Jump to content

Avestra

Full Members
  • Posts

    11
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Location
    Latvia

Avestra's Achievements

1

Reputation

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBhjkBUec-4 Here it is in English.
  2. I understand Russian. It is one of many foreign languages I have learned (at the moment I am learning my 7th language). Language learning is a hobby for me. I have worked as a professional translator, but I am way too lazy to translate the whole movie text from Russian for free, so here’s a short summary instead. The movie gave information about: * what nepenthes are (climbing vines), * where they grow, * the amount of species in the world (more than a hundred), * mechanisms, how Nepenthes attract and digest pray (nectar), * ants living inside nepenthes pitchers, * N. albomarginata attracting termites, which like to snack on its white rim below the peristome, * vegetarian N. ampullaria “eating” leaf matter that falls into the pitchers and the mosquito larvae living inside its pitchers and eating other larvae, * squirrel and rat poop meals for rajah, rats drowning in rajah pitchers. This movie was intended for people who see a nepenthes plant for the first time in their life, so it contained mostly basic information. I didn’t learn any new facts from this movie. So by not knowing Russian you haven’t lost much. The explanations would be extremely interesting for somebody not familiar with nepenthes, but not for the experienced nepenthes addict. So for me the amazing part of the movie was all that fantastic video, which was extremely beautiful. I didn’t succeed finding out about the makers of this clip. The watermark and text on the description box gives a link to a site dealing with diets, plant dietary supplements, and “curing” properties of plants. The info in this site is rather exaggerating (yes, lemons are healthy, but they do not cure a long list of serious diseases like this site is claiming). However their site gives a link to http://www.dailymotion.com/user/Job4HealthCOM/1 where there are more pretty videos about carnivorous plants. I do not know, whether this dieting site is the true creator of these videos. The videos seem surprisingly good for a site like this. But then again, who knows, sometimes businesses actually produce good quality content as part of their advertising strategy.
  3. Update. I sent my first e-mail to CZPlants on 9th July. I finally received a reply from CZPlants on 25th July. We agreed that they will send me a miticide and the sphagnum moss. I received the package on 13th August. Conclusion - it took forever, but at the end CZPlants did help me solve the problem, so it's ok. As for the quality of live sphagnum moss, I can only second what was said by pmatil - it was mostly dead. I'll just have to wait longer for it to start growing.
  4. Yes, I contacted CZPlants on 9th July. I'm still waiting for a reply... *fingers crossed that they won't ignore me* Brown spots on plant leaves was not my only problem with this order. I ordered 2 nepenthes plants and 1 liter of living sphagnum moss. There was no sphagnum moss in the package - they just forgot to put moss in it. I already made a "temporary home" from plastic baggies for these two plants. I was not expecting to receive infected plants, so I had no spare terrarium prepared for them... Would neem oil work for the mites or thrips? A while ago it worked when I had some spider mites on my parlor palm. Would it be safe to use it on nepenthes? Manders, if you want new plants, I can suggest carnisana.pl or carnivoria.eu - I just received my orders from them, and everything was perfect. And yeah, I won't buy from CZPlants again.
  5. Thank you for the replies! It seems like I was very unlucky with this purchase. I bought from CZPlants two nepenthes - truncata and veitchii x platychila. After you mentioned those bugs, I carefully inspected also the other plant - after all, if a nursery has some bug infestation, then all plants should get them. And there really was exactly the same problem also on my veitchii x platychila. In the first picture you can see some brownish spots on the lower leaves. In the second picture you see underside of one of the lower leaves. Those red dots are damage on the leaf. So it seems like both plants I purchased from CZPlants have had some bugs in the past. Unfortunately I don't have a magnifying glass at home (I'm a newbie in Nepenthes, but I guess it's about time for me to buy the glass), but with my eyes I could not see any live bugs still being on the leaves. I saw only the spots they have left. So maybe CZPlants have had some bug infestation in the past, but now they have killed all the bugs and spots are all that's left? Or maybe bugs are still there, only too small for me to see? I'm not sure, but I guess I should better spray the plants with something.
  6. I just received my order from CZPlants. Nepenthes truncata had some brownish spots on the leaves. Is this a serious problem? Should I do something with the plant (treating it with fungicides or something like that)? Or maybe I can just wait and hope that it will grow some new leaves without brown spots? Is it safe to keep this plant in the terrarium together with my other nepenthes? I am a little paranoid about getting any infections there.
  7. Thanks a lot for your reply! I speak 6 languages and French is one of them, so that won't be a problem for me. I must admit that I don't know what size pad I need. I understand the basic principle behind evaporative cooling - I put a wet pad in one lower side of the terrarium and I put an extractor fan on the opposite upper side of the terrarium. However I still haven't researched the question about how large the pad must be and what volume fan I need for my size tank (my terrarium will be 180 cm long, 75 cm wide and 75 cm high). The maximum pad size I could possibly put into this tank would be 75x75 cm. Should I cover the whole side wall with a pad or something smaller would be sufficient?
  8. May I ask where did you buy the Celdek cooling pad? I am currently building a highland terrarium, and I need to find something for evaporative cooling. I can't find any good options in my country, so it seems like I will have to buy it from abroad.
×
×
  • Create New...