While waiting I am finding myself bored to absolute death! The weather is being a right bitch and I have not been able to go out cycling. I really do not know what is going on with the weather it is so bloody miserable and has been for so long. There has been one day of sunshine in weeks and it looked weird when I did get it.
However I found myself, or rather bought, acquiring a couple of pairs of Giant Pyrenean Fire Salamanders, Salamandra salamandra fastuosa. I had not foreseen these being offered to me and after selling off a pair to a Fire Salamander and Axolotl loving friend of mine years ago I had to get them.
Not seen them in ten years and probably would not for another ten years!
I was not happy with the aquarium/terrarium I had placed them in and was on the lookout for something much bigger.
A bow fronted aquarium appeared in a friend's pet shop and another friend talked me into getting it and a bit bigger than I was after too. It measure one metre long by 40 to 50 cm tall and 46 cm in width. I then realised I could use the height to pile up some logs of wood and cork bark for them to have plenty of hidey holes and choice of homes so bought it.
The friend who talked me into it was excited because he wanted to see what I would do with it, knowing I had flair for design and do so well with my amphibians, orchids, mosses and other things.
While I was picturing how I would set it up in my head I thought it would be a good idea and maybe informative to video myself setting it up.
I did this after glueing three cork sheets onto the back glass and some wood, cork and bark chips glued onto that to have like a tree trunk looking back wall.
It is almost finished now and I only really want to add what they call a Button Fern plant to the terrarium. I might add some orchids?
There is a pond area and surrounding that is a bog area and I use a couple of different size Stewart seed trays to achieve that.
I also have a Rabbit Tracks Prayer Plant in there with a couple of Alpine plants, Thymus and one that smells of Pepper ... or was it Peppermint? I forget.
Some local Moss and Lichen covered logs were collected to adorn the terrarium along with some dried Oak and Birch leaves scattered about to good effect.
Oh and there is another type of fern I cannot recall the name of, lol.
I will make remarks about what I do with certain things in the videos so if your not clued up and want to know things then I would listen carefully.
For instance most people do not think about things like light and even water, water is just water right? Wrong! If you want to keep the plants, mosses and lichen growing and looking good then you have to get the right type of water.
For instance Mosses grown on wood mostly or on patches where there is little nutrients and food. It grows in grass a lot because grass gobbles up most of the feed and nutrients. You get it in your guttering and can have it on your roof too. So ask yourself what does it get where it is?
Rain water. This has no salts in it that tap water is loaded with, like lime, calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate. Each of which it is not that fond of.
To give you an example ... Drosera or Sundews just like Venus Fly Traps, cannot remember latin name, will die if given tap water. They have to have rain water or reverse osmosis water which has little to nothing in it. Because it lives in places where there is so little fertilizer and nutrients that it has evolved to eat insects to get them!
That is why they are called and are carnivorous plants. They are one extreme and then you can go all the way to the other extremes and find plants that love hard, alkaline soils and substrates.
Mosses and lichens are not truly plants as such but their likes with water are more down the Carnivorous Plants end of the spectrum. They also need some light too. All plants need light, even aquatic ones as well as seaweed.
So I use rain water.
Anyhoo I did some videos and here is one I uploaded ...
No comments:
Post a Comment