Hey I would like to chat with some people who have experience with alocasia especially hydroponics and root rot.
I love Alocasia and have been experimenting with them for over a year.
My experience in soil: they don't grow very well, they are easily too dry and too easily too wet. It is a lot of work to water them appropriately.
Then I learned about hydroponics and tried to get them used to it. Oh well. It took an extremely long time and there were some losses from tuber and root rot (I use coarse grained pon, mixed myself). Then I had the idea of removing the roots, as they rot quickly, and placing the tubers in perlite. Wow! First roots after a few days and gigantic root systems after 1 to 2 weeks. Then I had the idea of repotting them into coarse-grained pon again. First the plant grew quickly and then again root and tuber rot??? Why, when she grew well in wet perlite...
And then I see people on Youtube and Instagram wo just put them in water and leca and no Problems at all??? XD
I apologize for any English mistakes, I'm from Germany

What is coarse grained pon?

DaisyI said:

What is coarse grained pon?

It's just like Pon but the stones are bigger (I learned that plants with thick roots like Alocasias and Philodendron prefer it)

Hey
I'm new to house plants and my bday is coming up I was wondering if alocshias are easy plants? And if so which do you recommend?

The_bisexual_pothos said:Hey
I'm new to house plants and my bday is coming up I was wondering if alocshias are easy plants? And if so which do you recommend?

They are my absolute favorite plants but after one year of trying they are still challenging. If you want to try them I would recommend cheap ones so you don't cry if they die xD (i dont know which ones are common in your area) also my nummer one trick is removing every root from the tuber (sounds disturbing but really works best) washing it and placing the tuber in wet perlite.

Amelie1414 said:

They are my absolute favorite plants but after one year of trying they are still challenging. If you want to try them I would recommend cheap ones so you don't cry if they die xD (i dont know which ones are common in your area) also my nummer one trick is removing every root from the tuber (sounds disturbing but really works best) washing it and placing the tuber in wet perlite.

Ok cool I'm going to succulent empire for my birthday I might be able to find one there also just to make sure tubers are like little balls on the plant like a zz plant propagation? And the tuber will grow into a plant like a seed? Sorry I'm very new to house plants and the hardest one I own is a pepperomia polypoytra

The_bisexual_pothos said:

Ok cool I'm going to succulent empire for my birthday I might be able to find one there also just to make sure tubers are like little balls on the plant like a zz plant propagation? And the tuber will grow into a plant like a seed? Sorry I'm very new to house plants and the hardest one I own is a pepperomia polypoytra

When you remove the soil you can see the tuber its where the leafes and roots grow out of. Maybe you can also find smal (mostly) brown baby tubers. You can also place them in wet perlite. You can also find lots of videos on yt where they show how to do it. But as I said I would rcommend removing the soil roots so the plant can grow new ones that will thrive better in hydroponics. (Alocasias can survive without roots and grow new ones fastly.)

Amelie1414 said:

When you remove the soil you can see the tuber its where the leafes and roots grow out of. Maybe you can also find smal (mostly) brown baby tubers. You can also place them in wet perlite. You can also find lots of videos on yt where they show how to do it. But as I said I would rcommend removing the soil roots so the plant can grow new ones that will thrive better in hydroponics. (Alocasias can survive without roots and grow new ones fastly.)

Great! If I get one for my birthday I will send a picture of how I have it set up to make sure I have it right!

Not to be the curmudgeon in the room but... You are both new members so I will try to be gentle. Amelie1414 started this thread and asked a question about growing Alocasia in water culture.

The_bisexual_pothos, you have hijacked the thread. We often get sidetracked and the conversation steers way off course but not until after the original question has been answered and re-answered and re-answered to death. I know Amelie1414 is answering your questions but we should be answering Amelie's questions.

Pothos, if this is a question you would like to pursue, it would be polite to start your own thread then we could answer your question.

Amelie, if this is the direction you want your thread to go (the pleasures of growing Alocasia), let us know.

The short answer is...you keep getting root rot because alocasia are terrestrial plants meant to grow in a soil based media. After growing them for 40 years, this is my earth shattering conclusion. I cannot think of a single Alocasia that wants to be an emmersed aquatic. PON, lava rock, mineral substrate and Aliflor )aka LECA) can all alter pH in a manner that some plants will not tolerate, making it harder for them to uptake nutrients and grow roots.

If you are having problems growing alocasia in soil, it is most likely NOT because of the soil. Its because of your other conditions. They do not really like to live inside the house. They like to live outdoors, with good airflow, lots of nice light, and humidity. They don;t really make good long term houseplants

If the Alocasia was growing well in the perlite, why did you change it for the Pon? Even in water there are tiny tiny root hairs that do all the work. Roots grown in water are especially fragile. Whatever you start the Alocasia in, stick with that.

Gina could be right, maybe it won't work but maybe it will. Just don't repot to a new medium once you start.

I don't know why starting in perlite works but Pon doesn't. It couple be how the water is held against the roots. Pon certainly isn't going to hold any oxygen.

Gina1960 said:The short answer is...you keep getting root rot because alocasia are terrestrial plants meant to grow in a soil based media. After growing them for 40 years, this is my earth shattering conclusion. I cannot think of a single Alocasia that wants to be an emmersed aquatic. PON, lava rock, mineral substrate and Aliflor )aka LECA) can all alter pH in a manner that some plants will not tolerate, making it harder for them to uptake nutrients and grow roots.

If you are having problems growing alocasia in soil, it is most likely NOT because of the soil. Its because of your other conditions. They do not really like to live inside the house. They like to live outdoors, with good airflow, lots of nice light, and humidity. They don;t really make good long term houseplants

Thanks for your answer! I have over 50 alocasias and they really are my favorites. It's very difficult to recreate natural conditions here, so I tried different methods with the baby plants to make them grow better. I've found that my alocasias grow best in perlite by far. I didn't have a single problem, they grew fast and extremely large with significantly more leaves than those in soil. The problem with perlite is that it doesn't stabilize the plants enough. I then researched about Pon and Leca and also left water in both media for a long time to measure the values. Leca can strongly influence the water values, Pon rather not. I then chose a coarse pon so that there is more air and larger gaps between the stones. My problem is that some alocasia still get root rot in the substrate even though they were even wetter in perlite.

DaisyI said:If the Alocasia was growing well in the perlite, why did you change it for the Pon? Even in water there are tiny tiny root hairs that do all the work. Roots grown in water are especially fragile. Whatever you start the Alocasia in, stick with that.

Gina could be right, maybe it won't work but maybe it will. Just don't repot to a new medium once you start.

Thanks for your answer! I switched to Pon when the plants got too big and heavy and tipped over. I also repotted them very carefully and left the perlite that was stuck to the roots completely in order to damage as little as possible. I didn't buy a normal pon, but mixed one myself with much larger stones, so that there are large gaps and more air gets to the roots. I transplanted the alocasia so that the roots don't touch the water level (in perlite they grew far below the water level). Nevertheless, some roots started to rot...
I don't know why starting in perlite works but Pon doesn't. It couple be how the water is held against the roots. Pon certainly isn't going to hold any oxygen.

DaisyI said:Not to be the curmudgeon in the room but... You are both new members so I will try to be gentle. Amelie1414 started this thread and asked a question about growing Alocasia in water culture.

The_bisexual_pothos, you have hijacked the thread. We often get sidetracked and the conversation steers way off course but not until after the original question has been answered and re-answered and re-answered to death. I know Amelie1414 is answering your questions but we should be answering Amelie's questions.

Pothos, if this is a question you would like to pursue, it would be polite to start your own thread then we could answer your question.

Amelie, if this is the direction you want your thread to go (the pleasures of growing Alocasia), let us know.

Ok sorry I didn't know (I've never used a forum)

Amelie, perlite is a lot smaller usually than PON, right? I don;t use PON. I only use perlite and aliflor as AMENDMENTS to my soil mix, and PON/mineral substrate not at all. Not as 'the' mix. Are you doing this as true hydroponic growth, or semi-hydro? I grow a lot of aroids, and know a lot of people who also grow a lot of aroids. I have seen people online talking about growing in PON and Perlite, but usually in perlite only to get something rooted, then its transferred to soil. I myself have used what is called 'dirty moss' which is sphagnum moss that has perlite added to it to root particularly hard things, it works well. I do use crushed lava rock amended with some coarse perlite and aliflor to grow lithophytes in, things that would in nature grow on Karst. If your plants are doing well in perlite, and the only issue is tipping over, perhaps placing your containers in heavier sided cache pots to further stabilize them would work.

Hi Amelie, I too like Alocasias and am also planting in semi hydro. I know, I also don't know how people on Youtube successfully plant them in leca. I suspect they don't show them a few months down the road though. They always look good at first. For me it has a hit and miss. Some alocasia do well in semi hydro, some don't. I have also tried pumice. Again, some do well, some don't. For example my Alocasia Sinuata does well in pumice. My Melo, not so much.

So it's all trial and error. I haven't tried growing them long term in perlite though, other than to propagate. But why not try leaving them in perlite long term?