I keep ficus in my cages year round with no problems.

There are a few factors that ficus need to be happy,

light, temp, and water, light being the biggest. Almost every ficus tree I've ever bought goes through a "shedding" phase

when you first put it in the cage, they are in shock

from changing environments (the nursery you bought it from

probably got the plants from florida, or some other bright

sunny locale.) They need time to adjust to the lower light conditions. If you supply enough bright light, they will bounce back eventually, if not, dry up and die. If you're consistantly

having plants dry up and loose all of their leaves, you need to increase the light intensity. I've found the mv bulbs

do a good job at making them happy, once acclimated I use

a 48" double bulb fluorecent hood. You can also rotate them out,

but that's not very convienient when it's 20 degres outside

garrett

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