Aloe vera from tesco?
- Thread starter siaana
- Start date
Yes
Hi @siaana! I have questions because, well of course I do! ? Is this an aloe you already have or are you planning to buy one? The reason this is important is that plant places just load plants up, (especially succulents) with fertilizers and insecticides. If it's been in your house a while, and you don't use those types of chemicals, you're probably OK putting it in. Otherwise, repot it (see below), put it elsewhere and wait until it starts to show new growth before putting it in the enclosure.
Do you have a plant light in your enclosure? You'll need one for an aloe - they love a lot of light. There are many threads here about plant lights. Personally, I like SANSI's lights. Aloes are not too crazy about humidity. If you mist by hand, just don't mist the aloe!
Finally - these are suggestions, not questions I guess - I have the best luck "burying" my plants in their pots up to the rim in the substrate. This keeps the roots from going bonkers (that's a technical term) and the plants pretty much get the water they need right from the substrate, through the terracotta. Oh yeah - I recommend terracotta pots!
If your pot is not new, you'll want to sterilize by soaking it in a 9:1 water to bleach solution for 60 minutes; then let it soak in pure water for at least that long (until there's no hint of bleach). The soil you use in any pots planted in the enclosure this way have to be safe for your tort (in case he decides to sit in it and munch on dirt or leaves or something). That means no perlite, no fertilizers, no insecticides, no little stones (especially white ones that they could mistake for calcium). I roll my own potting soil with a mix of 1:1:0.25 top soil:coir or peat moss:sand. I sift the topsoil and sterilize it and the sand in my oven (180°F for 30 minutes). It's worked for everything I've planted in it so far.
This is probably more than you were expecting! Sorry about that, but it's worth doing this stuff right. Let us know how you make out.
