Thanks Hanzrobo and Ron for feedback, It was well worth the time and energy to get to this point and see a real difference in plants. I remember reading that the offspring may have very subtle to no change from the parent plants so this is a real treat. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the red cactus or mom is a very old plant. I will have to look up info on "sports" now. Thanks again, it is hard to find info on this stage of bringing up the babies.

I once did this between 2 diff. plants I had. I used a very small artist's paintbrush to take pollen from one plant & insert it into the flowers of the other. It resulted in ONE fruit, sometimes called an 'apple'. Looked like a smallish round berry, which over time reddened into ripeness. Mind you, that reddened berry held on to the plant for abt 1 year, at which point I removed it. I broke it open & spread the jelly-like contents, full of seeds onto a paper towel & let it dry out a bit to separate the seeds from the mucilaginous gook around them. I did try to pot them up, but I think the seeds dried out too fast & nothing came of it. The tricky part to doing this is to have several plants in bloom at the same time. Now I only have one mature plant, so I can't try it again. If you do try it, you might try doing it several times a day, at diff. times, say both morning & night to improve the odds of success. Good luck w/ it!

There is a FAQ page on the subject of this species, it may be worth looking at at. See if the information applies to your plant, I know for sure they are not grown in peat moss where they came from the jungles. They grow in Decayed leaves, and anything else that may blow in. it gets rain almost daily, so the water would not hurt if it drains off rapidly. Lack of air, being moved, change of temperatures from where it was, all of can these can effect this species. Mine sure didn't like the rain, it had no leaves protecting it overhead.

Mine do best at the office, as they get light and dark in pretty even portions, whereas at home they get light all day and then more light when we get home and turn on the lights. Mine bloom at work right around Thanksgiving, I am convinced it's the light. If you would like to see a truly amazing zygocactus-like bloom, check this out. It's a Night-blooming Cereus. Each bloom opens in the dark and stays open for a few hours, and that's it. Smells like heaven. The foliage looks almost exactly like a zygocactus, and the plant is just as easy to start.