Questions needed answered.

[isaacmagee]

Ok I am a new vft owner and am probably going to ask some stupid questions. But stick with me here because I am new and ignorant on the subject.
I bought a vft about 2 months ago. I put it in a small pot and stuck it on my railing on the porch of my apartments. I live in little rock Arkansas and it gets about 6 hours of direct sunlight and 4 hours of shaded sunlight. I keep about an inch and a half of water (from my fish aquarium) at the bottom of the larger pot. Now the pot that the flytrap is in has holes on the bottom so that the soil will be moist (and certainly stays moist).
Ok so since I got it there have been new traps coming up and old ones dying off. In addition, here in the last 2 weeks the inside of the traps have been developing a little red in them. So it seems like everything is going good.
However, here recently the stems have been getting black on the edges and the flytraps have been getting black on around the edges of it too. And they have been dying off. So I pruned those off from the bottom of the stem.
Questions: why are they turning black? Should I be pruning them? And if so do I prune the traps or from the stem?
Ok and if I feed the traps they close within 5-10 seconds and stay closed for 3 or 4 days and then turn black and die? WHY? (I have only fed it 3 times so far. But it caught one bug by its self)

Overall it looks like it was doing very good but here recently these things have worried me. Please please help me out. Oh ya and sorry about the grammar and spelling.

isaac magee

p.s. I will try to load some pics here in the next couple of days.

 

[Guest]

Hello issac

I am not sure about using the water from your fishtank...Distilled water is would probably be better for the plant over the long haul.

Why turning blacK? maybe the water, or maybe the temperatures are too hot or cold. If the temps are hot, the roots will become damaged and the plant will show it in a few weeks.

If too cold, the plant might think it is dormancy time and is dying back for the winter.

When you feed it something, it turns black..

What are you feeding it? The plant does best with:

1) live bugs only
2) soft bodied insects ( flies, mosquitoes, crickets )
3) the bug needs to be 1/2 - 3/4 the size of the trap.

If the trap cannot fully close around the bug, bacteria can get in and kill the trap.

If the trap looks like it is dying, just cut off the trap and not the whole stem...if the stem is dying then cut it down as far as you can without damaging the rest of the plant.

If the plant is catching bugs on its own, I wouldn't worry about trying to feed it and just let it do its own thing

You repotted the plant? What did you uset o repot it in? Pot type and soil. That will help out

And there are never stupid questions, that is what this forum is for...so don't feel like you can't ask them. If you want, you can email me and I can help you further, or you can post here and get a lot of responses... jaie@petflytrap.com

keep us updated on the plant!!

 

[isaacmagee]

i did not repot the plant it came in a small pot in a plastic container so i took the pot out and placed it in a another pot about twice as wide.
oh ya and the temperature here is about 75 degrees at night and about 95 during the day but that is in the direct sun. where it is at it is about 85 degrees during the day.
Maybe i am giving it too large of bugs and i also read in another topic that I am suppose to make sure that each trap has not been recently opened and make sure it has the juices in it before i feed it. i am not sure how old the trap was before i feed it but will definilty make sure next time.
Thanks for your info jaie and will definitlly keep an update. Any more advice is still much appreciated. I will put picks up tomorrow.
isaac

 

[Parasuco]

That thing about the juices was kinda a bit of a guess I'm thinking. It was about nectar,and mine don't have nectar dripping from them, but they still do fine. Basically, let the leaf harden up (notliterally turn hard, just sorta, let it get used to being an open trap before you go and close it)... Yah. Let it catch it's own bugs. I know its fun, but its kinda nice to see YOUR plant catch its own bugs the natural way... Its kinda satisfying... Like it likes you...

 

[Kyle6002]

my vft just caught an ant and two flys yestrday and its only a little one