FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

In August/September I decided I needed to greatly upgrade my little fish tank set up. I decided to go the Ikea greenhouse cabinet route. What I got was nothing special; just had the glass shelves that came with it. Then I bought lights and a humidifier. The final product wasn't great. The lights were WAY too hot and it kept messing up the humidifier. It was usually around 80-90F in there until the lights shut off for the night (my helis HATED me). Finally I got around to doing more upgrades!

I found this amazing website that sells custom shelves for Ikea cabinet growing. I think they are made from clear acrylic plastic so they're very sturdy. They have lots of holes to allow the air from the humidifier to seep through. They even have corner shelves for sale so even more light can get to the bottom plants.

In the end I got two corner shelves and much cooler lights. It looks much better and the plants love it too!

If anyone is curious, here's where I got the shelves

Here's how it looks now (I took some of the worst looking plants out. Some that are still in there don't look amazing but the old lights were cookin everything in there!)

looks nice! just curious, what type of lights are they (are they shop LED lights from home depot?) Also, what is the name of those round pellets you have? I assume it is for humidity.

Supercazzola wrote: ↑Sun Mar 19, 2023 12:01 pm looks nice! just curious, what type of lights are they (are they shop LED lights from home depot?) Also, what is the name of those round pellets you have? I assume it is for humidity.

So sorry I missed this!
These are the lights I got. Just regular T8s. The pellets are called Leca. They are expanded clay balls. I found some at Ikea. You can get them or something similar on Amazon.

Unfortunately I found a flaw! With the type of shelves I got, I can't put the plants in large watering trays and they all need to be in individual trays. This makes it VERY hard to keep track of when to water everything. The heat from the lights makes everything bone dry in just 2-3 days. So many issues! I really don't have a green thumb lol....

There are all sorts of things you can use as small or individual trays. Check out the thread on repurposed containers. Plastic trays that ground meat or raw mushrooms come in can work well. Can even use trays from sushi if your grocer carries such. For more individualized trays, deli containers work well or even the lids from peanut butter and such.

My problem isn't really finding the trays to use, it's more having to keep track of all the plants in them. The cabinet is now completely full of plants and it's so easy to miss things. Especially because of how fast everything dries out in there. I guess what really bugs me is that whenever I water I usually miss a plant because of how chuck full it is and it's always a different one. Then that plant look awful for a while and once it recovers it happens again *sigh*. I really don't know how I always miss something as I have to water the same plants every other day. Sorry for rambling, just needed to talk about my frustrations lol.

Sundews69 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 17, 2023 10:59 pm Especially because of how fast everything dries out in there.

Hmm what kind of humidifier are you using?