They weren’t very happy to begin with, but in the last few days, they really look awful. Especially my ping.

I’ve read they both like lots of light, so I placed them into my growtent.

But this certainly isn’t the answer. For me, it doesn’t look like sunburn. Sure, the colors now look more bright, but I’ve also put them a few times outside into the sun.

My problem is, that the lower leaves constantly get mushy, and that both often don’t produce lots of dew.
Is the surface/ substrate too dry?

The Drosera alicae is sitting in its original substrate, which was peat with perlite, and I’ve put a layer of LECA to fill up the rest, which is about 2 cm (1"). It’s often sitting in a bit of (pure) water, but I regularly flush it out and let it dry up a little bit in between (spongy texture).

The Pinguicula (probably agnata, unspecified) is looking worse.
I have it sitting in LECA, and water it with a heavily diluted fertilizer (about 1/3 of what my other houseplants get) and regularly soak and flush it with pure water.
It looked way better a week ago, but is slowly declining, even before I put it into the light.
Is it rotting?

  • Beegzoidberg@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    I’ve read/ understood that any minerals are a big problem for these plants, and I bet the leca provide enough minerals to cause issues. I’d repot asap into a peat/ horticultural sand mix and hope they bounce back, but do more research to confirm my thought process.

    • Günther Unlustig 🍄@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      I soaked and flushed the LECA multiple times. It showed no minerals left with my EC meter.

      From what I’ve heard, pings do well in mineralic mixes like pumice, so LECA shouldn’t be much of a problem. It looked pretty good for the last few weeks, but suddenly not anymore…

      • Beegzoidberg@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        That’s fair, I hadn’t even heard of it till I came across this post: https://mander.xyz/post/28051700

        It’s possible that even though you washed it, the leca are “leeching” minerals. I totally agree on the pumice thing, in theory they should both work. But I don’t know if that works out in practice, for instance horticultural sand is also branded as “inert” media but is absolutely safe for carnivores as well as pumice. Either way, best of luck figuring out what’s going on. That’s pretty frustrating, I’ve certainly killed some drosera and not known why.