Ficus dying. :/

[JlaPinska]

I am almost 99% sure the ficus in my cham's reptibreeze is dying. i don't know how, or why. i have kept up with it very well. the 2 umbrellas and 4 pothos are doing great. but the ficus, has only about 5 leaves left on it. a lot of the upper part of the branches are dry and breaking off. there is very nil new growth, and it's all on the underside of what used to be a huge bushy ficus!

it's the centerpiece of his cage, i have vines and sticks and all kinds of other things weaved through it, pinned, etc! it's a 4ft tall ficus. it fits his reptibreeze EXACT. i could get another but what's the point if it's just going to die! i don't understand. i even keep a stick in it so i can tell how easily when it needs watering. i took extra special care of it. it will be the first plant i ever killed

the umbrellas are tiny. like 1ft tall lol, so i have no damned idea what i am going to do when i have to remove the ficus. the cage will be empty of cover!

Should i preen it and attempt to save it? It grows so slowly, it would take ages to get it back to looking like a tree again.. what would you guys do?!?

i take it back, i once killed an orchid. so it will be plant #2 if it dies

 

[MsCham]

Need more info...

Describe dying? lol Pictures of the plant, the plant in it's enclosure (ex: how close it is to lamps/other stuff) including the side of the pot that its in. It may just be time to transplant it. But I'd need to see it. However, if you lift the plant out (and if it needs to be transplanted, this will often happen easily) and you see more roots than dirt, then you need a bigger pot for it so it can keep growing, otherwise it'll become root bound... and yeah, die. But it could also be how close it is to the light, too much/too little water, or damaged roots because something has burrowed into it. So many possibilities! I wouldn't cut it, that wont do anything for it.

 

[JlaPinska]

here is when i first put it in

today

the UVB is over the top of it because that's where he likes to be when he is under it. the heat lamp is on the back over a vine where he likes to bask. i expected it to drop leaves towards the back but this is ridiculous. a friend told me just to wait it out because they are fickle and drop leaves if you look at them wrong but as you can see after 2 months, it doesn't look so good.

 

[JlaPinska]

the white bulb overtop of everything is a plant grow bulb. but i only use it when it's nasty and the sun isnt out, which isn't very often

 

[MsCham]

Oh dear. Thats a drastic change! Unfortunately what I'm going to tell you isn't going to help, as you'll either have to take it out to save it or... well, yeah.

Ficus indoor plants do well with indirect light - meaning smaller ficus plants in your type of enclosure would do best because they'd have some distance between the light and the branches. I originally had my ficus plant directly under my 3 lamps and it started to shed leaves just like this, but then I moved them to the other side of the cage (only a couple inches) and it started to thrive again. Unfortunately it looks like the plant might be a bit big to do this, but you can try to move the lights to one side of the enclosure, and try to create as much distance that way.

Other problems would be drafts if the enclosure is located next to a window - they don't tolerate this well. Just like your cham, it needs a high humidity - so if there is a lower than recommended humidity for your cham hike it up!

Also “sap” dripping from a ficus houseplant, which is actually honeydew from an invading pest, is a sign of an infestation. Treating the plant with neem oil is a good way to handle any of these pest issues. But I'm still putting money on the fact that its the light so close to it - but just in case, thats a note there in case you see "sap"!

What you could also try for the light, since its a beautiful plant with its leaves and fits that enclosure very nicely, is finding a thick but porous (non-flammable) material (so screen or something of the like) and secure it above the plant, particularly where that UVB lamp is - not of course directly under it. But like have a rectangular piece hanging down from the top so it creates a 90degree angle (a quick graphic here is going to help... but bear with me its going to be quick and crap!)

Alright, so the yellow, is obviously your UVB lamp, and the red is the piece of screen you'd have hangling down to block some of the light from one part of the plant. It wont save all of the plant, but it'll hopefully encourage some growth on the other side of the cage. And your cham will be able to choose his spots. He will recognize it as a sunny vs. shady area and regulate himself accordingly, so you dont have to worry about that!

Otherwise, thats as much info as I can give you! Good luck! It'll have a quicker recovery if you take it out for a couple weeks and put it beside the enclosure, then put it back in once you've gotten that piece figured out, but then it would be fairly empty for your cham... so its a toss up!

This is an old setup of mine, but I have two small ficus plants in it - one top left, and a bigger thriving one bottom right that is hidden from most of the light by my dracaena and my purple wandering jew. I've since changed it so that both ficus are near the bottom, but this set up still wasn't bad because while the left ficus wasn't thriving, it wasn't dying either at that distance.

That said, if it ever gets to a point that you just want to say screw it with the ficus, I highly recommend a dracaena tree/plant - they come in various different variations and are one of the hardier tropical plants I know of. (When you got to buy it it'll always say Dracaena ______ - and this is what I mean that it comes in so many different variations, and most of them wont look the same, but any Dracaena is non-toxic to chams and hardy as hell) You can't over water it because it will just drain out, it likes moderate to high sunlight (though if its getting too much light it will get brown tips - but wont drop the leaves completely). Only problem you'd have with this one is that it grows FAST - so you'd have to look at pruning it back every 4 months or so so it doesn't overcrowd your cage. But other than that... yeah!

Good luck! Hope that helped!

 

[JlaPinska]

thank you! there's not much space on the top no matter how i try to corner the lights i can't, so i think i'm going to take the ficus out and just use it as his free range. next week i will go and get more plants and it's funny you mention dracaena that is exactly what i was going to put in there. my only concern is that he is so big, that type of plant might not be enough for him. if it's not, i'll still get a drac, but i will look for a much shorter ficus OR a really big umbrella. his humidity never drops below 50% even at night, i keep a meter in there that keeps tabs on it. the window, there is actual two windows, one is a storm window. so there's no draft thankfully. before i got the cham, i had a parrot and his cage sat there as well. a friend came over and had a look at the enclosure today and said he would bet his money it's the UVB light because the ficus is so close soo definitely going with a shorter plant and i will just add more of the plastic foliage vine thingys.

there are some natural vines that grow in the woods nearby. would i be able to use those if i scrub them?

 

[JlaPinska]

i also have the little ladder haha it's exactly the same as the one shown in your pic lol i just don't know where to hang it from. i have a dowel perch as well and not sure how to mount it

 

[MsCham]

I've used natural branches that have fallen off of outside trees. The concern here are the pesticides you might be exposing your cham to. I chose an area to collect them from that I knew was not cared for by anyone - thus would have less chance of pesticides on them. That said, I did soak them in 100% vinegar for a while and scrubbed them pretty good. I've heard people on here talk about baking grapevines - but I'm not sure if that applies to other branches, or why they would be doing that, if its to cure it or something. Personally, I considered that too much of a fire hazard (I live in a 4 lvl apartment - setting off fire alarms... not a good idea!) but I havent had any issues with how I did it.

Mounting stuff has been an issue for me as well. Not sure if these would work for other cages, but you could look at them and see if you can get them shipped to where you live! If I had money to upgrade, I would be upgrading to these cages and the built in supports that are already there. Beautiful design! No more problems with mounting stuff, meaning more options for your cage design. *sighs*

 

[JlaPinska]

yesss dragon ledges are the best. eventually i will buy a bunch for the back wall so i can add some small ferns and succulents. that wandering jew is that the viney one? i could get one of those and split it up like i did the pothos and mount them. i find the best way is to mount everything with like 16 gauge steel wire

 

[MsCham]

Yes the purple wandering jew is the vines. I need to get a picture of my current set up... but I took out the bin cuz it was taking up too much space and got one of those lamp holder things and got the rope things for hanging plants and did it that way - that way it takes up less space, crickets can go underneath and hide a bit to give my cham a run for his money, and its also hella easier to clean the base with it off the ground!! That said, I would really love to have mounted stuff. I've just reached my budget for the month. >.< So gotta wait for that... I'll take a picture and attach it later so you get a better idea! The nice thing about wandering jews is that if a piece breaks off, you can put it in water, and roots will grow, starting a whole other plant! Quite easy for sustainability in case one gets too big, or you think one is starting to die... lol Though I havent had a single issue with that in my set up. Its been thriving like crazy!!

 

[MsCham]

There - so it's still somewhat hard to see, but theres 4 rope-looking things below the thermometer, and those go around the base of the pot so there's about a two inch gap below it, and then the lines trail a bit on the bottom because its been growing so freaking fast. The lamp holder, which you can find at most pet stores, is the black metal thing you can see beside the tree, it provides a solid grounding for pretty much everything else in there, including the ladder, the vines, and obviously the wandering jew. The wandering jew being that close to the bottom also gives the crickets something to climb up to get to the top stuff, instead of staying at the bottom. This set up has worked a lot better in comparison to some of my others, and my cham loves it - especially all the vines to choose from!

 

[JlaPinska]

looks great! i think i have the same meter as well that you have strapped there lol. what size is that cage? i will look for a wandering jew as soon as we go plant shopping. it would look great divided up with my pothos

 

[JlaPinska]

this is similar to what i will be replacing the ficus with. i know it's more pothos, but the one i found was grown upwards through coconut husk and the entire piece is about 3ft tall. then i need to find a jew and bigger branches i should be okay

 

[JlaPinska]

https://flic.kr/p/tvMQo4 this is very similar to what i saw at walmart except way more vines and about 3"

 

[MsCham]

That would be awesome! And it would learn to climb your enclosure stuff as well after it gets too long for that stick!

 

[JlaPinska]

i cant wait to buy it. the ones they have are much more bushy and long vines on them already. i might go out and cut more sticks too, not sure.