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Hi there, I am Andreas (35) from Germany and apologize for my not very good English. I've been involved with carnivores for a very long time. It all started with a small Venus flytrap on my window sill when I was 12 years old. Meanwhile I have a small bog bed and a carnivore terrarium. I had to close my terrarium at short notice because of a move. Unfortunately, due to misunderstandings, some of my plants were damaged during transport. For this reason, my plants in the terrarium do not look very good at the moment. I think that will come back over time. Since I like to experiment a lot, this time I designed a wet area next to the slate fountain that was already in my old pool. The pool was designed in such a way that the water (the pump only runs 30 minutes a day) floods this area and can then drain off again in the sphangum area (favoured via an artificial pipe system in the expanded clay). The wet area is mainly reserved for Drosera madagascariensis. If you can think of any other plants (preferably no Utricularia) that I could plant in the wet area, please feel free to write to me. I placed sphangum on the slate stone fountain. The fountain, which only runs every other day for 30 minutes a day, keeps the sphagnum continuously moist to wet. The rest of the pool was laid out in a cascading fashion. I am open to questions and hints (tips). Link to my terrarium: Pictures of my terrarium:
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Hi everyone, Now that my Terrarium is up and running I thought I should introduce it properly and show you the steps of the build along the way, which may help to inspire others to create similar projects. I used to have a small terrarium, which consisted of an old 45x30x25cm fish tank, lit by a 6400K 45W spiral compact fluorescent. It worked ok and the light certainly was powerful enough just to grow plants but it had problems with keeping the heat under control, keeping the water conditions stable and inevitably; I simply ran out of space! Last year I found a larger, second-hand fish tank and soon put together the idea of an LED build for a more hi-tech and efficient terrarium to allow my plants to really thrive. Here, finally is the result of my setup... It's a 75cm x 32cm x 39cm grow space that's warm and humid - in order for me to grow tropical species year round. I went with 55x 3W star LEDs, comprising 28x Cool white and 27x Warm white in equal spacing. The LEDs came from Michael Houlder at FutureEden (via his ebay shop). He's a great guy and helped me with my initial questions into LED wiring and electronics. I needed a heatsink to mount the LEDs to and also to form the entire hood of my terrarium. After a lot of searching around, I opted for a custom-made, black-annodised aluminium heatsink from Birmingham Aluminium (http://www.bal-group.com/home). They were very helpful and communicative to discuss my needs and clarified the thermal properties of the heatsink would successfully handle the proposed 55x 3W LED heat load. This was the single most expensive item in the entire build, but was critical to ensure I had a lasting terrarium with safe temperatures. The heatsink sits perfectly flush with the top, left and right sides of the tank, but has a very small 1cm air gap at the back - providing a small but useful exchange of fresh air as well as some space for any wiring to go into, or out of, the tank. Here's the heatsink, with a pair of T-bar handles installed so that I can lift the hood off (relatively) easily... The spacing for the LEDs was carefully checked using a handy PAR calculator via an excel spreadsheet. This had been set up for aquarium enthusiasts to calculate that the proposed spread of light would achieve a desired PAR level. If I remember correctly, I shot for a PAR around 2000, which is close to full sunlight (aim high, right!) LED's glued in place with thermal adhesive... With the spacing sorted, I then planned the wiring, making sure it was as neat and efficient as possible but still allowing for an even distribution of cool and warm white. The two 'sets' of LEDs are run on different drivers so I have the option of having the Warm and/or Cool white banks on at any one time. This also allows for future adjustment to light schedules and time overlaps. The wire used is silicon-sheathed which is heat proof and highly flexible. Planning the wiring.. Main wiring paths soldered in place... First test of the drivers and warm white LEDs... Wow, extremely bright and painful to look at. A stopped-down photograph shows the individual LEDs better than our blinded eyes can see.. Here is the hood in place with tested lights on - remember this is still only the warm white set (half the total)... Time to wire and test the Cool white set... All LEDs on together (camera stopped down to be able to see properly)... (The yellow wire is an earth - connected all the way to the plug earth and will be attached to the aluminium hood for safety in case of any wiring faults that may occur) Full brightness over the tank... My original ideal PAR calculations, incorporated the use of 30° lenses in order to direct the LED light efficiently downwards onto the plants. At this stage I hadn't installed them yet and it is quite clear that a lot of light is being wasted in all directions. The following composite photo shows the light spill of the LEDs by highlighting what little effect the main room light had when on or off! If you look at the carpet, you can see the bands of shadowing as the different rows of LEDs catch the edge of the sideboard... I glued each individual lens on as the holders they come with did not offer a good enough fit, especially with the soldered wires in place. I discovered that stacks of 2p coins formed the perfect sized weight whilst the epoxy was setting. (I opted for epoxy as the chemicals in superglue can apparently fog up the clear lenses!)... With all the lenses in place, the light spread is much more defined inside the tank with very little over spill outside.. Out of curiosity, I placed my phone into the bottom of the tank (35cm from the lights) and took a light level reading using it's inbuilt sensor... 38,000 lux; equivalent to sunlight! This was by no means a scientifically precise reading, but it was an excellent sign for me. Before filling up with water and introducing plants, I was concerned that all of my careful wiring and expenditure was at risk of corrosion from the high humidity conditions. Therefore I decided to fabricate a 'light shield' from 3mm perspex sheet. I checked the specifications and light transmittance is 92% - I could afford to lose 8% light in order to protect my hard work. The shield is simply a box-like structure of epoxy jointed perspex, mounted to the aluminium with clear silicone sealant. I left the threaded rods long, that come from the handles above and allowed them to pass through the perspex by drilling holes. This gives me options to attach anything to the rods in future, and they do not interfere with the light spread... Now the terrarium was safe and ready to start thinking about plants. I placed some eggcrate in the bottom, in order to allow me to have a 'reserve' of water in the bottom of the tank for stability, humidity and for the ultrasonic fogger to use... Here is the fogger in place. The eggcrate is elevated by a series of upturned 8cm net pots, which are rigid enough to hold whilst being fairly open to allow water to pass freely through... Following Tom Bennet's tutorials, I was able to introduce a Raspberry Pi system into the terrarium, constantly monitoring temp and humidity and allow for the use of autonomous mains sockets. Here is the 'powerhouse' (the raspberry pi)... It reads temperature and humidity via an AM2302 sensor, connected via CAT5 ethernet cable (placed well out of the way of the splashing ultrasonic fogger!!)... You can view live readings from my terrarium here... https://thingspeak.com/channels/149828 The fogger is connected to an Energenie RF controlled mains socket, which is triggered by the Raspberry pi every hour at one minute past, for a duration of six minutes (day and night). This gives a boost to humidity, yet is unobtrusive and dramatically extends the life of the disc in the ultrasonic fogger as it is effectively only operational for 144 minutes in a 24 hour period. The constant RH monitoring means that the raspberry Pi can be set to trigger the fogger based on a desired humidity range, but I don't think this is necessary for me at the moment. The last object I added to the system was a simple aquarium algae magnet, which sits permanently in the top left corner of the front glass. This allows me to wipe the front pane clear of any condensation if/when I want to be able to see clearly inside... That's the whole setup so far. It's been challenging at times but very fun and extremely rewarding to learn along the way. I am more than happy with the results and the effect already on the plants living inside. My next post will show the plants inside.
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Hi All, I have been having issues with pests in my terrarium. I thought I had it finally under control when I noticed leaves on certain plants develop brown spots and edges wilting. I have been treating with Provado again since I noticed. Oddly, only certain plants are affected. Can anyone shed some light on what this is, and possibly how to sort it out? Thanks!!
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Good Night, One question, i have seen some amazing setups for terrarium which works with a waterchiller. I want to a less tech terrarium system, my problem is that i have 3 terrarium 60x45x45 and i have only a water chiller haliea150a able to cool water to 6ºC (30L max). My question is that people use for cooling the water to the tank and the radiator but i wanted to know if i can get 14-16ºC at night cooling my isolated terrariums only with radiators (the water conected to them would come from an isolated box with 10-20L is enough at 6ºC). The reason is that if i want to cool directly the water and the radiator i would have to cool 100-140L of water and i dont think i could set that amount of water to that lower temperature 6-10ºC im attaching a schema image and a sample video My setup: other similar setups: This would be my setup! Thanks to all and a happy new year!
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Bio-active setup with N. x Hookeriana and N. sanguinea
MWilko86 posted a gallery image in Members Gallery
From the album: Mwilko86
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Hi carni-growers! Today I am doing this post to share with you my last project: a highland landscaped terrarium. The goal of this was really simple: have a really nice landscaped terrarium to keep it in my living room & have a highland room to keep my Heliamphora collection. So I bought an old exoterra terrarium (60cmx60cmx45cm : height x width x depth), and I built a ‘structure’ around it. So the goal was to increase the insulation, and have a nice terrarium box. This is the setup: 1) Watering Really basic system, with high pressure pump, nozzle, water level security (to avoid running the pump without water). 2) Temperature Night: 12-15°C Day: 23-27°C I don’t heat the tank (I don’t need it with the LED just over it), but I need to cool it. For this I use an aquarium chiller (hailea HC 130A) which is under the tank, in a furniture (built for the tank). Cold water goes into the terrarium with a pump, and then into the 3 heat sinks (with fans) and comes back to the chiller. I also made a water cooling unit with PVC pipes, and mesh fabric. The fabric is always wet, and the air is coming through thanks to 2 fans. So water is evaporating, and thus airflow is getting a bit colder. 3) Ventilation 3 fans for air flow, plus 2 fans for the water cooling unit. They are running during the day. I will adjust frequency according to the plants reaction during the next months. 4) Light I am using Led lighting. There is 8x20W COB led. Leds are cooled with heat sinks and fans. 5) Landscaping Walls are covered with polyurethane moss, cork oak, and black mesh fabric. So the mosses, and orchids will grow on it. I wanted something really natural, without pots, labels, etc. So everything is hidden (but all the labels are in place ^^). In the bottom there is Dibond aluminium base over a seedling plate to make a small water reserve (to avoid plant soaking in the water). On top I put some horticultural felt to keep moist under the post, and to bring some water for my water cooling unit. 6) Regulation system The most important part of this tank (because without it nothing can run automatically): the regulation system. I built it with an Arduino Mega board, with many electrical connections, and computer programing (my brother helped me for this part). So everything can be ‘ON’, or ‘OFF’, or ‘AUTO’. I can change the setup/timing really easily. In the next weeks, I will add a Bluetooth module to control it directly from my smartphone. 7) Plants (The really most important part ;) ) This is the list of actual plants in my tank, but I am still looking for some heliamphora and some Utricularia ORCHIDS: Barbosella cucullata Bromeliacée sp. Bulbophyllum barbigerum Cleisostoma scolopendrifolium Earina autumnalis Epidendrum porpax Lockhartia sp. Masdevallia erinacea Masdevallia nidifica Masdevallia pyxis Masdevallia striatella Neolauchea pulchella Neoregelia liliputiana Pleurothallis /lepenthes sp. Pleurothallis hemirhoda Pleurothallis picta Pleurothallis rodrigoi Pleurothallis sertularioides Pleurothallis tripterantha Pleurothallis viduata Psychopsiella limminghei Restrepia echo Restrepia sp. (en pot) Restrepia sp. X 6 (dont Restrepia elegans) Restrepia trichoglossa Restrepia vasquezii Stellis sp. CARNIVOROUS PLANTS: Catopsis berteroniana Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor Heliamphora huberi (Akopan Tepui) Heliamphora arenicola (Tramen Tepui) Heliamphora chimantensis (Chimanta Tepui, Venezuela) Heliamphora minor Heliamphora ciliata Heliamphora pulchella (Amuri Tepui, Venezuela) Heliamphora hispida (Cerro Neblina, Venezuela) Heliamphora x 'tequila' Cephalotus follicularis Utricularia tricolor Drosera adelae ORTHER: Paepalanthus tortilis Xyris sp. (Neblina) And then the pictures of the building and the terrarium: Global view : My old electrical system My old highland terrarium (5 years old) The new tank Insulation of the tank Backgroung making Global view of making Left side view Covering with black mesh fabric View from top Water cooling unit Soldering station Regulation system making Regulation system (almost finished) I will add more pictures later to show you the plant growth =) If you have any question feel free to ask me ☺ Cheers Benjamin (Sorry for my English, I am French ^^)
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Hi Guys! So I want advice on how to make a good highland terrarium. I don't want to spend too much but I also don't want the terrarium to be very ugly looking or not uniform. I can't purchase a aquarium chiller as it costs a ton! My budget is $350..I can spend some more money if you guys insist but not much.. So any advice for cooling,lighting,humidifying,fogging and air circulation? Regards
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Hi there, in the last weeks I took some fotos from my terrarium-plants and like to show them to you. Some of the terras are very crowded, due to the fact, that the plants do grow and grow and... (Who'd have thunk? ). I'm not quite sure, how to get the plants out there some day... It's a mix of younger and older Nepenthes and Heliamphora. So, here are the pics, hope you enjoy them. Best regards, Christian ... to be continued
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Hi all, I’m looking for a good led illumination for my terrarium, the measures are 100x45x35 cm (140 liters). I would be interested to know which brands, which colors and wattage; will be placed various species of plants, nepenthes, cephalotus, drosera but also sarracenia seedlings. The terrarium will be only used as winter shelter or for debilitated plants, but if I see that the light is good, I could keep tropical plants all year. I saw a solution like this: http://www.hydroponics.eu/sonlight-apollo-led-4-130w~10022.html but I would prefer lower cost and a lower wattage, 130 Watt for that little terrarium seem too many imho Thank you -Dan
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Hi all, I am trying an experiment out with a terrarium I have made for CP's and I'm looking for some advice on heating it effectively, specifically raising the ambient air temp. I have a number of small terrariums indoors with highland and lowland neps in that work well with natural daylight and ambient indoor temperature. However I tried growing some other CP's like the petiolaris complex sundews this way and they grew very etiolated and did not enjoy this! Not having the room indoors to setup a more serious terrarium for them I decided to build one in the garage utilising a 160L fish tank I had spare. I set it up as a palludarium specifically with a pool with utrics in and a banked soil arrangement for the sundews etc. My problem is the garage isn't heated and although the plants are alive they are obviously not enjoying the temperature which I am struggling to raise over 15 degrees C. The tank has a large heat mat set above the base reservoir which warms the soil and an aquarium water heater heating the water to 28 degrees. A fogger and fans help to distribute the warm moist air when running but really I need to raise the air temp by at least another 10 degrees for it to work. At any other time of year the ambient temp may help this but for now I need to find another way. Lighting is LED's so no heat is emitted so I wondered if it was an idea to add a vivarium ceramic heat lamp to raise air temp or alternatively a basking bulb which also puts out the correct light for plants. Has anybody tried this? I need to know if these are likely to add the temp increase I need or whether I would in fact be wasting my money? Just to confirm there are no reptiles/amphibians in the tank, it is purely to grow CP's. Rich
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Hi, Some pics of my lowland setup. I hope you'll enjoy them. :) Nepenthes campanulata Nepenthes pervillei It caused me many problems since I have it... So I hope that its last leaf jump is a good thing. Nepenthes northiana Nepenthes bicalcarata Sri Aman Nepenthes clipeata AW clone 2 Nepenthes "Briggsiana" Nepenthes adnata Nepenthes sumatrana, can't wait to see true lowers and no more these very boring rosette pitchers... Nepenthes treubiana Nepenthes vieillardii Nepenthes bellii Not a Nepenthes but a nice Heliamphora ciliata.
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Hi ! I present you today my lowland terrarium. I hope you are not afraid by warm temperatures and humidity ! ;) The tank. Same view, when the fogger is working. Inside. The jungle is sleeping under the fog... All is growing in all directions ! Nepenthes gracilis, which begins to climb so I use a tantalum wire to maintain it. A young Nepenthes albomarginata "green", which begins to make me new leaves and pitchers after a long acclimatization. Nepenthes kampotiana, detail. This one grows quickly. But at this moment it's slower. Last pitcher of Nepenthes "ventrinermis". I think it's the faster grower I have, after my Codariocalyx motorius. Nepenthes tentaculata which is in acclimatization. For the moment, all is fine. A big Heliamphora heterodoxa x nutans. I have it since more of one year. It already flowered. What can we see behind the foliage ? Is it a Nepenthes ventricosa ? Yes of course. This Nepenthes northiana is hiding. Sorry, I don't succeed to do better. The plant is really inaccessible. A young Nepenthes andamana, beside a small Drosera prolifera. I've obtained this Nepenthes from Marcello Catalano, an italien naturalist present on this forum... And who has discovered and described this specie if my memorie is good. Nice, no ? Several Drosera schizandra. My Codariocalyx motorius. A very fast grower ! And one of my favorite Nepenthes adnata.
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Hi guys, I have a question for other terrarium keepers. First allow me to describe the situation: I have a highland terrarium which has an aquarium cooling unit to cool the inside temperature at night. The terrarium has a water basin at the bottom, which has a pump that channels the water through the cooling unit. After the water is cooled by the unit, it goes on through a tube and flows out at the top of a cork wall inside the terrarium. A fan blows air over this flowing water to cool the air inside the terrarium. The cooling unit and pump are on during the night (obviously) so the wall dries completely during the day. Now I've noticed that there is algae growth developing on this wall. So I was wondering how I could deal with these without harming the plants inside. Secondly I was wondering if there are any nice plants (both carnivorous and noncarnivorous) that could grow on this wall. These plants would have to be able to withstand a dry period during the day followed by flooding with cold flowing water (9°C/48°F) during the night. Any ideas? Cheers, Johan
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Hi all, I thought I would share some progress pictures with you of my terrarium I'm making. This will be a very drawn out project as I'm in no rush to get it done. Basically I divided a Ceph, had an old terrarium hanging around and then a friend gave me a load of perlite so I decided to do this: I'm waiting on a load of dried sphagnum moss to arrive to create a layer over the awful garish perlite. I'm looking forward to when the moss takes over and starts growing but even dead sphag looks better than garish white perlite everywhere! I'm planning on adding some Utrics and some Drosera at some point in the year. I will be looking at lighting options too as the lighting isn't adequate at the moment either. So if anyone has any tips there (I'll be doing it on the cheap) feel free to chime in, if not I'll be cruising the forum at some point looking at some of the million lighting topics for ideas. So yeah to sum up it looks horrible at the moment but won't when I'm finished!
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http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/uploads/gallery_9015_851_273741.jpg Hopefully if you click on this link my Nepenthes terrarium will appear. If not my apologies as I'm trying to fathom it out still :)
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Hi everyone, I start to be quite happy about the highland terrarium I've built. The terrarium itself is 1.5m large, 60cm deep and 1m high. I have put it on an old metal "skeleton" of a table, with boards fixed all around. I have installed weels, in order to be able to move it easily, and "feets" in order to ensure stability and also to release pressure on weels. I won't detail the LEDs set-up. If you want more information, just go here: http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=48350&page=7 It stays in the sleeping room in winter (we sleep with the window open allowing a nice temperature drop) and will go on the balcony during the hotter seasons. I am currently installing a cooling pad (Celdek). I will provide more information about this later on. General view: Heliamphoras' side: Nepenthes central part: Orchids (mainly miniature ones) on the shelf that I have glued on the side. Nepenthes seedlings in the boxes to maintain high humidity. I removed the covers of the boxes since not 100% transparent and put some plastic wrap, that let the light pass completely. I have also built a "Nepenthes germination place". It is next to a west-oriented window, shaded to avoid direct sun, with a 10W red-blue LED spotlight (turned on the whole morning). Temperatures: intermediates, between 22 and 27.
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From the album: Sundew Terrarium
Drosera Spaulata 'Fraser Island' From Junction City, Oregon (USA) I planted this guy and all my sundews in this terrarium on 7/16/14-
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http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/uploads/gallery_9015_851_273741.jpg Hopefully if you click on this link my Nepenthes terrarium will appear. If not my apologies as I'm trying to fathom it out :-)
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From the album: Untitled Album
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From the album: Untitled Album
Front view of my Nepenthes terrarium -
<p>Hi guys, i am a bit of a novice when it comes to setting up terrariums but here is my plan. I recently knocked up a frame and plopped some glass in one part, the rest i will be boxing with 6mm plywood. I plan on sealing it all with oil based paint and silicone for all the edges. on the top pannel i will secure it with hinges and mount lighting on it (most likely a t5). Here is a pic of the frame so far. what do you guys think? i plan to grow my highland nepenthes in it when its done. Its approxmatly 105cm long and 65 cm tall, the glass pannel is small as i only wanted it for occasional glimpsing. Any suggestions or questions would be appreciated :)</p>
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Hi everyone, I am currently in the process of finishing my terrarium and I was wondering if D. burmanii could be kept as an epiphyte. The back panel of the terrarium will be a large plate of rough cork bark, in which I plan to make a few holes that can contain some growing medium. Could anyone enlighten me if D. burmanii has long or large roots and if this is even possible? Has anyone perhaps tried this already? Grtz, Johan
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Hi there I'm in the process of building a large(ish) terrarium for some lowland nepenthes and was wondering if people had some suggestions of other plants that I could put in there with them. This is partly to add a bit of colour and variety and also because most of our lowlanders are pitifully small, so would be good fill the space up a bit until the neps are big enough to do that themselves. Other carnivorous plants would be great of course, would Drosera adelae do ok in the higher temperatures as long as humidity is high? Any other carnivores? Cheers, Mark
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Hello, this is my first post in this forum, and one of the main reasons I join rather than just stalk all your old answers. I've some experience with carnivorous plants and plants in general, also in bonsai, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I actually know what I'm doing. And I've none whatsoever with terrariums and artificial lighting. I recently got re-interested in carnivorous plants strongly, and the only way to get plants where I live, with a few exceptions, is by ordering them online. Like living plants have hard regulations and even quarantines times here, I ordered seeds online. So, to the point. I builded a "terrarium" to grow the seeds now, and in the future to keep some of the plants I'll grow there. I used a space that was originally build for a TV, but like I haven't had a TV for over 4 years I thought about giving this empty space a better use. Here is the thing It's very simple, enough to keep the humidity and heat inside I think Here is the thing that is worrying me. It's about 65cm tall, and worried about the amount of light. Right now I've this LED panelin it. This is how it looks: (it's no finished yet) I put some aluminum foil in the walls, and I also redirected the LED spot lights outside to the inside. It doesn't give much extra light, but you can see the plants inside better. So, this is my question, is this enough light to germinate seeds? should I lower the panel? get another one? another source of light maybe? Should I forget about this wretched thing and just germinate them outside? The seeds which I plant to germinate there are the following ones: - Sarracenia seeds (already in the fridge) After their first year or so I'm going to put them outside. - Darlingtonia seeds (also in the fridge) With this ones I wanted to try some inside, and some outside after they grow a bit, I'm worried about the high temperatures in summer. - Heliamphora nutans. Now this ones are important to me. This ones are the ones which I more care about. I only have five of them (in the mail right now) and are really hard to find. I almost bought some plants from wistuba but I didn't have the courage, nor the money to import living plants. Also, this ones are really important because they are the main plant that I think to grow in this "terrarium" once the seedling stage is over. So any advice here would be very very welcome. - Cephalotus seeds (also in the mail and really hard to find) I also only have 5 of them, and cant afford to lose them. -And a bunch of nepenthes seeds (highland and lowland). Now, this maybe was unwise, but I found a seller in eBay who sold me 400 seeds for like 5 dollars, and I couldn't resist. I really don't worry about this ones, I've so many. Nonetheless, I want to give them the best possibly chances of growing. Please, pardon the long post, and any mistake in my english, I had the luck of studying english in London for about a month, but I don't think it was near enough.