Potted umbrella plants dying

[TySelzDaKron]

I have live potted umbrella plants in my panther cages and they started dying rapidly. They have shed almost all of their leaves. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

 

[cyberlocc]

Do you have a grow light?

How is your soil setup to drain?

 

[TySelzDaKron]

I just have a 5.0 flouro on it. I really didn't think about a grow light. That might help. Lol

 

[Crashbandit05]

I have a 2 1/2 ft tall schefflera as well. When I moved it from my window sill to my cage, it dropped all it's leaves from the bottom to about 6-8 inches up. But with my grow lights, the top part of the plant is growing like crazy.

 

[melble68]

My first thought was also about the drainage of the soil. 50/50 play sand to potting soil will do the trick.

 

[Calval24]

I also have an umbrella plant as well as a ficus. Do the grow lights have to be directly on top of them or can I put the plant towards the front and have the light in the back middle? I'm using the Jungle dawn 40 watt spot

 

[Crashbandit05]

I also have an umbrella plant as well as a ficus. Do the grow lights have to be directly on top of them or can I put the plant towards the front and have the light in the back middle? I'm using the Jungle dawn 40 watt spot

As far as I know, having the grow lights on top will help the plant go.. up. If you have the light mounted on the side then the plant will eventually turn to face that direction. All of my lights are situated on top of my cage and the schefflera is growing like crazy.

 

[guanagator]

The plants will benefit greatly from a T5 grow bulb, a dual bulb T5 fixture with one grow bulb and one UVB bulb will keep everything happy inside, plant and chameleon. Quad fixture you can add a couple daylight bulbs and things will really be looking good!

 

[WAMBO]

Until you can figure out a solution, you might want to remove them and let them recover, replacing them with others. You can rotate them inside the habitat too.

 

[Lathis]

Even with grow lights, I never had much luck with umbrella plants. They were always scraggly and prone to drop their leaves. Much better luck with the massive pothos.

 

[ChamNewton]

T-5s are awesome as guanagator said. I use Ocean Sun bulbs 10,000 k high intensity for plants & Tropic sun 5500 k daylight bulbs for herps.