FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

ok, so I picked up some large lava rocks (1" diameter) at home depot the other day for my dewy pines. today, I had a little coruscation. I realized that since my ping roots are 1" at most, I could fill the bottom of the pot with lava rocks since the roots would never go down that far. this saves a lot of money since quality ping soil is rather expensive compared to the $3 per square foot lava rocks.

**I'm not sure if I can use store-bought lava rocks since they might be leaching minerals into the soil. any suggestions would be very helpful. Thanks!

What mix do you use for your pings(especially gigantea and moranensis)? I would pour some distilled water into a basket, measure the TDS, put a lava rock in the bucket, wait a while(at least 1 day), measure the TDS. If the TDS went up significantly I would not use it, if it didn't then I would try it on a few pings.

sanguinearocks101 wrote:What mix do you use for your pings(especially gigantea and moranensis)? I would pour some distilled water into a basket, measure the TDS, put a lava rock in the bucket, wait a while(at least 1 day), measure the TDS. If the TDS went up significantly I would not use it, if it didn't then I would try it on a few pings.

the lava rocks are not really the soil. they are just a cheap filler for the bottom of the pot so I don't have to fill it all the way.
will the lava rock leech nutrients up into the roots?

sanguinearocks101 wrote:What mix do you use for your pings(especially gigantea and moranensis)? I would pour some distilled water into a basket, measure the TDS, put a lava rock in the bucket, wait a while(at least 1 day), measure the TDS. If the TDS went up significantly I would not use it, if it didn't then I would try it on a few pings.

also FYI I already gave the rocks a good rinse

1" diameter is huge. Will they even be able to wick up water (I'm assuming tray method)?

Would you be able to get the same effect by using small pots? I tend to use 2-3 in pots for pings.

Also, ping mix doesn't have to be insanely expensive. You can get a 50 lb bag of turface for 10-15 bucks. I assume other ingredients can be obtained for similar prices.

You can easily grow Mexican Pings in a 1/1/1 mix of sand/vermiculite/perlite, you can throw a little peat in there just for fun if you wish. Honestly, you can grow them in just about anything within reason. I once grew a bunch of agnata in a completely empty dish (except for the pings of course) for 6 months and they were just fine. Right now I'm growing some outside in a large pot of regular dirt I bought at the hardware store and some gravel, so far so good.

I keep mine (some of the tempramental ones) in a mix of crushed oysters: perlite 1:1.

I think Sanguinearocks101 is on the right track. Your question is whether or not lava would be a safe and cheap filler, so experiment. You don't need distilled water to experiment, just document the TDS every day. One thing to consider though, temperature will affect conductivity in water, which is what TDS meters measure; conductivity. The higher the temperature, the higher the TDS reading. Some high-end ones will adjust for temperature on their own.
Put some water in a container and place the container in a spot that will remain steady in temperature and be unlikely to get in your way.
Measure the TDS without the rock, document TDS.
Rinse the heck out of the rock to remove any dust, dirt, particles, plant matter, bugs, etc., and place in the water, document TDS.
Measure TDS daily, document.
I would do it for a long time, probably at least a month, to get a good measure of any leaching. This time period will show you accumulated TDS from potential leaching, as well as the TDS being concentrated from evaporation. Both things would be factors in using them in your pots, and both could potentially be countered by changing the water.
Unless the TDS increases dramatically over the course of the experiment, go for it.