Oh thats beautiful...I have 4 I have lost and I do not know why and the odd thing is they all came from th same company I have some from other places doing great. I have mt finers crossed I wish I had a camara way t show pictures I dont I am elderly and dont ave the new products cant afford that and buy the plants to lol. I have the "Apurima" its croaking meaning looks drying up but not dead I wonder if some go dormant hummm....I will look it up but as I was saying is my fave. Tilly is the duritti one looks weird the other dont weird to. I was told you need two of those by a lovely person on the African violet site. you know the one that looks like "cousin it" I have a board full of those and they are the easiest to get to live in my book.

Laura: You'd have to talk to bada about terrs for pleuros. Mine is not set up for them, because it gets too warm for them from the heat the lights put out (which is really only slightly above room temp), and I have no cooling system. I believe the trick is to have lots of fans to cool the air, but still somehow keep the humidity high by using a cool mist. There was a long discussion of this at least a year ago. Try searching for it. I think you should find it if you type in 'cooling systems' or something like that. I think that any orchid that likes to stay moist could be planted in the splash zone if they are in the appropriate medium. I have no experience at all with diatomite, so I really can't say a thing about it, but I would actually use a medium that was not very water-retentive. For instance, i wouldn't use sphagnum for sure. I'd probably use bark chips or CHC, and larger ones than one would normally use for such plants. Of course it really will depend on how your waterfall turns out. It will be affected by factors like how strong the pump is (how strong the flow is), and what the waterfall is made of, and if you want more of a gentle trickle, or more of a rush like I have. Of course a trickle won't splash nearly as much. With my waterfall, it is constantly splashing and spraying, so water-loving orchids would either have to be mounted in order to get enough air to their roots, or, if they were terrestrials, it would have to be an extremely open mix. Everything in the splash zone is basically being constantly watered. So yeah, you do basically have to just set up your tank and see what the conditions are like. Jim: I don't know about hydrofoggers. Hopefully Homer will answer that one, but I believe that the ones he uses are the ones you can buy at Michael's and other craft stores. They are sold for use in fountains, to give that 'dry ice' mist effect. And if you use the weekly 40% off coupon at Michael's, they're not expensive at all. As for how to actually hook it up and hang it from the top of a terrarium, I have no idea! Try doing a search for 'Homer' or 'hydrofoggers' or just 'foggers'.

Your terrariums are very nice!!! Remind me of the first ones I tried. Good job. On the fungus, it is probably something that came in with one of the plants and not the moss as sphagnum is acidic. You may want to wash off your plants before planting and wash off most of the original potting mix as well. While the general lesson on building a terrarium use a stratified layer of gravel-charcoal-soil mix this approach is really best with those in large aquariums in which some watering may be more regular than would be needed in a smaller setting, such as yours. I would forgo the gravel and the charcoal and only use enough mix for about a 2 inch covering when pressed down after planting your plants. Be sure the mix is moist but not wet when doing so. Then only mist enough to allow for condensation to collect on the lid of the terrarium. If no condensation collects mist. If condensation covers the sides and the lid then open up and let dry for a day and close and see what happens. Also keep in mind that you need a good pair of plant shears as you will have to trim them back if they grow great. The real challenge seems to be in finding the right plants that are really small growing plants and that offer good eye appeal. There are so many sites on the net that offer so-called mini plants but when you read the list you find that these are regular plants that can get big even in a greenhouse!! Here is a link to one place that offers a variety of tropical plants for terrariums. I recommend checking each plant that is interesting to you out by googling to make sure the plant is what you may want to use. http://www.glasshouseworks.com/terrariumplants.html Those that I would recommend are: Piper, Selaginella, Jewel Orchids

If you can grow phal. orchids beside this plant, then there is enough humidity! It would initially get brown leaf tips because it's so used to the high humidity, so you could try gradually aclimating it by leaving the lid off for progressively longer periods of time each day until you just leave it off, and then just take the pot out of the terrarium. 94% humidity is not too much, BTW. It is very high, but plants like it. Why do you have miniblinds on an east window? Do your orchids actually bloom? I can't see that being enough light at all. . . though you are much farther south than me. About the terrarium though, if you like the way it looks (it does sound like a pretty one), then go ahead and put it in a bigger one! I don't think the scrollwork will block much light. The miniblinds would block a lot more.