water that the meter can't detect, such as a high pH, that could be the cause of your problems.
I use Zero water for my plants and they love it. The filters remove a lot more than just particulates while keeping a neutral pH.
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By Intheswamp
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#426390
I think you're doing good to remove a part of the equation. The dehumidifier water seems like the best place to start, too. I'm not a highly educated person and definitely not schooled in dehumidifiers but... ;) It seems to me that since a dehumidifier causes moisture to condense on the coils that other things other than good ol' H2O could be condensing on the coils, piggybacking in the H2O moisture. It seems like most any type of aerosol or mist could tag along with the H2O in the air, I suppose...disinfectants, antiseptics, hair-spray, deodorant, air fresheners, furniture polish, bug spray, etc., etc.,. Maybe some of these would be classified as metals, maybe not. I dunno.
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By Nikson
Posts:  422
Joined:  Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:47 am
#426453
Yeah, honestly, the only thing I can literally think of that's "weird" is the dehumidifer water. For my mature drosera, VFTs, sarracenia, nepenthes, and other plants I haven't had any issues at all, but I guess the baby plants are just much more sensitive and can't handle the metals that might be in the water. I'll just water only with distilled from here on out, and think about maybe getting a Zerowater filter.
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