What is the best insect to feed your CP?

[tim187]

I was just wondering what is the best insect to feed to your CPs? I recently fed my vft a few meal worms, but every trap that I fed got black spots and died, eventhough there was no part of the worm hanging out of the plant.

 

[cephalotus88]

mealworms can chew at parts of a vft befre it dies in the leaf. They also have hard exoskelotons. I like small-medium crickets for medium and large plants and fungus gnats/fruit flies for small palnts.

 

[mindmaze128]

I find snails to be very good food for my Nepenthes. I fed a few to my tiny N bellii and the next pitcher was huge!! The only thing you have to be carful about is that they can crawl back out of the pitcher. The solution: SQUISH THEM REAL GOOD!!!

Joel

 

[Parasuco]

Potatoe/Sew/Pill bugs. They are semi-hard so they dont get squised, and are able to walk around inside the trap to trigger it some more, but they have soft bellies for easy enzyme access. They are slow moving so the traps dont have to go Utric speed to get them before they hop out... PLUS, they come in ALL different sizes. If you find one you'll find more nearby. There are baby babies, and the big adults. All you have to do is make sure you get the correct size, if you dont they rot real well if the trap isnt shut... I like them, easy to handle!

 

[larry]

I'll feed my vft crickets when it gets warmer and I can catch some. Buying them is kinda expensive. I mainly let them catch their own bugs, but I like to occasionally offer a juicy fly.

 

[Tamlin Dawnstar]

I grow most of my plants outside and all of them trap the prey they need without assistance from me. I haven't tried feeding the Nepenthes yet. for the sensitive tropicals that stay in the terrarium I use small amounts of powdered fish food with good effect.

 

[tim187]

I heard that earth worms were good to feed your plants, has anyone ever tried them?

 

[nrbelex]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Quote: from Parasuco on 10:22 pm on April 21, 2002
Potatoe/Sew/Pill bugs. They are semi-hard so they dont get squised, and are able to walk around inside the trap to trigger it some more, but they have soft bellies for easy enzyme access. They are slow moving so the traps dont have to go Utric speed to get them before they hop out... PLUS, they come in ALL different sizes. If you find one you'll find more nearby. There are baby babies, and the big adults. All you have to do is make sure you get the correct size, if you dont they rot real well if the trap isnt shut... I like them, easy to handle!
[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

I tried this too with good results :smile:

 

[Stefano1]

i feed all mine meal worms, works great!

 

[dblnikl]

i've fed some of my plants maggots, with great results. i got them from a bait shop. if they wiggle a little too much, poke a pin through them and they slow down, without killing them. and the pin makes a good handle for popping them into vfts.

 

[PlantAKiss]

Manually feeding live bugs grosses me out. I don't like killing anything really (well...unless its a camelback cricket which grosses me out more alive than dead). My VFTs and sarras feed themselves quite nicely. And the smaller plants do pretty well on small flying bugs and fungus gnats. I let Momma Nature do her thing as much as possible.

Suzanne

 

[unknownclown]

Well crickets have got to be my favorite just because I can run to the pet store and buy them, they are cheap and I haven't had any traps go bad from them.
When I lived at the house (now I am in an apartment) I used to feed them earwigs and the plants loved them but for some reason they don't get digested all of the way. Plus you gotta worry about them getting in the soil.
Hm... You know crane flies work nicely too I HATE them darn things! and its kinda fun to watch their legs twitch out of the traps