I built a tank a few months ago using one of the clay substrate recipes that have been floating around. So far, I've had a lot of trouble rooting plants in it. I've tried a philadendron (the only one I've ever killed), some wandering jew, and an anthurium. The only thing still alive is the wandering jew, but it doesn't really seem to be thriving.
My theory is that the clay doesn't wick water to the roots fast enough, and they don't have time to adapt before they die of thirst. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Currently, I have 2-3 inches of substrate covered in magnolia leaf litter. I'm planning on stripping out the leaf litter, adding a 1/2 inch layer of shredded leaves, followed by oak leaves, and finally covered with the original magnolia leaves. My hope is that the more absorbent leaf litter will provide a suitable substrate for the plants to get started.
Does anyone have any additional suggestions of things to try and/or plants that are 'invincible'. I'd really like to get the tank established in time to bring home new frogs at NAAC.
My suggestion would be to use plants/or cuttings of that have been in a viv or very humid atmosphere.
Reasoning is that most plants that I've seen that have grown up in an environment like that, have aerial roots, most times at every leaf node.
With cuttings that already have such roots, you can usually throw them in a viv, and eventually they will take hold.
I have a few mixes that I'm messing with but that one is 45% infield conditioner (same as soilmaster select for the most part), 45% rapid dry, and 10% peat. The peat was mainly just added for some organic matter to start off the microfauna and an acidic buffer. I dissolved calcium carbonate in slightly acidic water (plain carbonated water in this case) over the course of a few weeks, and then used that to wet the clay so the calcium would absorb in. Not sure how well it worked as this was by no means a proper experiment, I was just using some of the logic explained by Matt and Brent in the other thread.
Otherwise I kept my humidity high until all the plants had rooted and haven't seen any problem with plants adjusting. Another mix I did that was strictly a larger particle size like the infield conditioner only, had a little more trouble rooting plants like the original post mentions, but nothing higher humidity couldn't help sort out in my case.
I'm using the "from scratch" recipe from Matt Mirabello. The anthurium I planted practically 'melted', and was noticably in distress within days. It was clearly dead two weeks after planting... The philadendron plantings held out a bit longer, but with the exception of one planting, are all surely beyond hope.
I have additional leaf litter on order; do you think that my plan of denser leaf litter will help the plants?
That's interesting, the sample I have of Matt's (original) recipe stays pretty wet and I didn't have any issues rooting a plant in it, I wonder what's different in mine than yours. I'm not sure on the leaf litter.. maybe Matt can comment on it. What's the tank humidity level at? Even with no substrate most of my cuttings seem to root fine when in an environment that's humid enough to sustain themselves until they have roots.
I have used a bentonite clay mix with some peat with no problems. This is a picture of how it grew it, the ferns and mosses were from the peat moss.[attachment=0:1962xr9r]atelopustankgrowninsmall.jpg[/attachment:1962xr9r]
I'm not sure on the leaf litter.. maybe Matt can comment on it. What's the tank humidity level at? Even with no substrate most of my cuttings seem to root fine when in an environment that's humid enough to sustain themselves until they have roots.
Rooting the plants in clay could have been problematic since the clay may have helped harbor bacteria/fungi that infected the plant. Clay can actually hold a lot of water, it may have been to wet around the cutting (goes with the previous comment). Anthuriums are a plant I never have much luck with. I know they do not do well in poor drainage. I stopped planting mine and instead just put them on top of the soil in whatever root ball they have and let them grow roots into the soil if they need to (even then i still kill some). How are the pore spaces and aggregates? is there air flow to the roots?
My guess is that the magnolia leaf litter has not decomposed to the point of having many stages of leaf decomposition present, adding some more leaf litter in different stages of physical/chemical break down should help with nutrients, rooting, and insect populations.
The tank I set up for IAD 2008 was made with amended local soil and not my "from scratch" recipe.
The plants I put in were varied but all had roots and were planted with a portion of the soil they were originally grown in. The plants which did not survive were selaginella (potted)and some begonias (unrooted), the plants that survived were tropical ginger (rooted) and a coffee plant (potted). I think the selaglinella died mostly due to improper lighting as the ginger and coffee plants grew larger.
I will have to take another picture soon, it has been almost 12 months now
Trouble rooting plants in clay substrate
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