Setting up planted desert vivaria

[Kyle Barker]

haha im setting up my old seed shelf again for specialyl for lithops...use it for other but they are the reason. teh loph's are slow! im sure you have read all about them unless you graft em dont expect much fast....lol. mine are still about 3mm wide @ 2months old. but they are ideal for your tank in the fact that they are spineless and dont liek full sun. im assuming you got a humidity somthing over them, so light wont bug them. but if they trun yellow/red/brown then they probably got burnt (i kille da couple that way )

teh wall mart here has a few what look like astrophytum myriostigma in those little 1" pots. they are about 2" and only 1.69 or somthing....if i didnt need my cafiene fix i woulda gotten a couple.

[GekkoGeck0]

Once I get a nice shelf for myself I think the first thing I'm going to try is Lithops.

Yeah, the Lophophoras are slow, very slow. Three out of the 10 seeds I got sprouted, they grew fast for about 4 days then slowed right down. Very slow compared to the cat grass I planted for my feline; it's grown 5 inches in 4 days!

The setup I have right now for the lophs is 2.5" pots filled with cactus soil and covered with saran wrap wrapped tight with a rubber band around the lip of the pot. I'm hoping the rest will decide to sprout soon, I wanted to have more than three, since they grow so damned slow. I'm not going to graft... I have zero experience with grafting and with only three seedlings, I don't want to risk killing them. Have you grown any lophs to a good size, Kyle, without a graft?

I still have to get my butt down to Walmart, they usually have lots of nice plants for cheap. I can't wait till spring; both Walmart and the garden centres around here should have lots of selection for me to pick from.

[Kyle Barker]

ya spring is gonna break the bank (again) here too...

i havnt grown any to any real size from seed. mine are about 2-3 months now i guess. i am using the smae method you are in fact.

with cacti you can get them to grow uber quick (its all relative...) without grafting. because they are cam plants you can give them 24 hour lights, good water and lower temps (than in teh wild...say around 20c) and they will grow VERY quick, compared to anyway.

couplelinks if interested.
simple----
http://www.scsc.k12.ar.us/2000TexNat...nL/Default.htm
more confusing----
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/e24/24b.htm

i gotta admit i dont fully get it, but havnt really read into much. never tried it wither, but i have seen peoples results, and WOW.

i just picked up a Myrtillocactus geometriza i will be using to graft a loph on to once it goes veg again. i was using some otehr columnar catus (dunno what it is) but the few (i think they were some dinterantus?) grew real slow on them.

ill snap a pic of my lohs once my battery is charged again...im still learnign how to take macros though so may not be great quality.

[GekkoGeck0]

Mine are only 9 days old and are already showing some little tufted hairs on the tops of the seedlings. I take the plastic off once and a while to give them a breath of fresh air and a light spraying to remoisten the soil, since the sand below them tends to wick away some of the moisture in the pots.

I give them no less than 16 hours, and I've given them a few 24 hour days (by accident, actually, I turn the lights off when I go to bed and turn them on when I get up... I stayed up for 24 hours, so the plants got 24 hours.)

That CAM thing is interesting. I don't understand it entirely either, but it seems worth researching, especially if I get impatient.

If I were to graft them, could I take them back off again and replant them, once they're a nice, plump size?

I have pictures of my seedlings. I don't even have a macro function on my camera... had to wing it and hoped they'd turn out, which they did. I'll post them when I can cut them down a bit; they're huge right now.

[Kyle Barker]

sweet that'd be great. if you have no programs you can e-mail tehm to me...i got photoshop.

the first few weeks they grow pretty quick, but they will slow down. but keep that lighting up...tjhey will grow MUCH quicker.

also rot is a very real problem once they get a little bigger. few months down the road jsut keep an eye out for that.

and yes that is the idea with grafting. once they reach a desired size, cut them off let them sit in open air for a few days (to scab over) and then jsut place them slightly in dirt. dotn over water. these guys are dry loving doods. they will sprout roots at some point, not hte fastest things.

here are some stocks that i have been recomded for cactus grafts.
Pereskiopsis***
Myrtillocactus**
Rhipsali
Quiabent

heres a couple links of grafting.
http://www.living-rocks.com/pereskiopsis.htm

neat but very difficult- http://www.lapshin.org/cultivar/N12/articl-e.htm

there are a few more but because of the nature of the sites i wont post them here (as im sure you have read about with your lophs). if you want them pm me.


also check out mr smiths yahoo gallery. this guy is an authority on cacti! although i havnt read his books yet
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MSSphotography

and is very nice and helpfull as well

[GekkoGeck0]

Nope, I've got quite a few image programs, I'm just lazy.

I'm keeping the lighting going as much as possible. Later, when they're older, I'll go over to a more 'normal' lighting schedule. Be nice if I had a timer, but these lights say not to use a timer with them.

I have seen some pictures of people grafting Lophs to Pereskiopsis... I'd be afraid to do it, they're so tiny.

Yeah, I understand the nature of those sites. Hard to find any other information about them specifically without wandering into that sort of territory, anyway.

Here's the little ones. I tried to make a sort of crappy collage to cut down on multiple images.

[Kyle Barker]

looking good! with your lighting they will pass mine in no time. the bigger one is about 3 months...the rest are about 2-3 weeks apart i guess. i use this pot to show age difference.

[GekkoGeck0]

Those are much bigger than mine! What kind of lighting are you using for yours? Right now, mine are about 3 inches away from the light; I built a little sand mound for them to sit on top of so they don't etiolate.

Took some new pics tonight, too:



They're in 2.5" pots, for reference.

My webfooted gecko seems to be really enjoying having them in his enclosure. More often than not, he's hiding among the pots instead of using his hidebox!

[Kyle Barker]

thats the exact same setup as mine! same size pots even. i only use sand though. i took my ceran wrap off as they were getting way too wet. but that goes with age i think....or maybe i just messed it up a bit....but they are doing good.

my lighting is pathetic! 1 18" and one compact flouro lol!!!

i got fed up growing them in a 10 gal aquarium so i put together a make shift light holder(my plant shelf is too big for my current space). next pay day i will be getting 2 dual 24" flouros for it. lots fo other plants under as well...lookjs pretty funny with only 1 18" currently hooked up. they jsut gotta wait a week at least with plants we can wait.

[GekkoGeck0]

I actually wanted smaller pots, but the garden centre only had those.

Most of the stuff I've been reading says to poke holes in the saran wrap and slowly let them get used to the drier air... if yours are doing good, though, perhaps they were ready for it anyway.

I only have two compact flouros! I don't know if my lighting is much better than yours.

I'm wondering myself where I'm going to put my plant shelf, when I get one. My apartment is already packed with furniture, I don't have much free space near the walls at all. Perhaps when we get rid of our couch I'll have some space and I can get some Lithops seeds.

I've been taking a look at mesembs... I'm really starting to like the unusual look of some of them and I think they'd look great in the vivarium, not to mention they're more naturalistic, considering a fair amount of them hail from South Africa and Namibia.

You said before that Lithops require a fair amount of light. What do you suggest, as in what type of fixtures and bulbs?

[Kyle Barker]

im unfamiliar with mesembs...i googled it and they look so much like lithops. how closely are they related?

lithops needs strong light. direct sun, hps, metal halide, or perhaps a bunch of flouros. i would think a few better flouros would work ok, but i havnt tried... once i get those 24" fixtures i wil be planting some lithops as my lighting aint gnne get any ebtter any time soon....or i could put a couple in my day gecko cage where tehres good uv lighting....i got a bunch of pots stacked in that sucker for that very reason

i was gonna poke holes but when they appear to be on the way to rot i just took teh whole thing off they are recovering now and ill put it back on more than liekly...with holes.

[GekkoGeck0]

Mesembs and Lithops are both part of the family Aizoaceae.

Here's a link to get a better idea of the family:

http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plan...Aizoaceae.html

I don't know if I'd want to invest in HPS or MH, that's getting sort of extreme. I wonder exactly how many flouros you'd end up needing...?

Your lophs were rotting? Did you regularly water the soil, or did you just leave them alone? I know they're rather prone to root rot and fungi attacks... hopefully I'll avoid both of those, even with me re-watering the soil every few days.

What species of Lithops have you grown before? I'm looking at every one that I can, trying to decide what I like best and what would work aesthetically in the vivarium.

[Kyle Barker]

ive only grown L. bella before....but there are so many pretty species. i could literally spend hundreds on this one genus if i had less control. its one of my favourites. oddly teh spineless ground cover and the spiney columnar cacti are my faves....im nto a fan at all of those globe and fat columned types.

ya i agreed that hps/mh is extreme if thats teh only purpouse. luckily i got to borrow a friends last year for mine during teh winter and i put them outside in the summer. i unfortunatly didnt have access to a good lighting (all was used in cages) and honestly i jsut slacked off from my plants. so tehy died.

i have seen tehm grown under a few 4' flouros so i wouldnt think youd need much. they may even grow under your setup if they were put close to the light...would jsut need to experiment. most species are rather inexpensive especially for seeds. ive even seen some at places liek wal mart every now and then. although i knwo nothing about identifying them.

i also bought some seeds of Conophytum uvaeforme a few weeks ago. tehy would also probably be an excellent plant for your needs. tehy have the same sora look to them. also got Dinteranthus puberulus which would also probably fit your needs (spineless...i think).

[GekkoGeck0]

Conophytum uvaeforme and Dinteranthus puberulus are both mesembs. Awesome plants, aren't they? I've been all over Google the past week looking for information and seed sources for mesembs. What's frustrating is finding pictures of plants that look interesting, but not having a Latin name. That's been the case with many of the Lithops I've looked at. Almost every time I find one that I really like, no Latin name. Just Lithops sp. if I'm lucky.

What's on my list right now for possible selections is Aloinopsis schoonesii, Argyroderma delaetii, Cheiridopsis vanbredi, Conophytum braunsii, Conophytum littlewoodii, Conophytum lydiae, Conophytum pellucidium ssp. cupreatum, Dinteranthus pole-evansii, Dinteranthus puberulus, Frithia pulchra, Frithia pulchra v. minor, Pleiospilos bolusii, and Pleiospilos nelii.

The tricky part is finding seeds, since a lot of the nurseries offering cuttings or rooted plants don't even offer phytosanitary and CITES certificates for sale, and I'm not about to lose them to customs, not to mention that growing something from seed is a lot more rewarding.

Where did you get your Conophytum and Dinteranthus seeds? I'm trying to obtain them as close to home as possible.

I've been trying to find nice planters so I can put some plants closer to the light and have a decorative aspect to the planters in the tank, but no one sells anything interesting. Even finding nice pots is hard, at least on the internet. I don't have a car, so running around the city to different garden places and Walmart and such is a bit of a pain in the butt.

My lophs are doing really well now, too. Getting plumper by the day, and they're a lovely dark green colour, really healthy looking. Do you use a fertilizer when watering your lophs? I was wondering if giving them a tiny bit of food would help them along, not that they're exactly being slow, I just want them to be nice and happy and healthy.

I raised them closer to the lights for a little more warmth today. Sort of difficult to do, since I couldn't really find much around the house that I could put them onto to raise them up that was waterproof, so I just made a giant rectangular mountain of wet sand for them to sit on top of. Works rather well. Gave them a little more water, too. They plumped right up after today's watering for some reason. Perhaps they were thirsty.

My gecko is really enjoying having the pots around. I think he was bored with not having much in the tank. He used to pace back and forth at night at the back of the tank; since I put the pots in, he comes out now just to drink and do some nightly digging. No more pacing.

[Kyle Barker]

cactusheaven is wher ei got mine. huge selection of seeds. shippe dhere in 6 days.

i forgot to water mine and went up island for the weekend....oneof the lophs aint lookign to well i forgot to put the ceran wrap back on too. probably be getting some lights tomarow.


thats quite the lsit you got. i think cactus ehaven will have most of those. he is in malta but is a good guy to deal with.