RETF vivarium needs plant ideas!

[arielgasca420]

Bill is your man for the plants. Donlisk too.

Pothos are easy and do not require much light. Even I don't kill them, which says a lot, lol! No green thumb here .

Bill? What are these?

I've used them before. They seem to like the moisture and have nice heavy, broad leaves.

I also use dracaena and snake plants. I keep the snake plants in the areas that drain well. Broms are nice too.

I have some nice plants waiting patiently for their big tank .

This first picture is so hard to tell. I dont think its Aglonema commutatum but there may be some soil deficiency going on that makes the marginal veins that white color. I think it looks more like a marbled Dieffenbachia just because of the leaf shape and size. These kind of plants ID questions are like a treasure hunt for me! keep them comming

[arielgasca420]

oh yeah, i forgot, and thanks Heather for adding it. Broms are great starters. easy to grow, but slow growers. and then there are tillandsia (air plants). for the life of me, i cannot grow those stupid things. personally, i think broms and tilly's are used way too much. but they do look nice

I have a few Tillandsia that grow very slow but I found this Tillandsia bulbosa at my local nursery that looks so awesome. I put it on the base of the orchid pot and it looks like long aerial roots. you should check it out if you havent seen it yet

[deranged chipmunk]

This first picture is so hard to tell. I dont think its Aglonema commutatum but there may be some soil deficiency going on that makes the marginal veins that white color. I think it looks more like a marbled Dieffenbachia just because of the leaf shape and size. These kind of plants ID questions are like a treasure hunt for me! keep them comming

see, i originally though Diff. sp., but the white stems are throwing me off. a majority of the diff. sp. have green stems. i also thought the leaves, while similar shape to a diff. are a bit shorter? that may just be a perception issue though due to it being a pic.

[deranged chipmunk]

I have a few Tillandsia that grow very slow but I found this Tillandsia bulbosa at my local nursery that looks so awesome. I put it on the base of the orchid pot and it looks like long aerial roots. you should check it out if you havent seen it yet

i've seen the bulbosa. my plant shop has them on a regular basis. the source from RFI, so they carry quite a bit that you guys get out there. i just am not a big fan of them. as my mother, who has been a florist for 50 some years said to me, "you're the type of person who could grow an orchid in a dark, dry room, but give you a plant that needs little water and light and you kill it every time"....LOL

[arielgasca420]

i've seen the bulbosa. my plant shop has them on a regular basis. the source from RFI, so they carry quite a bit that you guys get out there. i just am not a big fan of them. as my mother, who has been a florist for 50 some years said to me, "you're the type of person who could grow an orchid in a dark, dry room, but give you a plant that needs little water and light and you kill it every time"....LOL

haha thats funny. I was always digging through my moms dump pile to retrieve plants she gave up on. I would bring them back to life and sell them in the flower shop I worked at.
i am still learning how to grow orchids right now without using fertilizer. send me a PM if you have any tips or suggestions

[killerecho]

Lisa, the advice Bill and others have given you is spot on. I would just like to add that, when you go plant shopping, resist the understandable temptation to be overly adventurous and purchase more than you need, because you have lot less space than you think. Even though your tank isn't small (24x18x18 is roughly 34 gallons), by the time you have a false bottom/substrate layer, background, water feature, maybe a place for a feeding bowl and whatever decor you're going to have in there, the actual room available for the frogs to move and plants to grow is probably only half of that. And grow they will. Some of them like the aforementioned pothos can explode and block out the light in no time; others like the creeping fig like to extend themselves all over the place. Even slow growing bromeliads will produce offshoots. Not that that's a bad thing, but without ample space to expand, your vivarium quickly gets overcrowded and your plants will be forced to compete with each other for light and real estate.

The other thing, as Bill has already alluded to, is to prioritize your plant selection and vivarium design based on what your frogs need. Red eyes in the wild like to stay amongst the leaves and dense cover of the rain forest canopies, typically 100 feet above the ground. They rarely venture down to the forest floor, so while having a few terrestrial ferns and shrubs at the bottom of the tank would make for nice decor, they serve little purpose as far as the inhabitants are concerned. A lot of terrarium stores also tend to cater plant selections toward dart frogs, and these plants generally end up much too small and fragile and terrestrial for something the size of red eyed tree frogs - things like peperomias, pileas, etc.

Suitable choices, imo, would be broad leafed vining plants that will climb and fill up airspace all the way to the top of the enclosure. Red eyes also prefer to climb from amongst the foliage rather than hop, and they oftentimes sleep on leaf faces so having leaves and stems that can support their weight is ideal. Pothos and philodendron vareties would do nicely. Hoyas also make good additions, but their leaves tend to be smaller. Bromeliads are great because they don't require soil, allowing you to grow them anywhere in the vivarium. They also collect water, which helps maintain humidity. I generally avoid tillandsias because they tend to prefer lower humidity and greater airflow most of the other plants mentioned. They rot quickly if allowed to contact standing water. Orchids are also hit and miss - some can be really touchy...not to mention expensive.

I guess my suggestion here is to start simple: have a main course of a broad leafed vining plant like pothos and a couple of sides, with maybe a bromeliad or two up top. Then, once the terrarium has had a month or two to grow in properly, you can decide to add more plants if there's room or reason to. And stick to easy, "indestructible" plants. If this is your first vivarium project, there are going to be enough stumbles and missteps that the last thing you want is to lose that rare orchid while figuring out what sized pvc pipe to use. All this is from personal experience - I redid my first tank at least half a dozen times. Plant casualties were high

[tinkgirl77]

Wow! Thank you so very very much! That was extremely helpful.

[deranged chipmunk]

Brian always picks up what i forget, and vice versa he makes a couple excellent points. first is that the habitat for those guys is WAY up n the air, where only epiphytes survive. the only time they come down low is the rainy season to breed, but remember, the rainforest floor is normally flooded by as much as 30 feet, so they aren't going to ground level at all. a nice epiphytic fern is a resurrection fern. they actually grow nuts in Florida, so they aren't very difficult to get. broms are wonderful epiphytes, but not the ones from big box stores, some of them are actually terrestrial plants. instead, search the plant sites i gave you. neoregalia is a nice, small brom that will grow at a nice pace and won't give you headaches. second, i love when Brian mentions this. plant small, grow big. if you look at my madagascar tank, you'll notice that it is not planted heavy at all. that is to allow everything to grow together and fill space up. but also to give the frogs room to live.

[UncleChester]

... A lot of terrarium stores also tend to cater plant selections toward dart frogs, and these plants generally end up much too small and fragile and terrestrial for something the size of red eyed tree frogs - things like peperomias, pileas, etc.

I just want to point out that there are suitable peperomias for mid sized tree frogs that are usually available at big box stores but less often at terrarium specialists. Peperomia obtusifolia versions are fantastic upright growing sturdy broad leafed dealies. They do well in high humidity but won't like the roots to be soaking wet all the time. Peperomia clusiifolia doesn't seem to get as high high but also has broad sturdy leaves with the benefit of tolerating relatively very little room for the roots- ideal for small planters on the background.

I'm also not afraid to 'overplant'. I do enjoy pruning when necessary and if I have to actually remove an overly enthusiastic plant then it's just an excuse to make another vivarium to have a spot for it.

[deranged chipmunk]

good point Brian. those do very well in retf vivs. i think brian was making more a generalization. but as with anything, there are exceptions to the rule

as far as overplanting, i only recommend planting light to people who are new to the vivarium world. for those people who have experience with plants in a viv or terrarium setting, i would say go for it. i believe people who are new to the whole frog/viv thing can find it overwhelming when all of a sudden they get a massive growth spurt after the acclimation period and they suddenly have this jungle on their hands, as well as trying to care for their new froggie friends.