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Your favorite food for plants

K

kenny_planter

What are your favorite bugs, pellets or etc. you use to feed your plants. Also what are the effects that it has on your plants?
 
I like using the tetra flakes. The king tiger and hamata seem to love it. Pitchers
and leaves gain girth and green up quite a bit.

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Oh really? I've never heard of this one.. Do you put about a pinch in new pitchers ?
 
kenny_planter said:
Oh really? I've never heard of this one.. Do you put about a pinch in new pitchers ?
Click to expand...

I generally take 2-3 pinches of it, then mash it as HARD as i possibly can into a dust.
I will then take a micro pipette and add 1-2 full pipettes worth of rainwater to the flake dust
and make a slurry of it. Then, suck it up and add 1-2 drops inside of a single pitcher.
(make sure NONE of the solution touches the sides of the pitcher other than were the glands
and digestive fluids are.)
 
I put 6 beta fish pellets in each pitcher everytime the plant opens a new pitcher. (Obviously the quantity of the pellets are decreased or increased depending on the size of teh plant, but 6 pellets roughly= 1 fly.)
 
I use Freezed dried bloodworms, pulverized into a powder, sprinkled on sundews and butterworts.
 
powdered dried blood worms. sometimes i inhale the dust though and have a sneezing fit or i get a bit of dust in my eye and its real bad. Ive been meaning to order some dehydrated daphnia to see if im not so allergic to those
 
Other plants get bloodworms, but the Nepenthes get the diluted Maxsea fertilizer that a lot of people use. Or, during summer, the insects that plague my garden :)
 
  • #10
My favorite food for nepenthes is this pellet food for discus fish. Designed to retain its integrity for a long time in the fish tank, it won't foul the pitcher fluid, and with this stuff there's a wide margin for error (hard to overfeed the pitcher). Even baby pitchers can take a whole pellet ( which barely fits in the pitcher's digestion zone) without turning black. Perhaps this is because of its unique structure. Unlike goldfish pellets, which are very dense and solid, these discus pellets have very little bulk density. They are very spongy and lightweight.

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  • #11
Live insects. In all of my hobbies, I have always thought that natural prey items made more sense, when applicable. Since I culture a few different kinds of insects for my reptiles, I have plenty to share with my Neps.

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These are what i use the most - Blaptica dubia - typically young nymphs.
 
  • #12
How many pellets do you put in? Does it result in significant growth? I think this may seem easier because there is no extra things needed to do.
 
  • #13
If youre referring to me, as I said I put 6 pellets in, which is roughly 1 fly.
 
  • #15
I like Zoo Med's "Anole Food" and "Leopard Gecko Food". Oddly, they are both the same product: dried flies. And oddly, neither anoles or leopard geckos eat dried flies. However carnivorous plants do! I feed this to my sundews by crushing up a pinch of flies and adding a few drops of water to make a paste. Then I drop some onto a sundew leaf and they curl up all around the fly paste. Yum!
With pitchers, you can just drop the dried flies into the pitcher and let them do the rest.
I like this because it is convenient to use and it's something they would encounter out in the wild.

Check out some photos!
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  • #16
That's awesome!! They have that at my local pet shop as well.. Have you seen in an increase in leaf or pitcher size?
 
  • #17
Lately I've been feeding "fresh" pitchers dubia roach nymphs, while filling old pitchers with a dilute solution of better gro orchid plus and Jobe's organic fertilizer. On top of this I spray everything down weekly with 1/8th strength better gro. So far everything seems to love it and are putting on good growth. The plants are in very bright light though (20-60k lux, roughly equivelent to full sunlight) and may not have taken to the ferts as well with less light.
 
  • #18
I use betta pellets on small neps and seedling drosera, then older plants get gold fish pellets, I don't have time to catch and feed everyone so it is easy and great.
 
  • #19
kenny_planter said:
How many pellets do you put in? Does it result in significant growth? I think this may seem easier because there is no extra things needed to do.
Click to expand...

Anywhere from 1 or 2 for 0.5"-tall pitchers up to 30 for 4"-tall pitchers. I like to feed it to baby pitchers where feeding will make a huge difference.
Adding small increments (1 or 2) is safe and won't blacken the pitcher, so you can add small amounts daily to test the upper limit for your pitchers.
Just make sure the pellet is completely submerged when feeding small pitchers or else it will mold.
 
  • #20
kenny_planter said:
That's awesome!! They have that at my local pet shop as well.. Have you seen in an increase in leaf or pitcher size?
Click to expand...

Yes . . . but I feed every leaf, so that could be another reason.
The dried flies are coated with vitamins, which should have an added benefit.
 
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