The relevant information is in my 'ten minute terrarium' article -
link near the bottom of the page (but hey, read the rest of it too :)
...
> I'm just a little confused :) Are you saying that the light will fry
> the plants or do you mean that the heat from the light will fry the
The light alone will damage the plants if it's bright enough, though
excessive heat will only help to fry them even quicker. Most of the
Utrics in my S.American terrarium need shading from the cool but
bright lights, or they go brown and crispy quite quickly. The
Heliamphoras and Brocchinia love it.
> plants. When I started growing CP's indoors I was advised to give the
> plants as much light as possible with out cooking them with the heat
> (both convective and radiant) of the lights. Do you think that there
> is an optimal level of brightness for Nep's and that if you go even
> brighter than this optimal level the plant suffers? I'm starting to
Certainly is - my N.mirabilis insists on growing towards the light
on the side of my Nep tent, and those leaves crisp although the
temperature is still only ~85F. The rest of the plant is OK.
> build my 3rd generation terrarium and I would really like to get the
> light right this time.
If you can filter the light through a translucent sheet of white
plastic/paper/whatever, you should be able to reduce hotspots like
this and achieve more uniformly happy growth. Perhaps if you backed
the plastic with foil/mylar you could restore the total light level
and save electricity while spreading the focus?
Hope this helps,
Peter
snail:Peter Cole,17 Wimmerfield Cr. :mailto:carnivor@bunyip.demon.co.uk
Killay, SWANSEA SA2 7BU, WALES :http://www.angel.co.uk/flytrap/index.htm
vox:+44 1792 205214 :ftp://www.angel.co.uk/pub/flytrap