How to prevent algae growth on Drosera media

[shawnintland]

Thread moved from Stuff to Sell here.



David, seeing as I am about an hour away from transplanting loads and loads of Drosera - What is your media recommendation? I have had lots of algae problems (probably keeping things too wet) with both pure chopped sphagnum as well as with pumice/peat/sphagnum mix. Any help would be appreciated as what ever I use will effect a lot of pots full!

[David]

I use one part sand and one part sphagnum peat. Hmm... I think most of the time it's 2 parts sand and 1 part sphagnum peat. I find that making the media more airy, algae problems do not accur. Also, I place a layer of sand on top of the media. Algae seem to like growing more on wet peat than dry sand.

Seem to work for me, but my plants are kept under grow lights. I am not sure that if they are place outside where they receive rain, algae will not grow. I figure if sand is always wet, algae will also grow. but if the layer of sand is thick enough and the sand grandules are also bigger, making the sand topping drier, it might just work.

Another way i found is to have a layer of sphagnum peat on top of the media and grow terrestrial utricularia on it. Once the utric grows over the media, it seems to prevent algae from growing and it looks beautiful.

Lately I found black silica sand. Not sure if it is truely black silica sand or not. The shop staff told me so, but it looks like finely broken black glass. My Drosera seem to like it and when I mix this with sphagnum peat I get a nice black media that looks great as a backdrop for the drosera. It brings out the bright colours of the plant. When I use river sand and mix it with sphagnum peat, I get a media with black, white and yeallow colours from the sand and peat. Not so nice.

[David]

Oh, one more thing... I water my Drosera from the bottom, meaning I place the pots on about 1cm of water and let the water seep upwards through capilary action to the roots. This way the sand topping is not wet and algae will not grow.

There is no problem with low humidity as the pots are placed on a water tray. So eventhough the sand topping is dry, the water around the pots would do the trick. Also the media below the sand topping will always be wet, just how they want it.

It would be great to hear from other members on how they prevent algae growth on their Drosera media.

[shawnintland]

Thanks David. I will have to change the setup I've been using. I have my hydro tables set up with overhead misters for my nepenthes babies and have just fit my drosera start trays in there as I didn't have anywhere else to put them! Will try to change around at least one table for them.
Thanks again
~Shawn

[Zakhren]

Where did you get black silica sand? =O It sounds really effective & aesthetically pleasing!

[David]

Zak,

You can find it in Pet Safari aquarium section, but the price there is a little expensive. I got another packet from Carefour Mid Valley plant section for much cheaper.

[arvin555]

Shawn, wondering what kind of algae do you get? I find that I have more problem with ball algae, it is a black/brown ball like a bubble. I had problems with blue green algae before but for some reason it has gone away already. I am wondering if you have tried putting dried Sphagnum moss as a top cover? In most of my setup that has this, I don't see much algae. I have lots of problems with algae when peat moss or cocopeat is involved... but that is not 100%. Unfortunatley I put riversand on some, but algae still happens sometimes. But I do water overhead not like David's system.

TTFN
Arvin

[shawnintland]

I'm not sure of the names, but that's okay as I have soooo many different kinds of algae growing I'm thinking of opening an algae museum! I'll try to remember to take some pictures. I use straight chopped sphagnum for my neps seedlings and it's odd that some trays are filled w/ algae and others barely have any. Nowdays though, since all the 105 cell trays are in two hydro tables, it seems everything is getting it. I have about 8 trays of 105 cells ea that the algae smothered the surface and killed off any hope I had for all the different Drosera seeds I planted. Bummer. Still had a few hundred make it but disappointing compared to the planting effort involved!
I did follow David's instructions regarding the sand top-up and have removed the misters from one table and changed to bottom watering system. I'll see how it all looks when I get back from Borneo.