I've found the yellow sticky cards not useful for killing fungus gnats---they just aren't that attracted to them, unlike whitefly. I also gave up the cards cuz I would have my house all clean and beautifully decorated with my favorite plants, and then see dead bugs stuck to bright yellow cards everywhere. ICK ICK ICK! My ZZ plant really suffers from gnats too because there is a lot of dirt available around the stems. My favorite product is Gnatrol----it is a naturally occuring bacteria that is only harmful to the gnats. You'll probably have to get it off the internet cuz I've never seen it in stores. It's not expensive---maybe $25 dollars per liter, which will last a LONG time. You mix a small bit of it with water and then just wet down the top inch of soil (do not actually water the plant with it---you'll rot the ZZ and waste the Gnatrol). When you first put it on it'll smell like a ....a bad fart (excuse the language, but that's what my husband thought I was doing in the growing room when I used it---I almost died laughing!). Once it dries there will be no odor at all. :) Happy gnat killing, as I hate those disgusting little buggers. ;) Oh, one more thing. An inch of fine sand on top of your soil will prevent gants too, but it makes it harder to test moisture levels. Personally it's too much mess for me but I know others who successfully use that technique.

I actually did exactly that a couple of years ago. 1. I put some lava rocks at the bottom of the bowl, wet them and added a little water so that a half of them were submerged and at the same time wicked the moisture up to the top surface. 2. Then I planted two Haraella Odoratas in semi hydrophonic way (used two small plastic bottles from fruit juice - cut off 2/3 of the top and made some drainage holes 1/2 an inch from the bottom and used them as the 'pots'). 3. I placed them on top of the moist lava rocks inside the bowl AND (this is important)... placed a tiny fan INSIDE the bowl to circulate the air. I'm talking about one of those DC-powered (as opposed to the bigger AC-powered) fans, used to cool the inside of a laptops, etc - I don't remember how I got it but I believe electronic/computer parts/components stores sell them. This way the air got circulated and at the same time the moisture stays within the bowl (this is essential especially for those who live in Northern states where the humidity inside the house in the winter time is close to 20%) 4. I used a single 23 watt CFL as the primary source of light (used a desk lamp fixture) placed right on top of the opening of the bowl and set the timers for 12 hours. They bloomed constantly. Whenever I wanted to smell the fragrance, all I had to do was to sniff at the opening and bowl. It's easy, it's rewarding and cosmetically not too ugly of a setup. 5. I could take out the plants at anytime for watering, fertilizing or running it under water to clean the medium without polluting the rocks inside the bowl (no fertilizer or hard water deposit, especially if you used RO water to wet the rocks inside the bowl). I really hope you'd give your fish-bowl idea a try and please share with us of your findings and let us know if you come up with suggestions for improvement. Other than Haraella Odorata, I believe Dendrobium Distichum is also compatible for that setup (low light, and i heard the blooms smell like vanilla) good growing my fellow orchidgrowers, Dave

My take? Less water until you get her into more light. The pot should feel light when you pick it up, because the inside is almost dry. That's when you should water. Try a wooden skewer stuck into the mix. Pull it out and when it's barely damp, then water. Maybe post a picture if you can... Andrew

Does anyone have one of these? Is it supposed to have that ring? This reminds me of a certain symptom of a certain fungal disease in orchids. They say it's been found (cultured) in Echeverias but there's not much information on the visible symptoms or diagnosis. If it were mine, I'd want to know if that's normal, healthy tissue or a sign of something else. The only two options for that would be to (I don't recommend this on such a small cutting) keep cutting to see if it eventually gives way to normal, green tissue or if the whole plant is that way. If the whole plant is that way then it doesn't do any good to have just destroyed the plant. Alternatively, you can contact your county extension office of the state Dept of Agriculture and ask them about getting the tissues tested/cultured for foreign pathogens. I just saw your name has combat in it, does that mean you live in Aus Tas? If so then I don't know how you would go about getting testing done but with their strict guidelines for flora and fauna, I'm pretty sure they'd have the resources available to you for diagnosis.