Home made decoration pic.

[patsyking]

I went to a shop and bought an artificial stalk of leaves and cut the leaves off and made this plant for decoration. For £1-99 I can make over 6 of these. Now I have to get a bigger tank for my Chile so she has more room. Here's a pic of it. I couldn't find any small plants in the shops so thought I'd make my own.

[Tom Forman]

Real plants make the enclosure look so much better.

I finally went out to get me some moss.

Gives my T's home a really naturalistic look

[patsyking]

Didn't think of moss. I'll get some when I get the bigger tank.

[Nicola Dolby]

Looks lovely. One little thing about real plants though, crickets eat them! At least mine did, that'll teach me to try and grow a chilli plant in my tarantula tank!

[Peter Lacey]

Looks lovely. One little thing about real plants though, crickets eat them! At least mine did, that'll teach me to try and grow a chilli plant in my tarantula tank!

That'll explain why they were jumping around a lot then

Crickets will also lay eggs in real plants and moss will create a natural environment for mites I believe. I guess its like everything, if you get the balance right then you should have a nice enclosure. For the most part you should select plants with low light requirements.

[Peter Lacey]

I should add, its worth checking that any plants to choose to use are not dangerous to the inhabitants. Pothos seems to be popular as does Mother-in-Law tongue (Snake tongue).

[Tracy Sherwood-Farnfield]

Love the plant - what a great idea and so much softer looking than the plastic artifical variety.

Unfortunatley most of my 'house' plants would most definatley be unsuitable for T tanks...they too are carnivorous!

I am going to give this a try!

[Richard Shah]

Love the plant - what a great idea and so much softer looking than the plastic artifical variety.

Unfortunatley most of my 'house' plants would most definatley be unsuitable for T tanks...they too are carnivorous!

I am going to give this a try!

I used to collect carnivorous plants, but I forgot to feed them once and they died. I loved watching them kill house flies though!!!!

[Tracy Sherwood-Farnfield]

I used to collect carnivorous plants, but I forgot to feed them once and they died. I loved watching them kill house flies though!!!!

tee hee, the best 'killing spree' I had was when I was using a friends water butt as a source of rain water for them, then unknown to me, they had their roof treated for moss and the butt drained straight from the gutter - as carnivirous plants live in moss based substrates they all died a hideous and for a time mysterious death......

My current 'brood' are doing very well and just about to come out of hibernation.

[Richard Shah]

tee hee, the best 'killing spree' I had was when I was using a friends water butt as a source of rain water for them, then unknown to me, they had their roof treated for moss and the butt drained straight from the gutter - as carnivirous plants live in moss based substrates they all died a hideous and for a time mysterious death......

My current 'brood' are doing very well and just about to come out of hibernation.

Wow that kind of sucks; but at least you know why now! I just stopped watering mine cuz I forgot!
What plants do you have now?
I used to have a lot of venus fly traps and was going to get a sundew plant, never got round to it though!!

[Tracy Sherwood-Farnfield]

Wow that kind of sucks; but at least you know why now! I just stopped watering mine cuz I forgot!
What plants do you have now?
I used to have a lot of venus fly traps and was going to get a sundew plant, never got round to it though!!

Lets think......
1 venus fly trap rescued from a garden centre, which is just coming out of hibernation
2 cobra plants, one severley attacked by aphids last year so has had a brutal 'prune' and I am waiting to see if it is going to come round
2 pitchers (sarracinea)
1 tropical pitcher - an experiment - not sure if my windowledge is warm enough yet
umpteen sundews, 2 original parent plants
and dozens of butterwarts all from the same parent plant

I find the sundews and butterwarts are the easiest ones to keep.

[James Box]

i wonder if sundew plants or similar would enjoy scuttle flies and the occasional escapee bluebottle...

[Tracy Sherwood-Farnfield]

i wonder if sundew plants or similar would enjoy scuttle flies and the occasional escapee bluebottle...

They would love the scuttle flies - my butterworts are frequently studded with little fruit flies and fungus gnats, the bluebottles would depend on size of both the fly and the plant - and the fly might need a little 'herding' in the right direction (this works particularly well with crane flies/daddy long legs!). I intend to feed left over crickets and locusts to my pitchers once they get to full feeding season lol - they won't even mind if the bugs are already dead!

I took my butterworts to school for open day once (during a brief spell as a science teacher) and a colleague had some fruitflies in a tank as part of a display on genetics..........my little plants turned almost black with all the 'escapees' they collected!

[James Box]

fantastic! cheers for that info, i think i'll try this as yet another attempt to bring the phorids down! evil things.
bluebottles i can sometimes catch myself, so not as big a deal, but phorids are pure evil.

[Peter Lacey]

James, have a read of this: http://doyourownpestcontrol.com/phorid-flies.htm