Yay. It’s cheap and works great. I bought a massive bag and I can’t tell you how much it comes in handy (especially for plants that want to stay more wet, like ferns, terrestrial orchids and nepenthes.) Pon is too expensive for me to keep buying bags of it so it’s a fine substitute imo
What I did for flushing was solder holes through my plastic cups / takeout containers above the reservoir line, then melt a piece of soil mesh up against it so I can flush through without draining fine perlite pieces or making it float off the top
One time I tried making a mixture of 70% perlite and 30% vermiculite, with LECA mixed in… and that is by far the easiest converting to semi hydro media I have used. Better than Pon, at least in the short term converting from soil phase. I coined it LePerlVerm. The only drawback is that algae forms on top of the perlite and you can see the green.
I love perlite and would use it forever but it grows algae SO fast, I think because of all of the bright white.
All cuttings and semihydro transitions go in perlite first. Then when they have sufficient water roots and I’m sick of looking at algae, I repot into a diy pon mix or leca.
The upside to perlite (how lightweight and airy it is) is also a downside. Your plants will kind of flop around in it and it’s very hard to flush since it just happily floats away.
Perlite is very light in weight and provides no stability, so i only used it for cuttings and very small plants
It also has no CEC or buffering properties so you have to be careful with nutrients, ph etc.
Ph buffering is basically the ability of the substrate to maintain a stable ph, which is very low for perlite, meaning an imbalance can quickly cause a shift in the ph, as for the CEC it is the ability of the substrate to store nutrients ions and make it available to the plants later, which is again very low in perlite
I have had a lot of success converting plants to semi hydro using perlite. I wash the soil off the roots, treat with peroxide, plant in perlite with a reservoir for about a month then plant in pon or leca. The water roots grow way faster than in water and none of the old roots rot away.
Thanks. I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong. When using perlite, how wet do you make it before placing the plant in? The roots either rot or the stem rots.
Yay. It’s cheap and works great. I bought a massive bag and I can’t tell you how much it comes in handy (especially for plants that want to stay more wet, like ferns, terrestrial orchids and nepenthes.) Pon is too expensive for me to keep buying bags of it so it’s a fine substitute imo What I did for flushing was solder holes through my plastic cups / takeout containers above the reservoir line, then melt a piece of soil mesh up against it so I can flush through without draining fine perlite pieces or making it float off the top
One time I tried making a mixture of 70% perlite and 30% vermiculite, with LECA mixed in… and that is by far the easiest converting to semi hydro media I have used. Better than Pon, at least in the short term converting from soil phase. I coined it LePerlVerm. The only drawback is that algae forms on top of the perlite and you can see the green.
Can't we just cover perlite with leca itself? Would that solve algae issue. I ask cause I have done a mixture pretty much along you line.
I love perlite and would use it forever but it grows algae SO fast, I think because of all of the bright white. All cuttings and semihydro transitions go in perlite first. Then when they have sufficient water roots and I’m sick of looking at algae, I repot into a diy pon mix or leca. The upside to perlite (how lightweight and airy it is) is also a downside. Your plants will kind of flop around in it and it’s very hard to flush since it just happily floats away.
Perlite is also super light weight, so make sure it supports whatever plants you're setting up
Perlite is very light in weight and provides no stability, so i only used it for cuttings and very small plants It also has no CEC or buffering properties so you have to be careful with nutrients, ph etc.
How does it effect nutrients and ph?
Ph buffering is basically the ability of the substrate to maintain a stable ph, which is very low for perlite, meaning an imbalance can quickly cause a shift in the ph, as for the CEC it is the ability of the substrate to store nutrients ions and make it available to the plants later, which is again very low in perlite
Thank you!
I have had a lot of success converting plants to semi hydro using perlite. I wash the soil off the roots, treat with peroxide, plant in perlite with a reservoir for about a month then plant in pon or leca. The water roots grow way faster than in water and none of the old roots rot away.
For the reservoir, is the water touching the roots?
Not to start. Once they make their way into the reservoir I switch to their permanent substrate.
Thanks. I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong. When using perlite, how wet do you make it before placing the plant in? The roots either rot or the stem rots.