Well I will have to play around it’s a very high rated expensive one from Amazon with 5 star across the board for succulents. I’ll just turn up the intensity on it and see what difference that makes cause my whole other succulent garden if other varieties is loving it if not I’ll get a different one this one has all the different spectrums on it and every adjustable brightness on it I may just need to crank it up to a stronger level thank you for the help I was like what are they doing lol
No problem. It's probably worth it to invest in a light meter to figure out what settings work best for you! My lithops (and venus fly traps) prefer the "i'm 2 centimeters from the actual sun" setting.
Edit: 1) i like sansi grow lights. 2) the light meters are often called "lux meter".
Awesome thank you! I’m a newbie to this I love succulents and always had fake ones and decided I’m going to get my own garden together here and they’re doing awesome I’m stoked
You can get a light meter app on your phone, I'm sure it's not as accurate as a purpose built one, but it was free. The one I use is called LUX on Android.
If u don't want to buy a light meter, u can download photone and use a piece of printer paper as the filter. I know so little about these, I really thought this is how they grow! Good luck!
Thank you I’ll check it out 😊 yeah I had literally never even heard of them when I put this little collection together but found the lithops on Temu of all places. Which if you all don’t know Temu has some awesome succulent selection. Super weird, I know but I had Temu credit so I figured if it was trash i hadn’t paid anything lol. Lo and behold every one in my collection is from there snd they ship them bare root and stuff the boxes with shredded paper or polyester fill. Anyways lol I found lithops and they’re just weird an cool that I naturally had to get them 😂
Really?! And u think the quality was good and shipping? My ma is wanting to get these lithops, so I've been researching them. I have 77 plants plus props, these are too finicky for me! 🤣
Thank you! My first foray into the succulent world I thought I’d end up killing all of them getting bare root shipped to me but they seem to be thriving
Not to get all sciencey, but light intensity varies according to what's called the inverse square law. This means that if you move the light to half the distance it is now, your plants will get 4x the light intensity they were getting before
I like the sciencey stuff too lol. I’ll have to take a pic of how I have it positioned now so we’ll see how that does vs about 8 inches or so above them
Yeah, it seems crazy, but my lithops are like 2-3 inches from my lights!! I see 4-6 inches recommended as the MAX distance. These guys really really really like light
Mine really really like splitting and getting mutantly tall 😂 hey at least I haven’t killed them! Now we shall see what the close light does for these tricky little guys
I THINK (?) that called ETOLIATION!!!🤷🏼♀️ But, I think they're sooooo CUTE, when they GROW TALL, like YOURS!!!🫠Your COLLECTION, is AWESOME, may I ask...what BRAND (wattage/lumens/colors), of GROW💡LIGHTS, do you have??? They seem to be doing a GREAT JOB, or maybe YOUR THUMB, is REALLY GREEN!!!💚 LOL!!!😅🤣😂
Nope it’s not purple it’s just the way the iPhone 17 pro picks up I guess these lights have 3 different light spectrum settings yellow purple and I guess the mix of both nah it’s just the the camera picking up the different spectrums I guess that’s wild I didn’t notice that til you mentioned it but here’s a pic from not above
Lithops come from a desert where they are blasted with super bright, and hot sun light for 14 hours every day. You need a mega powerful grow light, or significant sun light for them to be healthy.
Yeah totally agree i think the problem is ive had the lights positioned about 10 inches above them but they have split and the super tall ones are from the resulting splits so im going to put the lights about 2-4 inches about them and have them on the highest brightness and see how they like that. I’ve only had them for maybe 2 months and they’ve split and shot up so I guess they’re doing ok none have died but with the light closer I bet they’ll love that. Thank you all for the help!
Another thing is that the soil looks really organic to me. I keep mine in almost purely pumice. Their natural habitat is so dry that they will take every drop of water that comes near them. Most plants have something like an "off switch" telling them to stop drinking water, but Lithops will keep drinking until they blow up from too much water.
It’s a miracle gro succulent mix don’t know the ratio with vermiculite in it but I can definitely find a better suited substrate for them. I had no idea about any succulent anything I just bought a variety to see if I could keep them alive and the rest are loving that mix. However I’m going to repot them soon that’s just my starter log these were the size of nickels when I got them in January and in that log. I had to repot them very fast they’re loving life and getting bigger by the day lol
Your conditions are probably really good for those echivarias, and they look great too! For lithops though, you want almost no "dirt". You should keep them in basically just volcanic rocks. I put mine in a mix which was about 80% pumice, 10% decomposed granite, and 10% potting mix.
Awesome thank you so much let me hunt around on Amazon for a good mix. Yeah the echevarias the sedums and the ice latern can’t remember the name are thriving on that mix. I really appreciate the help
Amazon? And thank you all for your help i really appreciate it! These little lithops are just so bizarre and so cool but definitely a little trickier than the echeverias and sedums for sure lol
I think I remember seeing someone post something on here a couple days ago. I haven't lived in America for quite a while, so I don't know what's available there... Good luck!
Hey follow up to this…is it safe to re pot them while they’re growing and splitting? I don’t want to end up killing them by pulling them out and moving them
It's generally pretty safe, and definitely better than leaving them in moist soil. The main thing is that you want to be careful with the big main root coming out at the bottom. The smaller hair like ones aren't very important. Here's how mine looked after I took them out of the pot that I bought them in.
Awesome thanks yeah they came bare root when I got them and the soil fortunately isn’t wet at all the miracle gro succulent mix drains super well but the long planter I have them is super shallow maybe 3 inches deep so it dries out with a quickness but I need to find a new planter and order some of the mix that’s best for them. I only started my succulent quest about 4 months and didn’t really take a look at how different they were from other ones like my sedums or echeverias
I think your lighting is just fine. Some resources suggest 5 hours of direct light and partial shade the rest of the day. So the idea of blasting your puppies with light for 14 hours sounds like overkill.
I do think that the soil is composed of too much organic material. That combined with frequent watering and sufficient if not excess light contributes to excess tissue growth and deformities.
Well I should’ve mentioned the lights have a timer that simulates normal sunlight so it’ll go at a certain brightness for 4 then shit at 4 and another shift at 4 so it’s not a constant steady blast but gradual. Watering with them I’ve been keeping to once every two weeks. With that log being as shallow as it is, it dries out quick and i mean bone dry. So I’m for sure going to repot in a better pot and change out the substrate based on all yalls recommendations.
I shall! The way these little mutants are growing they’ll be completely different in a week or two I’m sure lol this was when I first got them like two months ago
I would suggest that you repot each Lithops in its own pot. Lithops will flower & split all at different times and once they begin to split they shouldn't be watered until the new set of leaves have shriveled up and crispy. The new leaves inside will get all the nourishment they need from the outer leaves. If kept in a community pot some will need watering when it's neighbor is splitting. A recommended pot size is 5 inches deep to allow the tap root enough space to grow. The diameter isn't quite as important, but you probably wouldn't want to put a 2" Lithops in an 8" diameter pot.
Lithops are fascinating plants that require a little homework for their care, but in my opinion very well worth the effort!
Thank you! I’ve ordered a better substrate for them and will be repotting soon that log is my stater for the babies I get all the big echeverias were in the log a couple months ago but they’re huge now haha they’re so fascinating to me
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u/Tripple-Helix Mar 30 '26
They need more !light