>I recently had an accident with my large Nepenthes/Orchid case with a
>large pane of glass breaking. I quickly transferred all of the
>Nepenthes and orchids to my older tanks and repaired the glass by
>replacing it with a new pane-actual -ly plexiglass this time around. I
>used Dow Corning Silicone sealant to glaze the new piece in. I allowed
>the sealant to dry and later transferred the plants
> back to the case. There was little loss of humidity as I made sure to
> jack up the humidity level.
>24 hours later, the plants were fine. 48 hours later, how- ever, I
>noticed that on 4 of the plants, the leaves were becoming a light brown
>to orange color-First from the outer parts and moving toward the
>center. It was primarily older
>leaves that were affected. The pitchers on these leaves appear to be
>fine. Is it the sealant vapors that has caused this problem? Or are
>the plants suffering some kind of shock from the transfer. In any
>case,
> I have removed all of the affected plants from the case. Of note is
> that no
>Orchids(Paphs and Phals), no Sarracenia (I keep very few in the case
>anyway) and several other Nepenthes remain unaffected. Does anyone
>have any ideas or suggestions? I suspect it is the noxious vapors-does
>anyone have experience wit h this problem? While there were several
>casualties, hopefully all will pull through ok. any help is
>appreciated.
While silicone sealant is curing I believe it produces acetic acid.
With the moisture in your terrarium everything is probably getting a bit
acidic. Let the sealant dry and then put some water in the tank for a
bit. Most of the by products should be water soluable and washing the
tank out a few time after this, should get rid of most of it.
Cheers
Terry
P.S. Fish don't like it either.