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Please help my vft


Pleasecomealive

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Hello everyone

 

The tips of the newly emerging leaves on 2 of my vft seedlings are turning black!

Why is this happening?

Should I trim the black parts?

514630627_image0(1).thumb.jpeg.54d0436bfc16c5e924e2428425bdc42f.jpeg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been living in 30~50% humidity, basic watering (filtered) and 12cm away from three T5 led lights. Media is 1:1 peat/silica sand.

Plz help. I've lost one too many plants...:cray:

Edited by Pleasecomealive
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23 hours ago, mantrid said:

I would leave them and see if it progresses before attempting to do anything.

Uh oh it seems that all the even newly sprouting leaves ( after the prior ones blackened) are blackening too...:cray:IMG_0043.thumb.jpg.b7c164abd494d6dd34931d0e67fb82f1.jpg

The area near the first blackened leaf is becoming brownish, petioles and all.

I don't know if you can see in this pic...

What do I do?

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Have you grown VFTs before? Are you familiar with the requirements regarding water and gowing media? If not theres plenty info on this site. My own post many years ago goes into it in detail. And there are also many other posts by other people too.

If you are familiar with VFTs requirements then you need to make sure your water is good, change the growing media incase it is the problem. Have they been grown indoors and then been subjected to direct sunlight by being put outside? This will often kill leaves. Acclimatise them slowly by putting them in partial shade first. With a large healthy plant the leaves being scorched by the sun isnt a problem, but with small delicate plants like yours it might just finish them off.

There could be other problems that I cant think of off the top of my head but Im sure others will offer suggetions at some point

Edited by mantrid
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On looking at your pic again the dying of the tissue is in the centre of the plant so I dont think its leaf burn as this tends to effect the traps and tops of the leaves first. I suspect it is the water or the media you are growing it in

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4 minutes ago, mantrid said:

On looking at your pic again the dying of the tissue is in the centre of the plant so I dont think its leaf burn as this tends to effect the traps and tops of the leaves first. I suspect it is the water or the media you are growing it in

The media is 1:1 peat and silica sand, both washed.

the water is filtered, and I've been keeping it in low standing water, but recently I've taken it out and let it dry a bit because the leaf turned black.

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what do you mean by filtered? You need to check its hardness ie how much dissolved salts are in it. Normal filtering wont remove these. I would take it out of pot wash roots in distilled or rain water, repot then only water with rain, distilled, reverse osmosis water. But looking at the brown in the centre of your plant I think it may be too late for that one

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21 minutes ago, mantrid said:

what do you mean by filtered? You need to check its hardness ie how much dissolved salts are in it. Normal filtering wont remove these. I would take it out of pot wash roots in distilled or rain water, repot then only water with rain, distilled, reverse osmosis water. But looking at the brown in the centre of your plant I think it may be too late for that one

I washed it with water and tried to clean the peat near the roots- it's so tiny so I was unsuccessful.

Here's the plant. Is this root rot? It's about 1 cm in size. Should I trim the black parts of the bulb?

IMG-2007.thumb.jpg.9814a4b02c7e67b2316bfb0985a52b8f.jpg

About the water, I don't know the tds of it but all my other plants (mostly dews) seem to do fine in it.

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Hard to see. you will know if the roots are rotted because they will be soft and squishy and often have become flat. Live roots are firmer and rounded.

I wouldnt mess with it cutting bits off. It will just stress it more. Just repot in appropriate compost, normal plant compost has fertilizers in it so is not suitable. If you have used normal compost this might be the problem. Also it might benefit by not being so wet. In my experience the compost doesnt need to saturated so long as its damp it should be fine. But initially when you repot it do give it some water to ensure the compost washed in around the roots properly then let it drain until it is just damp.

Good lock with  it, but if its dead in the centre it probably wont survive. However, Ive had plants in that state and they have recovered by growing a new plant from bits of the remaining green leaves. 

But do check your water and compost first

Edited by mantrid
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Yesterday you got the advice from an obviously experienced VFT grower to leave them alone to recover. Today you ripped it out of the pot to take a photo of the roots. Does not make sense to me. I think this one is a gooner. The substrate didn't look bad so the issue is likelly in your "filtered" water. You need to provide information about what kind of filtering tecniqe you are using to get the right help. Don't  know and the other ones is fine is just not enough information. There are experienced growers in this forum that want to help you. All you need to do is help them to help you and obviously listen to the advice you get.

Sorry about the harsh words. But if you want to be successful in growing CPs you need to read this. Its not hard growing CPs, just a lot of ways to do it wrong.

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Well I sort of unpotted and cleaned the roots so that I could repot the vft in a sterile media that hadn't contacted the "filtered" water...

19 hours ago, mantrid said:

I would take it out of pot wash roots in distilled or rain water, repot then only water with rain, distilled, reverse osmosis water.

in order to have a chance at saving my vft seedling.

I guess the the root thing was a bit overkill tho...

 

I don't think there's anything more I can do for my plants now, I have them in the most optimal conditions I could possibly give them.

I can only hope that they (or at least the other seedlings) will survive.

I have a tds checker arriving tomorrow, and I will try to post the result of the seedlings in a couple of weeks.

Edited by Pleasecomealive
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The company who supplies your water will usually have data on the water chemistry on their website or you could ring them.

The media you grow them in does not need to be sterile it just needs to be free of salts and fertilisers. VFT growers tend to use 100% sphagnum moss peat rather than general purpose peat-based composts.

Another tip to help a plant in your condition is to plant it in living sphagnum moss as it has antiseptic qualities (i think because of the acidic condtions it produces) that can protect your plants from infection.

Edited by mantrid
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20 minutes ago, mantrid said:

The media you grow them in does not need to be sterile it just needs to be free of salts and fertilisers. VFT growers tend to use 100% sphagnum moss peat rather than general purpose peat-based composts.

I used acidic pure peat moss without any additives, but I've notices that it was getting compacted a lot so I ordered high-quality white peat.

I will plant some of the unaffected seedlings in my live sphagnum. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

I've visited my water purification company's site, saw the May water quality, and here are the ppm of things that are not 0.

bronze: 0.005ppm

zinc: 0.017 ppm

chlorine ions: 22.8 ppm

other chlorine: 0.68 ppm

hardness: 0.05 NTU (0.017 ppm)

Is this okay? These are the results for tap water, by the way. (The water I use for the cps is proccessed through this ion filter thing)

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If you pass your water through an ion exchnge column then I think it should be ok. I dont use them so know nothing about them. Have you checked that its working properly and that anything in it that needs changing has been changed. Does it get saturated and need replenishing on a regular basis?

Those figures look low to me but im no expert. The chlorine is high but thats because its added to the water to kill germs. Most growers even using soft tap water will boil or allow the water to stand overnight so the chlorine evaporates out.

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On 6/12/2022 at 11:01 PM, Tropfrog said:

Do the ion excange unit use salt for the process?

Br

Magnus  

It uses this dual? electrolysis system.

 

I just got my ppm meter and it says 118ppm for my sinkwater, 121ppm for my filtered water, and surprisingly, 72ppm for a bottle of mineral water. Is the filtered water okay for the plants? Or is it time to change the filters?

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I think you have found your answer. That would be classed as hard water. Your options would be to collect rain water or buy distilled or reverse osmosis water available from many Aquarium shops, or the equipment to make your own. If you have an air conditioner or dehumidifier you can use the water from that as it is the same as distilled water, or even the frost and ice on the walls of your freezer compartment (but NOT water from the tap that you have made ice cubes from)

Edited by mantrid
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3 hours ago, mantrid said:

Your options would be to collect rain water or buy distilled or reverse osmosis water available from many Aquarium shops, or the equipment to make your own. If you have an air conditioner or dehumidifier you can use the water from that as it is the same as distilled water

It rains so little in Korea:huh:

I'll just get distilled water from my lab for now until I find a better way.

3 hours ago, Tropfrog said:

Warning on older dehumifier and air conditioner. Many have copper linings in them and if old there are a risk that there are copper ions in the water that may have effect on plant health.  

I'll try using this year-old dehumidifer's water. I have copper ppm test strips so maybe that'll help on identifying the copper ions?

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  • 1 month later...

Hey everyone.

I thought I'd come by and do an update.

It turns out that the main problem seemed to be the peat that I was using. All my plants that I had in the same peat declined until I repotted them in a higher-quality peat moss. It wasn't too much of a surprise though, since the leftover peat in the bag had grown mass amounts of mold a few days earlier.

I have been using rainwater or R.O. water ever since the repot.

All the seedlings survived except one, and they are growing with vigor.

IMG_2258.thumb.jpg.cd6e1d0c7ecfc3345ad27b47881e19ae.jpg

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