Thanks hottielover14, I have some tropical sundews, a Nepenthes sanguinea, a bunch of baby hybrid Sarracenias and a Sarracenia rubra to go with my Venus Flytraps. I have to grow them all indoors under those 4 40 watt shop light tubes right now. Drosera spatulata clump in 5 inch pot. Drosera adelae forest in 6 inch pot, the progeny that cloned from a single plant about 10 months ago. Drosera capensis, a sundew that gives the term carnivorous new meaning. This plant single handedly caught and ate 7 flies in one day. Drosera graminifolia or, the Brazilian Grass Sundew that gives mosquitos nightmares. Sarracenia hybrid seedlings about 6 months old. Recently repotted, they are suddenly putting on a growth spurt. Still a far cry from the foot or more adult size they will attain in about 4-5 years. Sarracenia rubra about a foot tall. Nepenthes sanguinea recently repotted in 8 inch pot. The roots are only 2-3 inches long, but the plant has grown from 3 inches across to about a foot across with 5 inch pitchers in about 8 months. It is loosing a few older pitchers at this time. Peat moss and perlite would be OK for your plants, however; Nepenthes would prefer a well drained mix of two parts perlite to one part peat, or one part each of peat, coconut husk, and orchid bark, like my sanguinea is growing in. They need very well drained medium that still maintains moisture without promoting stagnant conditions. Venus flytraps would prefer one part peat to one part perlite and damper conditions than the Nepenthes.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TERRARIUM KEEPING! There are all kinds of resources available on the whats and the hows to do. The main thing that you will need to do is to decide on what kind of terrarium you want to have. There are desert terrariums, tropical terrariums, temperate terrariums, terrariums with animals generally called vivariums, and actual habitat-type terrariums that attempt to replicate an actual piece of the natural world. Generally your beginning should be modest and give you a chance at mastering the proper substrates, the lighting, and the humidity and temperature appliances that you may need for what you have in mind. While this forum has alot of info and threads on terrariums therre is so much on the net and at the different on-line stores that can help you. I am listing my current list of terrarium related sites. Cannot recall what all are about but take you time and check them all out. Happy growing. >TERRARIUMS http://www.fantastikgardens.com/terrariumplants.html http://www.aqua-terrarium.tk/ http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1457.htm http://saurian.net/ http://www.junglebox.net/supplies.html http://www.aquariumplants.com/ http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/archive/index.php/f-94.html http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search?invocationType=topsearchbox.search&query=nano+vivariums http://www.aquatropicsdesign.com/aquarium-gallery.htm http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=tropical+marginal+plants&btnG=Google+Search http://atrium.andesamazon.org/index.php http://www.biologia.ucr.ac.cr/biodiversity.html http://photo.net/cr/moon/ecosystems.html http://pages.interlog.com/~rainfrst/wildlife.html http://www.georgecramer.com/dutchvivariums.html http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/kobayashik/Terrarium.html http://www.blackjungle.com/home.htm http://www.tandcterrariums.com/ http://web.mac.com/jussi_kaijasilta/iWeb/Sivusto%202/Vivarium/Vivarium.html http://orchidarium.com/ http://amphibiaweb.org/lists/index.shtml http://pick4.pick.uga.edu/mp/20q?guide=Salamanders&flags=not_no: http://www.amazilia.net/images/Herps/Salaman/salamanders.htm http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extnews/askext/indoor/23.htm http://www.always-online.com/owens/plant/terrariums.htm http://personal.riverusers.com/~richardfife/page14.html http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7618/72257.html?1165012212 http://www.understoryenterprises.com/content/view/7/10/ http://www.rareplants.com/trop-de.html http://www.angelfire.com/oh3/customecos/ http://www.kero-kero.net/ http://atlfrog.com/ Note: some of the above links may be dead ends. ??

Hi Stephanie, The faq is a good place to start. I hope you don't mind if I give you a view of my observations when building my terrarium. You can look at my terrarium by looking at "Building first real Terrarium". I got quite a bit of information from Black Jungle. Click on "Online Catalog" at the top and you'll see some of the project you won't be on the left. First you will need a substrate. Many people use good size gravel; large enough where there is lots of airspace. Only trouble with gravel is that it is heavy and that makes it a problem to move your terrarium. I decided to go the extra money route and buy something called Terri-Lite. It is much lighter and I think works really well. I'm really pleased with the product. You will need a substrate divider. That is a screen that will keep the soil from sifting down into the substrate. Nylon screen works very well or one can buy substrate divider from Black Jungle. Now comes the soil. For goodness sakes don't use dirt. It will get too soggy. If you do augment it with something that will do you good drainage. I did quite a bit of research with the soil and was probably as confused at the end as I was at the beginning. Some people swear that coco fiber is the optimal plant medium. I am into African violets and gesneriads and belong to both of those G. W. forums. Over there people curse coco fiber. It is too salty and African violets do not do well in it. In my terrarium I use a 1:1:1 mixture of milled spagnum (not peat moss), vermiculite and perlite. I did not have animals so the perlite is not a problem for me. If you do have animals do not add perlite and I would ask about the vermiculite. In fact, you may need to go some other route. Ask people who have animals what they do. Different places to buy plants. Black Jungle is also a good place for plants. Tropiflora is another one. I also like Rob's Violets for some of the smaller plants and they are priced a little cheaper. Click on miniature houseplants. The AndOak Hill Gardens is a good place to get orchids. My advice is that you call the various places to order. You can get some valuable information about the plants you are wanting to put into the terrarium. For instance when I talked to Rob's Violets they were very helpful in telling me which miniature plants would work depending on what kind of terrarium I was wanting to make. I hope this helps. I don't have animals or water features in my terrarium, so you will have to ask around for help with those is you are going to included either of them. That is about all I know. My terrarium is over six months old now and is doing very well. I'm really pleased with it and I enjoy it every day. With a 30 gal. aquarium you will have more options than I did with my 10 gal. tank, but you'll still need to be aware of how large the plants are going to get that you purchase for it. If the plants grow too fast or too big, there is a possibility that you will be pruning every month. In my terrarium I have not had to prune anything except for the German grass and of all things they African violet (a miniature at that). Everything else has kept quite small and is slow-growing. Good luck, Larry

For that matter, keep researching the posts on this forum. There are all sorts of Qs addressed throughout. Does make for quite a bit of reading but that is what research often comes down to. Also don't be disappointed if it take a while for Qs to get answered. This forum can get extremely slow. I think the big problem is that once one has made their terr, there just isn't much reason to keep popping in. I wouldn't worry about: "I dont know if I will forge ahead and try to make a terrarium or not. I don't want to invest a good chunk of time and $ into something that won't end up the way I envision." After all, let's face it ... even if it were to turn out "exactly" as you envision, there's no surety that a year later you wouldn't be thinking ... "Geez, I wonder how it would be if I ...." or "I really like the way it turned out but now I want..." That's just life. DO take the time to plan everything out to be a low maintainence as possible -- especially if you do use a waterfeature (personally I wouldn't in a 25 gal tank -- takes up too much of the floor space), make sure to design things so even after its finished you have EASY access to the pump and any filters -- or you will wind up cursing yourself for gross stupidity. Keep it simple to start. Yes there are all sorts of cool things to use in a terr, but you will be absolutely shocked at how fast all that space just disappears. Put the critter on the "back burner". For now focus on creating a well established terr -- and don't forget -- if this might someday be used for a critter, NO pesticides can be used PERIOD. Good luck and let us know how things are going! :)