FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Has anyone seen something like this? I've been considering adding some springtails to my terrarium to hopefully decompose any dead leaves that I don't get to first. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work but I've never seen anyone attempt this before (although admittedly I'm pretty new to carnivorous plants). I have some springtails in one of my houseplant pots so I was thinking I might see if I can coax some into some peat and just start putting any decomposing leaves I cut off of my carnivorous plants into there to see if the springtails will survive.

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Hmm... it would end up introducing nutrients into the soil and the plants wouldn't be able to handle that. It would probably take awhile before it did happen, but eventually, that would be the unintended cause.

Anzenix wrote:Hmm... it would end up introducing nutrients into the soil and the plants wouldn't be able to handle that. It would probably take awhile before it did happen, but eventually, that would be the unintended cause.

Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense. I hadn't thought about how their excrement would affect nutrient levels, but it makes sense that it would.

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I'd be interested to see if some nutrient-hogging companion plant could fix that. Something where a sundew or butterwort eats some of the springtails, the springtails eat dead leaves from both plants, and the non-carnivore eats springtail waste.

should be fine, springtails make their way into collections inadvertently a lot of the time.