Hi, Absolutely throw away every plant. Clean out all of the gravel and soil and throw that way too. They have all been contaminated with snails and worms. And make sure you sterilize everything with bleach that goes back into the terrarium including the aquarium. This is very important or you will just introduced the snails and worms back into your terrarium. Using a base of stones sounds good. The jury is still out on the charcoal. Some people think it is needed. Other people say that once the charcoal has absorbed all it can it will start to put contaminants back into the echo system. Next, one needs to put a barrier in between the base and the substrate. This keeps the potting medium from falling into and in between the rocks. The rocks don't do much good if there are no air spaces in between them. Nylon screen from the hardware store works very well. Make sure you get the nylon screen not metal screen. Put your potting medium on top of the screen. What rhizo means by " soilless mix" is a potting a medium that is devoid of loam and worm castings. In other words no dirt. One soilless mix could be milled spagnum, vermiculite and perlite. There are other soilless mixes that one can make or buy. I'm going to let Al and rhizo chime in on that one. I don't know if you know it, but there is a terrarium forum on GW. You might ask some of your questions over there too. Also, start reading through all of the entries. There is a wealth of information out there. Black jungle also has a page devoted to setting up a terrarium. I will put a link to it below. They talk about co-co bedding at black jungle. Again, the jury is out on that too. The people over on the terrarium forum swear by it. The people on the African violet forum swear at it. African violets seem to do poorly in co-co bedding. Since I will have a couple of violets in my terrarium I will not be using the mix. Anyway, I hope this helps. Again, I'm just new to this too. Good luck. Larry Here is a link that might be useful: Terrarium Basics

"Why can't orchids live under the same conditions? Or can they? Why would they be more prone to rot?" Yes, the short answer is that you can grow orchids in terrariums/orchidariums/wardian cases and many kinds of orchids benefit from the high humidity, low light, even temperature environment found in the ideal terrarium. Unfortunately unless you are a specialist in Jewel Orchids or Masdevallia, Dracula and other Pleurothalid orchids the majority of orchid families that one is likely to have in their collection make their homes high in tropical and sub-tropical treetops. Abundant air exchange and a wide day/night temp range in short the very antiethic of the closed case. That is why rot is a real issue when the majority of orchids are put into closed cases, they simply aren't used to those conditions. Orchidariums have fans and lights and are also the antiethic of a true terrarium. Orchidariums are very expensive and most will blanch at the asking prices and cobble together something of their own leaving out lights and air exchange and size. H

Well first there are CP's that go dorment such as the American plants (venus flytraps, certain USA sundews) and there are also those tropical types that grow year round. Since this is a new project you would also want the hardier types, suggestions would be Drosera Capensis (Cape Sundew), Drosera Alicia (Alice Sundew) Nepenthese Ventricosa or Alata (these are Asian Pitcher plants). If however you could allow plant to go dorment (in nature they are subject to the less light of winter and the cold, they can tolerate up to 20 F roughly) then things such as VFT's would be fine, many people use things like fridges for dormency if they are in an area which does not get any icey winters. If this was a permenent fixture for the class I think tropical plants would be easier. Of these I think like I suggested, a D. Capensis or 2 would be a must, the kids would go wild to see the leaf wrap itself around its prey. The Nepenthes are beutiful, I have a N. Ventricosa which is very tough and is a stunning plant, the pitchers are a nice pink in colour. So if I was you, the ones that pop to mind for ease of growing and ease of propegation would be these three (sure you will get many more suggestions): 1) Drosera Capensis (try and get a Broad Leaf mutation, they are awesome, you also get Alba (which is all white tentacles and white flower), Typical (which has red tentacles and a thnner leaf that Broad Leaf) and All Red (which can turn completely red in colour) 2) Drosera Alicia, the Alice Sundew is also from the Cape of Southern Africa (my home originally), they are rounded rosettes of beutiful leaves that turn a loverly red in colour and glisen under light. They spread fast via plantlets from the roots and from seed. 3) Either a Nepenthese Ventricosa or Nepenthese Alata (or a cross between them) These Pitcher plants however unlike the sundews do not like their roots sitting in water, so if you have a "hill like" effect running down your tank you would put this plant up top where water could drain away from the roots to the lower plants which would be the drosera that dont mind wetter conditions. I would suggest a good layer of pure Perlite at the bottom of the fish tank, then the layer above (rest of mix) is a 50/50 mix of Sphagnum Peat Moss and Perlite, the Sphagnum Peat is acidic and not rich in nutrients which CP's like, the 50% Perlite Mix allows for drainige and the bottom layer of Perlite absorbs the excess drainage. Then a top layer can be Sphagnum Moss which helps humidity and retains water. Hope this helps, feel free to ask more questions!! Cheers n good luck Sheldon

Just about anything -- aquariums, large bottles, jars, those huge plastic containers from pretzels/cookies/candy. Your imagination is the limit.