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Carnivorous Plants

Thanks IGG, I intend to get it up and running soon at my new house. Turdel, I'm sorry to say was released into his natural habitat. He is now terrorizing fish in the wild I have no doubt. And good call, lol, they were cobra lillies, not pitchers.

Bent,

Turdel not only ate 25 goldfish a week, he ate 25 goldfish in about 45 minutes.

He ate once a week and just devoured them! It was incredible to watch.
Alligator snappers extend their necks almost half again the length of their body. He could sit where he is in the picture and extend his head up to take a breath without leaving the bottom.

He would snake that neck out and snag goldfish like it was an olympic event. I don't know where the little guy put them all.
 
cheezydemon said:
I truely do miss the evil little bastard.:(:violin:
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Here's an idea for you since you have the set up for it, get some Bladderworts (Utricularia) and feed them some small baby tetra's...it'll be like the guy never left but just stayed around and turned into a aquatic canivorous plant........
 
cheezydemon said:
I truely do miss the evil little bastard.:(:violin:
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cool setup you had there.
yea sometimes the best pets (or at least the most interesting) are the ones that devour other animals/insects/fish :hell: :lol:
 
Well I got my order man I got heaps lol. (I'm a giant child lol)
just a questian IGG
water whats the go I'll be using rain water what did you use?
if you were out of tank water could you use water from the tap and treat it with fish tank nutrilizer?
Did you grow all yours indoors, under lights?

what varieties did you grow?

I mainly went for VFTs but got landed with a heapof really big nepenthes (spelling)
also drosera
any advice ?

Also what medium did you use?
forthe VFT
I have a blend of peat spaghnam moss and corse sand.

I'll get somepics upover the next week or so.
Mick
 
stillmanz said:
Well I got my order man I got heaps lol. (I'm a giant child lol)
just a questian IGG
water whats the go I'll be using rain water what did you use?
if you were out of tank water could you use water from the tap and treat it with fish tank nutrilizer?
Did you grow all yours indoors, under lights?

what varieties did you grow?

I mainly went for VFTs but got landed with a heapof really big nepenthes (spelling)
also drosera
any advice ?

Also what medium did you use?
forthe VFT
I have a blend of peat spaghnam moss and corse sand.

I'll get somepics upover the next week or so.
Mick
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Ok, I just woke up and am sipping my coffee, so this will be tough on he little brain. Here it goes.

Unpoluted rain water is fine to use, but outside of that, ONLY use distilled water, nothing else, not even treated tap water. All these plants are extremely sensative (#1 thing to remember with CP's...they are overly sensative).

Yep, grew mine under lights indoors. Your normal grow lights will work.

Hmmm...what varieties did I grow....uhh....all of them I think...:think:

As for advice, give the nepenthis lots of space to grow roots and a stick to tie it too (they get long). In order to get your Droseras nice and sticky, use lots of moisture in the air. The more light you give CP's the prittier they are and the faster they trigger. When you have a dead bug fed to a drosera, wiggle it every 3 minutes until the trap is completely around it (tricks the plant into thinking the bugs alive...they don't like dead things...well, except Nepenthes, they're not picky).

Best growing material for VFT and Nepenthes is a mixture of Sphagnum moss (60%), peat moss(20%), and some perlite (20%)(wash the perlite before use). Sand will work too but make sure it's sterile (beach sand=no good).

Same mix goes for Droseras but add a little more sand and it's always best to use live spagnum moss at that point. Helps retain the moisture better (pygme Drosera's looooovvve the stuff).

Look forward to the picks and you know my policy, ask as many questions as you want and I'll attempt to answer them ;)
 
Ok, timely thread, someone walked into my office this afternoon with a sad looking Venus Fly Trap saying they'd heard I was good at growing plants. So, it's sitting on the counter right now.

It's very small, and I don't have any tiny bugs I can feed it, would it be ok to give it a tiny piece of ground turkey?
 
Pam said:
Ok, timely thread, someone walked into my office this afternoon with a sad looking Venus Fly Trap saying they'd heard I was good at growing plants. So, it's sitting on the counter right now.

It's very small, and I don't have any tiny bugs I can feed it, would it be ok to give it a tiny piece of ground turkey?
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I generally say no to feeding it meat like that. What's sad looking about it? Leggy, dry, has no friends? Can we get a pic for diagnosis?
 
imaguitargod said:
I generally say no to feeding it meat like that. What's sad looking about it? Leggy, dry, has no friends? Can we get a pic for diagnosis?
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It's in a small plastic box, looks like it came from a store in it, but it's never been opened. There's some damage to two of the leaves, and one looks water logged. Two of the traps have dry peat in them

Ok, peeled the label off and got it out. I got the dried peat out of the traps, but one of them closed. Should I put it under the lights on the seed starting rack, or do I need to harden it off by giving it bright, indirect light for a few days?

Maybe I can catch a gnat in the hoop house.
 
I caught a very small fly and put it in the plastic container. Unfortunately, getting the top back on the plastic container I bumped the "mouths" and they all closed. I gather they'll open back after a while?
 
Pam said:
It's in a small plastic box, looks like it came from a store in it, but it's never been opened. There's some damage to two of the leaves, and one looks water logged. Two of the traps have dry peat in them

Ok, peeled the label off and got it out. I got the dried peat out of the traps, but one of them closed. Should I put it under the lights on the seed starting rack, or do I need to harden it off by giving it bright, indirect light for a few days?

Maybe I can catch a gnat in the hoop house.
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I would harden it off a little bit. Sounds like the poor guy has been mistreated. Cut off the bad looking traps, that should help a little (unless they are ALL bad, which means you should only leave the best ones on. And don't just cut off the tap, cut off the trap AND the leaf). Wait until you have a healthy plant before you feed it.

GrumpyBear said:
i think you can get tiny crickets from pet stores, would that work?
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Too har of a bug for that small of a plant. Remember, for the maost part, the best bugs are soft ones.

Pam said:
I caught a very small fly and put it in the plastic container. Unfortunately, getting the top back on the plastic container I bumped the "mouths" and they all closed. I gather they'll open back after a while?
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They'll open back up in a day or two, you'll be fine. Let the fly go (or recapture it, put in jar and place in refridgerator).

I'll post the way to feed these guys tomarrow. Been drinking.
 
Pam from my reading this is what I would do.
Take it out of the plastic bubble give it a good drink of distilled water put it in a window that gets good sun and then see what happens.
Everyobne that I have talked to or read from says actually feeding these things insects is like a nuber 2 out of 10 for survival especially when its stressed. From what I gather its like a suplement . Aparently the main thing is strong light, good water, and decent soil medium.
You should check out this site, cobraplants.com. He leaves them out in the snow,
the thing with fly traps is they are a temperate plant not necesarily a tropical one.
Any way this is just reading that I have done,
not my personal experiences.
But I liked the way jacob from cobra plants basically just said check out were they come from reproduce that rather than what you think they would like.
Mick
 
Well, I took out the fly, and put it in the front window. It looks out on the porch and gets lots of bright, indirect sunlight. I brought a jug to work to take some distilled water home.

Thanks for the site, Stillmanz, I'll check it out.
 
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