Plant question.

Lpsouth1978

Avid Member
I have a Gold Capella in my veiled enclosure and it has been doing well for about a month. The last few days it has been dropping A LOT of leaves and I don't know why. Is it because the light is only above it so the top of the plant gets all the light? Any help would be great. Here are a couple pics of the tree and one of the leaves I pulled out this morning.




 
advice is in red below
The temperature at the root ball may be too low, may be some nutrient deficienc(y/ies) or over watering. Lighting changes can be the problem or maybe even the presence of bacteria/fungus/mold in the root system... Couldnt tell without investigating all of these factors. Look up a care sheet for schefflerra on google, they helped me a lot. Surprisingly this plant should be in the warm dry gradient of your enclosure.

Any one of these could be the culprit but I suspect nutrients and light.

In my own experience, when the temps are too low and the plant is over watered the leaves at the bottom will drop, yet they always remained the same bright green color before turning directly to brown.

The aggregated (white spotted/striped) variety I have turned yellow and brown is spots and dropped its lower leaves when I increased the light reaching the upper levels. I think it is the change itself rather than an abundance or deficiency. They are pretty hardy plants that find a way to survive nearly anything...

Try to add a bright white 6000k+ CFL bulb to the area that is looking sad and see if it helps.
technically any spectrum of light above 5700k is great for vegetative growth. At a 12on12off light cycle all plants attempt to flower, which requires more energy so they tend to eat themselves in an attempt to reproduce themselves. changing the spectrum of the light and having the occasional "late night" or longer light cycle will keep this from happening.


A nice warm bat or worm poo smoothie never hurts as well. Make sure you remove all feeders before you do this and have ample drainage. Even though its natural it is not a good thing for your cham to be exposed to.
 
The schefflera family are known to shed quite a bit anyway. They like well drained sandy soils. I'm with Dom on reducing its amount of water. Unlike the typical philodendrons who like and can deal with moist soils, scheffleras like to dry out a bit before water again. They're heat and drought tolerant plants naturally, and do better on the side of less watering than to much watering to where its soil is soaking wet.
 
Looks like too much water.. 3-4 minutes 4 times a day is 12-16 minutes of water daily..you could try repotting it, its pretty healthy so you could take some of the roots off horizontal and 6 inches..as long as its no more than half, put some nice stones about an inch or two thick in the bottom of the pot and a layer of screen between the two. Your basically making a false bottom so the pot gets better faster drainage and the soil doesn't stay so wet
 
Looks like too much water.. 3-4 minutes 4 times a day is 12-16 minutes of water daily..you could try repotting it, its pretty healthy so you could take some of the roots off horizontal and 6 inches..as long as its no more than half, put some nice stones about an inch or two thick in the bottom of the pot and a layer of screen between the two. Your basically making a false bottom so the pot gets better faster drainage and the soil doesn't stay so wet

does your mist come out as a foggy mist or does it come out like rain?
I water 8x at 2m in the form of rain, approx 3/4 gallon per day and have no problems. The hibiscus seem to be the only plant that struggles in these conditions.

The false bottom rock drainage system is great advice but Use a soil designed for house plants.
The sand mixture has been complete crap for me.

Covering the top layer of soil with river rocks is very efficient method ensuring your cham does not eat the perlite, which causes impactions.

Happy Frog makes a great soil that retains its nutrients and drains perfectly with the rock botttom and river rock top.

This adds weight to the enclosure as well, helping to prevent earth quakes when you walk around. Most do not keep their chams in the upper levels of their homes though so I am likely one of the few that has this problem...
 
The mist is in the form of a very fine, almost fog like, mist. I will try repotting it today and see if it does any better. I have rocks on top of the soil right now, but I did not repot it after I got it.
 
Yea, try and pull it out to repot it and loosen up the roots as much as possible before you put it in the new pot. Shaking the soil and plant helps to get more fresh soil inbetween the roots while backfilling the new pot.

Your watering is fine, are you able to measure the run off that you collect in one day?

The poor roots are likely sucking for air like a buss full of asthmatic children trapped and packed like sardines in the middle of a grateful dead show.

They can be pretty tightly bound so be patient, the less you break the less time it will take to heal.

You can probably find a very detailed guide of how to take care of this plant by searching for schefflerra aboricola care on the googler
 
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