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What critter do you feed the most to your neps?

Right now im using live crickets. when the pitchers get bigger and the entire plant as well, i would love to use june bugs! i want to know what bugs you guys use and why. i heard slugs or snails are easy to digest but i would like to hear it from people themselves, so please post!
 
Mine get more gnats than anything else - all on their own. Like most growers, I get fungus gnats. Not a ton of them, but a nep pitcher might have 3-10 of them in there depending on their age. Sometimes they catch a mosquito, which is always fun, plus the occasional house fly. But I only feed the dried crickets.

Capslock
 
nice to know! my plants outdoors do catch alot of things, right now outdoors there arent that many flies in the colder months or they seem not to be as active like in the summer months, so i suppy them with the crickets. the plants that are more tubby such as sibu, ventricosa, truncata, they seem to catch more gnats than the ones that are more clyndrical such as copelandii, fusca, maxima.  i havent gotten that fungus gnat yet but i hope i dont. that might be like trying to stop fungus spore. lol
maybe someday i will try small fish such as guppies. those june bugs are very strong beetle with very sharp claws. i put one in a unknown hybrid head first into the pitcher and it used its claws to get itself out backwards. but i guess so as long as the pitcher is wide and large i guess that wont be a problem.
 
Mine are in the basement and they've caught spiders, crickets, cetipedes, mosquitos, sow bugs, fungus nats, lady beetles and box elder bugs. Basically any creepy crawly basement critters. I wish they would catch mice!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Glenn @ Mar. 16 2006,2:46)]Basically any creepy crawly basement critters.  I wish they would catch mice!
why dont you hang some cheese over the opening?
 
I hand feed dried crickets and asian tree ants.  Plants also catch some critters that make their way into the greenhouse, the most common being the little Argentine ants.  They will catch hundreds, before I discover they have invaded and spray. (They make great food, but they can bring in scale, mealybugs and other pests.)  In fact, I started hand feeding more, after I noticed the plants that had gorged on ants would have a growth spurt.
KPG
 
i really dont know where the ants went
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i think because of the cold. i think they are less active in cold weather....
 
Oh yeah! Last year the ants invaded the grow room, and hundreds were caught in nep pitchers. They left when the weather got warmer. No return this winter though.

Capslock
 
I get the biggest ant invasions with the first rain...they seem to move in looking for dry quarters.
 
  • #10
I don't usually feed my CPs, but we did have a bunch of flies in the house in mid-Fall and they all got a helping hand to find their way to Nep pitchers.  I release many more insects from my Sarrs than I ever feed to the Neps.  Whenever I see a live Halictid or Andrenid bee in a Sarr, I help it escape.
 
  • #12
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it was just an idea, havent tried it yet but who knows, maybe i will with some small guppies, the ones that they sell at the petshop as feeder fish, they sell them in abundace, some 14 for 1.00! i feed my goldfish these, as a treat, some 1-2 times a month...
 
  • #13
Evil! EVIL!!!

Lets just drop you in a Giant Tub of slow to break down enzymes, and see how you like it!

any way Ive heard some kind of betta food works ok once a month. or a week i dont rember. Ill do some research MAYBE!

Cheers
 
  • #14
[b said:
Quote[/b] (nepenthes_ak @ Mar. 16 2006,6:19)]Evil! EVIL!!!

Lets just drop you in a Giant Tub of slow to break down enzymes, and see how you like it!
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if anything is evil its the plant not me!
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i mean they catch so many insects anyway....

a little experiment wont hurt >;-D
 
  • #15
I feed my baby N. Lowii frozen fruitflies I took home after a bio lab. For the rest, I catch every black widow I find in our yard, and freeze them. California seems to be having a ton of them this year, they're really slowmoving and easy to catch, plus theyre big and fat from all the bugs they eat.

leads me to a question:
Does everyone else thaw out frozen food for their plants? If so why, I do just because I read someone say you should.
 
  • #16
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]For the rest, I catch every black widow I find in our yard, and freeze them.
you better be careful.
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when i was young i got bit by a black widow(yes we have them in kentucky and holy sh*t that hurt!!!
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) and my whole left ankle turned black and blue. most paiful experience of my life!.....
once my nep gives me a pitcher i will try ants since we get little carpenter ants every year. im also going to try to put some on my dews.
alex
EDIT:don't let jimscott know we are talking about guppies....
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  • #17
Well, I was buying live crickets for a while, but I recently made switch to something free.

Since I was recently spitting fire wood, I found these fat, juicy grubs that live in the wood & fall out when it's split. I can get quite a few from just one (rather large) log. delicious & nutricious!
 
  • #18
I feed my neps beetles that I have acquired from a forum member. My ground neps catch ants and flying insects and my hanging basket neps catch flying insects usually mosquitos, gnats, and moths.
 
  • #19
1. Grasshoppers: the 4" beasts that I find in the garden. Freeze, chop, and feed. Its great for the larger neps.

2. Termites: At least once a year, it rains and the next day all the winged termites come out and land in the pool. I skim them out, roll them into balls appropriately sized for the pitcher, and drop them in.

3. Mosquito larvae: Similar to the termites. Just scoop 'em, roll 'em, and into the pitcher they go.

4. Ants: I discovered these when I had a few neps in a makeshift mini greenhouse outside. I'd have whole trails pouring into the pitchers on my N. mirabilis x khasiana. The pitchers all filled a solid 1/3 way with ant carcasses and the plant grew from a rooted cutting to 2 feet in a few months.

5. For the little neps, I use fruit flies or termites left over from feeding the tarantula spiderlings.

Peter
 
  • #20
wow ill have to try some of these myself! i seem to go better with the grubs because of theif soft body. there must be someone out there that used june bugs or snails/slugs...
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