# Are there any bonsais that work in a PDF tank?



## theamazingdman (Jul 19, 2012)

Pretty much what it says above. I have to do a plant order for my petstore and I can include things in for me as long as I pay up. I want to make a miniature forest tank and wondering what bonsais would work for high humidity? Height is not an issue for me.


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## ralph (Sep 13, 2006)

Short answer: No, I don't think so.

As bonsai trees are trained and maintained to be small, rather than naturally small species - That's the art in it. (Although naturally small leaf size is looked for). I'm really not sure how practical it would be to maintain as required. e.g. repotting and root-mass reduction, pruning, wiring etc. if planted in vivaria. A 360 degree access to the tree is preferred or probably required and the wiring materials would have to be safe to not contaminate the water with metal oxides and consideration of sharp ends of wires.

That aside, I cant actually think of any suitable trees which would make a good bonsai and that would also be suitable for PDF tank conditions. Most the proven successful species of tree need the temperate climate with much cooler winters.


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## skanderson (Aug 25, 2011)

a different short answer, yes sure there are. a bonsai is a plant that is kept in a small growth habit by restricting its root system and lots of trimming. you would want to use one of the tropical woody plants that is somewhat slower growing. the plant it in a limited rooting area and keep it well pruned and shaped.


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## KarmaPolice (Apr 25, 2012)

I just ran across this method the other day, and have not kept bonsais myself. but look up "air layering" in which you might be able to find a more suitable humidity loving plant which would survive in your tank and do the whole restriction of roots/pot. etc. just a thought, good luck.

-Duncan


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## Epikmuffin (May 9, 2012)

Try these, but you gotta have a big tank for bonsai and LED spot lights for them. they require alot of light.

Ficus Religiosa
Ficus Benjamina
Ficus Retusa
schefflera arboricola

I haven't tried myself yet, but I remember my dad used to use those ficus for his paladarium

hydrophyte on dendroboard told me about this website they have a lot of cool bonsai for terrarium Glasshouseworks.com


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## pa.walt (Feb 16, 2004)

closest to a bonsai not bonsais is a ficus. schefflera need a lot of light to keep them compact. a serisa (pretty sure i spelled it wrong) would look nice in there but pretty sure the temps would not be right.


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## skanderson (Aug 25, 2011)

in my viv i have a dwarf growing ficus benjamini. it is in poor light and nutrient poor mix. it is about 2 inches tall after 6 months of growth. that would not be hard to keep up with even in a small viv.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I think the best answer to this question is probably a bit of yes and no... Are there species used in bonsai that will work in a terrarium? Sure! Some tropical species are becoming popular in Bonsai and Bonsai style circles and those species have had great track records in terrariums as well. This is the "yes".

Can they actually be grown in Bonsai style in a terrarium? This is where I'm inclined to say "no". It's like throwing a starving man at a buffet table and expecting him to only nibble politely at it. Bonsai is basically an art of growing certain species that can handle extremely adverse conditions and turning them into mini replicas of full sized plants grown under ideal conditions. To do so involves a lot of training as well as a lot of trimming to keep them controlled, and controlling their environment to keep it limited in factors that would explode their growth - the opposite of a terrarium. You'll be struggling a lot to keep the plant in check since you won't be holding back on warmth, water, or humidity. These are species that will be easier to keep small over time but you're giving them the conditions they would normally grow into a 20+ foot tree under.

I'll toss in another species of "bonsai type" - Pachira aquatica, one of the species going around under the name "money tree". They like to braid saplings together :/ But it takes trimming and small, confined root balls well (at least for a while) and may be worth trying in larger terrariums.


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## penfold (Nov 20, 2010)

KeroKero said:


> Can they actually be grown in Bonsai style in a terrarium? This is where I'm inclined to say "no". It's like throwing a starving man at a buffet table and expecting him to only nibble politely at it. Bonsai is basically an art of growing certain species that can handle extremely adverse conditions and turning them into mini replicas of full sized plants grown under ideal conditions. To do so involves a lot of training as well as a lot of trimming to keep them controlled, and controlling their environment to keep it limited in factors that would explode their growth - the opposite of a terrarium. You'll be struggling a lot to keep the plant in check since you won't be holding back on warmth, water, or humidity. These are species that will be easier to keep small over time but you're giving them the conditions they would normally grow into a 20+ foot tree under.


I have to disagree with this bit. Bonsai limits growth through root constriction and pruning, not through limitation of any other environmental factor. Providing ideal water, nutrients, light, humidity, etc is a good thing for any bonsai. I think a Ficus or any other tropical species appropriate to the given conditions could work well as a bonsai provided you are able to keep it contained in a pot and remove said pot for occasional pruning and repotting. A hole could be built into the landscape for flush placement of the pot. There are some potential problems, though. You would have to make sure the plant does not escape the confines of its pot by rooting through a drainage hole or plunking down some aerial roots. If left in place too long these roots could become anchored in the surrounding substrate. Regular removal and root pruning may be necessary to prevent this. A tree in a small pot of bonsai soil may also require regular fertilization. I don't know if frog poo would be enough. And as stated by others, most trees are going to require high light for optimal growth.


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## theamazingdman (Jul 19, 2012)

Well how about it a large vivarium where I plan to control the light via hanging mosses and canopy effects? I'm building one for a petstore where I work and was gonna have them directly below a UVB bulb and prune them ontop of an overhang with a viny plant growing on it. It'll look like a mini forest inside a vivarium.


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## Epikmuffin (May 9, 2012)

Bonsai only needs root pruning like 1 /years max, but you should prune leave and wire branches to create a mini-mature tree. well drainage and light are more critical. 
I always wanted to have like a tall rocky like vivarium then mount couple bonsai on the side to create semi-cascade or cascade style. That would be really awesome


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I didn't mean to say they are highly restricted as in the plant was starved, but they are highly controlled in a balancing act. We're also talking about rain forest species being grown in ambient humidity much lower than they would deal with as a seedling on the forest floor so even if the plant is in good health that doesn't mean it isn't actually being limited in that factor. You want a bonsai to be healthy but not growing so fast it's sending out twiggy branches every which way.

I had a bonsai guy at the National Arboretum tell me "you can grow small, or you can grow bonsai". Evidently growing bonsai plant in terrariums he considered "growing small" since there was a lack of control element with moisture and humidity that can lead to fast, uncontrolled growth (or at least faster than you'd want for training) and a number of the plants will also lose their small leaves (which in our case may actually be a good thing). The plant as a whole will still be small due to the root system being confined, but the leaves can be significantly larger like in plants like the _Pachira aquatica_ so you completely lose the miniaturization affect - but I actually love that because I wanted the bigger leaves. Ficus benjamina tend not to change leaf size too much, but you'd still want to give them good lighting to get nice compact growth when trimming. 

You don't need to keep these guys in a bonsai pot and bonsai mix but you will want to keep them limited to a pot that you can pull out easily and trim roots if needed. While ugly in a tank, there are actual air pots that if kept above the substrate would be handy for doing air pruning on the roots with little effort on your part. I'm still testing these on how well they work in humid tanks, but their biggest issue is not being able to be buried in the substrate  you lose the air pruning if you do that.... it just ends up being a pot with a lot of holes in it LOL.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

I've seen a really kick ass mountain style tank for a couple of large native snakes set up with some nice coniferous bonsai plants! VERY cool to see, and they evidently had a plant person who knew what they were doing and would check the tanks every few months. Very well done display.

I've had very young bonsai Schefflera shoot roots down and out of the pot within 6 months in the rain forest terrarium so root trimming may need to be more often than that in wetter conditions. This is a plant I'd like to try those "air pots" with, and have it mounted up on the wall or something and see if it will work, but if the humidity is too high it may not. The best situation I've grown schefflera and ficus under was in completely bare bottomed tanks where they were in pots, and the tank bottom completely dried out between waterings so the roots were not inclined to wander. Not the most visually pleasing though....


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## penfold (Nov 20, 2010)

There's nothing wrong with fast growth in bonsai. It just means that the plant has not yet reached a point where the root system is limiting growth. Bonsai are typically allowed to grow rampantly until the trunk reaches a sufficient size, at which point they are chopped back and placed in a bonsai pot in order to reduce the size of subsequent growth. A terrarium is not going to ruin a bonsai's growth form because the plant will still be limited by the only thing that should be limiting it, root space. This is, of course, provided you can keep the plant confined to an appropriately sized pot.


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## theamazingdman (Jul 19, 2012)

Well the platform I was going to make for it was hopefully going to be able o be landscaped into a cave style. I'm going to make holders to house 4" pots perfectly and have roots hanging out of the pots free floating in the air. Thanks for the info! Any breeds that would do well in high light and medium to medium high humidity? Setting up the tank to be be 80-90% humidity in the lower levels and up to room humidity near the top. Will be able to house a multitude of plants in there comfortably with the different light and humidity conditions.


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## ralph (Sep 13, 2006)

KeroKero said:


> I had a bonsai guy at the National Arboretum tell me "you can grow small, or you can grow bonsai". Evidently growing bonsai plant in terrariums he considered "growing small" since there was a lack of control element with moisture and humidity that can lead to fast, uncontrolled growth (or at least faster than you'd want for training) and a number of the plants will also lose their small leaves (which in our case may actually be a good thing)...


This was pretty much what I was getting at.



skanderson said:


> ...a bonsai is a plant that is kept in a small growth habit by restricting its root system and lots of trimming...


As I see it, Bonsai encompasses more than root reduction and pruning. The selection and harmony of the right pot, consideration to the viewing angle etc. are all factors that are part of the art. Wire is taken off for exhibiting (and when many of the photos are taken), but shaping by wiring is a large part of the art. I think aluminium wire would be safe in terraria, but I'd be wary of the copper. Both are used and the aluminium is anodised to look brown, so they appear similar. Some silicon, cork, rubber or something should probably be placed over the sharp cut-off ends of wires to ensure safety of amphibians.

If someone was not going to go to these lengths and just going to kept a young tree in a terrarium, in a small growth habit by pruning and restricting its root system - Then as far as I'm concerned, this is "grow small" rather than "grow bonsai".


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## penfold (Nov 20, 2010)

I don't see why putting glass walls around a bonsai makes it no longer a bonsai. While I agree that having it inside a terrarium might make a person less likely to do the necessary work on it, and a bonsai tree could easily become a "small" tree in this situation, a true bonsai could certainly be grown this way if one takes a little consideration to make the tree easily removable.

Though maybe the OP really just wants a "small" tree. And if so, that's ok. I guess it's good to make the differentiation. It reminds people that real bonsai growers are doing more than just trimming their trees occasionally.


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## nonliteral (Mar 26, 2012)

I've got a tiny (maybe 1/2" at the base of the trunk) Ficus benjamina "kiki" that's not been exactly thriving with the rest of my tropical bonsai, and I've been considering moving it into a viv to see if it'd do better with a bit more humidity. Whether it'd still be considered bonsai if I actually transplanted it into the viv and left it is a different question, but I suspect it'd still be a slow enough grower that it'd be easily manageable as a viv plant. 

My real curiosity though is whether ficus are actually safe around frogs? I know there is lot of creeping ficus used in vivs (and I use some myself), and while I've never had a bad reaction handling (small) ficus trees, I there are a lot of people who *do* get bad skin irritation (and in some cases eye irritation, respiratory distress, etc.) from handling ficus and being exposed to to the sap. 

Does anyone know whether PDFs are also susceptible to this?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

penfold said:


> Though maybe the OP really just wants a "small" tree. And if so, that's ok. I guess it's good to make the differentiation. It reminds people that real bonsai growers are doing more than just trimming their trees occasionally.


This was a big reason for me bringing it up... I've seen people really ticked to see this rather expensive bonsai they bought go a bit bonkers in their tank, or notice something about it change (like leaf size or what not) because the change in conditions. Getting a young bonsai tree of the right type can be awesome, buying a larger one that is years old and really $$ then it's kinda painful! 

There are also more options for small trees (if you can get seedlings) and keeping them small than going with bonsai  You can also start looking at some shrubs with nice large leaves too (if that's what you're looking for) as some of them can be influenced by pot size, especially some of the species grown for houseplants or as greenhouse subjects.




> My real curiosity though is whether ficus are actually safe around frogs? I know there is lot of creeping ficus used in vivs (and I use some myself), and while I've never had a bad reaction handling (small) ficus trees, I there are a lot of people who do get bad skin irritation (and in some cases eye irritation, respiratory distress, etc.) from handling ficus and being exposed to to the sap.


A huge amount of true tropicals have various issues like this. Another example is that some Philodendron can give rashes just like poison ivy, and Diffenbachia has annoying hairs as well that can cause varying issues with people and vegetarians giving these a taste (which is why these were developed as defenses for). I've not seen frogs react to any of these but it's also a case of me trying not to over expose the critters to nasty tasting stuff. I don't do massive trimming in the tank so that there is a lot of sap everywhere and aim for just a few snips here and there. I usually only see a little bit forming a scab on the cut, but you can always wipe up an excessive bleeder.

If this is a potted plant you can pull out of the tank then I'd recommend pulling it out, trimming it, and letting the sap dry before putting it back in the tank


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## jacobi (Dec 15, 2010)

KeroKero said:


> I've seen a really kick ass mountain style tank for a couple of large native snakes set up with some nice coniferous bonsai plants! VERY cool to see, and they evidently had a plant person who knew what they were doing and would check the tanks every few months. Very well done display.


Any chance of some photos...?


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Ugh I wish, it was back in the time when digital cameras were rare and I didn't have one. I'm not even sure what little zoo it was because I was traveling so much at the time... I believe it was for pine or gopher snakes. 

Variance Design looks to have a similar idea with their Timber Rattlesnake Habitat... not bonsai, but I do think that's a Rhododendron smack in the middle of it which I imagine is a good candidate for a roots restricted temperate set up  Helps when your snake isn't as inclined to climb into the plants you're trying to keep small, so they don't squish it!!


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## theamazingdman (Jul 19, 2012)

Well the entire area I'm using to plant them is made so the plants are easily removable via 4" pot holders where the roots hang down. The tank actually is big enough to where I can go completely around the plants without squishing anything.


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

Sounds like a great tank to play with the small growers then. Are you going for a specific look? I know a number of Ficus were mentioned already, Schefflera can be kept small with regular aggressive trimming, and _Pachira aquatica_ is a new favorite of mine (once I unbraid the damn things). Ficus keep the smaller leaves, but I went with the Pachira because I wanted larger leaves (which it gets with more moisture), but a few of the non-bonsai favored Ficus get that too.

I'd also look at other "houseplants" that tend to be popular for 6" pots up to plants that are shrub sized and look for the ones that have spider mites as one of their biggest pest issues. Spider mites are hell on high humidity plants grown in lower humidity like a house, and those are classically the plants that have done the best for me in humid terrariums. For some reason I really start to see the shrub sized stuff at the 4-6" pot size rather than the smaller 3" size.

Hope that gives you some ideas?


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## theamazingdman (Jul 19, 2012)

Yea that does help quite a bit. The plants will be in individual pots due to it being in a pet store and I have to make money off the tanks somehow. The tank is massive though (50" tall x 28" wide x 30" deep I believe) so I can fit a few.


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