Yunzi

For 1. On a windowsill - Mexican pings will probably do fine. The Drosera might be ok. capensis is pretty bombproof and my alicae lived but didn't thrive on a S facing window. The Nepenthes.... ehhh ...you've got it now, so good luck but I think it might need higher humidity. Turning the radiator off might be ok but no point letting yourself of the plants get too cold! If you're a comfortable temp then the plants probably are too 2. They're probably fine if you got them from hants - hes an excellent grower. Repot next year if needed. 3. this is fine - but will run out quickly. I see roofs and drainpipes in your picture, any chance of sticking a container under those when it rains to collect rainwater. It will make things cheaper. 4. If the windows open a crack in the summer - flies will get in. Otherwise dont worry about it. 5. See point 1. I dont' spray pings or drosera. 6. No - the drosera need to stand in water in the summer months and be kept damp in the winter. The ping will be a bit more forgiving in the winter but likes summer water to sit in. 7. Mexican pings I think are the easiest windowsill plants to grow.

I've done some terrariums - although not often containing carns. For ones in the house you need species that will cope with constant year round temperature (which rules out VFT as these and others need a cool dormancy) . I cant comment on drosera as I don't grow many inside, but most Mexican pings will be fine with house temps. Watch that sunlight doesn't 'cook' the insides if you're putting it close to a window. If using artificial light then keep the levels close to what it gets in nature (roughly 12/12) and you should find your Mexican pings love it.

My huge ceph has been growing fine on a S facing window for several years now. Some of its offspring spent a winter in my highland tank with nighttime temps down to 8 degrees C with no ill affects at all. For watering, I water from the bottom, allow to dry then add more. In the past I've had them wetter and as long as some airflow is present they seem fine with that too.

Great shots - and we do appreciate it, especially given how awkward this site makes posting pictures! It is quiet here, I'm having continual connection issues to the site and that with the tapatalk stuff makes me think most people have just given up and gone elsewhere.

It looks like a great setup.... however from my limited knowledge, 6500k leds would be better. I'd be interested to see how it goes to be honest, I'd think if the LEDs are really 4w (true 4w) then the ceph might be ok, but the sundews would be too shaded. I've used 3w cree 6500k leds (futureeden seller on ebay) and 5 of those worked well in a very small tank over some sundews. For my 'big' highland (orchids and a couple neps) tank I went back to using t5 bulbs as it was easier to get the setup I wanted.

They're roots - a couple of mine do it too. I don't believe it's anything to worry about.

For a while now I've been getting a blank page when trying to access cpuk from home. It works fine from work and over 4G on my phone as well as via a vpn or proxy when at home. Finally got so annoyed when trying to look something up, I did some digging. It looks like 198.55.96.130 is the final 'hop' I can access when doing a traceroute . From the IP I think this belongs to the host company for CPUK. Is there any reason my home IP or IP range would be blocked?

What did you buy? I want some net pots for orchids and some perlite, but I cant bring myself to go in for much the same reason :-)

I want to prefix this with the fact I'm very very very far from an expert, but I've used those LEDS (the 6500k white and the purple grow ones) from that seller and roughly worked it out to 1-2 LEDS per plant when I was growing Drosera but my lights and space were much smaller. I now use 2x39W sunblaster tubes and my highlands showed some 'red' on older leaves, but still seem happy enough in my L111cm x W58cm x H39cm space. Assuming those 2 things - I'd guess 100W of LEDs would be high but acceptable. If you build it - I'd love to see pictures.

Whereas - http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.cpukforum.com Shows it as up. I opened the original post under this name 'DNS problems with CPUK' which hurriedly got locked by admin....hmmm. Seems pretty obviously a DNS issue which is why some sites/people see it as down. If you add the ip address above (198.55.96.143) to your hosts file you can work around the DNS problems. From a very quick look on some online tools, it seems the only issue is a missing SOA record which *might* be the reason some DNS servers including Googles are not listing the domain. Or it may have been dropped for some other reason.

Not sure if this is in the admins power to solve - but I can no longer load CPUK on my home connection. Doing a bit more digging it appears as if the google DNS servers I use (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) don't return a valid A record. I've tried flushing the entry in googles DNS cache using their online tool, but it still gives a blank return. Other DNS servers give the correct A record response. I wonder if recent issues with malware have caused them to remove the record. It may be something the CPUK ISP should investigate.

Anyone above ever get an email? Nothing here. This I suspect will be the last year I join.

Nothing here either. My membership ran out at the end of May and although I renewed before then, I wonder if no one ticked the 'still active' box next to my email address although I did get a membership card.

My Mexican pings have largely been 100% dry since they started to move to the winter buds (couple species that didnt I gave a little water to). They're on a sunny windowsill and kept in covered trays so hitting about 27deg C with the sunny weather. A couple look to be coming into the summer leaves so is it safe to now give all water (a little from the tray) or just those waking up? Also I might uncover them (how they were last year) as I think the hot sun and warm room is not helping a couple of Ehlersiaes I've got which are now looking a little pale :-(

Welcome Ben. Certainly a number of Mexican Ping fans here - myself included. Just need the weather to warm up and things to come out of hibernation!

Allow me to plagiarise the AIPC magazine special on Mexican Pings (Special issue 3) which I find is an excellent resource to looking something up. I've added some more reader friendly descriptions in brackets. PINGUICULA ESSERIANA Description: The summer rosette is up to 5 cm broad and is composed of semi-succulent, obovate(egg shaped)-spathulate(shaped like a small spatula) leaves, densely overlapping and light green to reddish in colour. The leaf margin, involute(leaf margin rolled inwards) at the apex, is peculiar in that it is also much paler than the upper surface of the leaf. The winter rosette is pulvinate. The flower is quite large, usually about 2 cm wide with cuneiform(wedge shaped) lobes coloured from pale pink to lilac. It is paler at the throat and shows a pubescent, yellowish spot on the lower median lobe. Flowering occurs in the period of vegetative resumption. PINGUICULA JAUMAVENSIS Description: The compact summer rosette, composed of overlapping semi-succulent leaves, can reach 5 cm in diameter and is very similar to those of P. esseriana and P. ehlersiae, as is the winter rosette. The corolla is lilac in colour with cuneate-obovate shaped lobes that are 0.8 to 1.2 cm long, with a yellow to brown spot on the median lower lobe. The throat is paler with a faint veining and pubescent. Flowering occurs at the end of winter dormancy. It seems the difference really is very small. I know of my plants in the current winter rosette there is no discernible difference between Jaumavensis, Esseriana and Ehlersiae.

Whilst looking up something else in wikipedia I came across the following quote: "Charles Darwin – erroneously believing Saxifraga to be allied to the sundew family (Droseraceae) – suspected the sticky-leaved Round-leaved saxifrage (S. rotundifolia), Rue-leaved saxifrage (S. tridactylites) and Pyrenean saxifrage (S. umbrosa) to be protocarnivorous plants, and conducted some experiments whose results supported his observations,[19] but the matter has apparently not been studied since his time.[citation needed]" Does anyone know any more about plants of this genus being protocarnivorous or know if any further work has been done in studying this? Or indeed, has it all been totally debunked?