Excellent advice, I greatly appreciate everyone's input and experience! I've moved to eastern Idaho about 1.5 years ago now, and have found more success in keeping the plants outdoors in the drier climate. I've been noticing much stronger spine growth in them as well, thanks to the UV rays in natura...

It might be worth looking at data for reptiles. Thank you! Could you help me know what I should be looking out for (how reptile light needs correlate to cactus needs)? Maybe I could try getting a big bulb and keep it on for 30 minutes and increase it by 15 minutes each day until the seedling shows ...

Adult barrel cacti kept outdoors start their growth only in May or June earliest so everything is OK. How big is that plant actually -- 1, 2, 5, 8 cm in diameter? Have a photo? Thank you, that's great to know! Earlier this month I noticed my F. wislizeni and E. grusonii were starting to actively gr...

Good news, I think! I looked extremely closely, and I think I see a .5 mm-long tip of a central spine coming out of the newest areole on the top of the plant. It's not much, but I think I might try to either add a UVA bulb or move it outside to stimulate plant stress and increase dense spination. I ...

It might be worth looking at data for reptiles. Thank you! Could you help me know what I should be looking out for (how reptile light needs correlate to cactus needs)? Maybe I could try getting a big bulb and keep it on for 30 minutes and increase it by 15 minutes each day until the seedling shows ...

I have a ≈2" F. latispinus/recurvus (greenwoodii?) seedling that I'm keeping indoors in a dry, bright environment under a grow light, but I'd like to help it receive some UVA to encourage dense spination before I move it outside. I'm wondering what watt UVA (reptile) bulb would produce enough U...

I thought I heard something outside my window last night, and I checked this morning, and an opossum had tipped over almost all of my pots, pulled the cacti out, and chewed a chunk out of my Echinopsis subdenudata. It even ate a bunch of the roots off my Echinocactus grusonii. From this, I came to f...

Why does it have to be a big deal? All you need is a meter that will give you a reading that is close. You're not doing anything that requires a high degree of accuracy. Just buy a cheap meter and work at getting the light correct for the plants. I guess I just make a big deal out of it; I want to ...

Thank you, yes, I love that website! Actually, about 7 years ago, I had a small plastic globe terrarium, and was looking for a small-growing Ferocactus sp. to put inside with some others (quite naïve, all that humidity and lack of airflow for a cactus); I saw that page back then, but I'd never found...

Hm, I think I will need to pick up some horticultural sand; the sand I'm using was only used in my fish tank years ago (before I switched to Seachem Flourite Black Sand), and looks identical to builder's sand in grain size variation. I had noticed that while mixing the sand into the cactus potting m...

10,000 lumens at plant surface is the minimum you want to grow plants indoors. Forget about watts and amps and everything else. 12,000 lumens is shaded sun intensity. What does this mean. You have to physically measure the light that reaches your plants. If a Lamp outputs 5000 lumens that is its ra...

Thank you, I appreciate it! I checked out miles2go.com, and he actually has a Ferocactus recurvus seedling available; after seeing the representative pic (it's pictured in a 4" pot, so it's definitely the same size plant as my plant, maybe a little larger), I'm not sure I have an F. recurvus, s...

Thank you, that helps! I have it in an unglazed terra cotta pot in a mix of about 1/3 pool filter quartz sand and 2/3 Espoma Cactus Potting Mix; I watered the seedling this morning, and the water stands in the pot for about 10 seconds, then (once starting to sink in) drains a little out the bottom a...

I heard from the seller just now. Just told me to keep it in a ventilated area, water once a week, keep it in indirect light, mild temperature. "As long as it doesn't rot, it is alive". I appreciate his advice, but it doesn't sound right to water it every week right now: with this, wouldn'...

I have a small Ferocactus recurvus seedling that I recently got from a seller in China; it was shipped bare-root, dry, and arrived after about 25 days. I immediately unpacked it, repotted it, put it under some LED grow lights, and have watered it once since then. It's been a couple weeks since I rep...