FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Today I noticed one of my heli minor pitchers looked awful. I noticed a little brownish area on it before, but now it's progressed into full spots of completely dead tissue.

This is a medium aged pitcher, the older and younger pitchers show no signs of this brown decay...

Is this due to light issues? It's not even directly under my growlight. Too much/little watering? Fungus? overfeeding? How should I help this heli?

Also I think it is producing a flower. should i cut it off?

As I looked closer the pitcher with the issue is the one I have fed the most. I think 1 osmocote pellet + 2 fish food pellets. Could feeding really be the issue here? That would be better news then a fungal attack, but i'm not sure if overfeeding can do this to a heli. There is no rot/mold inside the pitcher. I regularly fill them with water as well.

You should unpot the plant and look at the roots.
What are your growing conditions ?
I mean: soil mix, RH%, ventilation, watering method, etc

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Maiden wrote:You should unpot the plant and look at the roots.
What are your growing conditions ?
I mean: soil mix, RH%, ventilation, watering method, etc

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Soil mix is about 50:50 perlite & peat moss. I top water the soil whenever it starts to dry at the top.

It is in an open top 10 gallon aquarium, and I'm unsure about the humidity. There is no additional ventilation/fan.

Regarding the roots: It's never been standing in water, and it's been allowed to dry out a decent amount, so i'm unsure how it could be root rot. I'm hesitant to repot it fearing additional stress will worsen the condition. I'm not sure if this dying pitcher is severe enough to be greatly concerned or if I should just cut if off and leave the heli alone. This is my first time growing heli's.

How long ago did you received the Heli? If you got it recently, it probably is just changing leafs.

It seems to me that it is just going through the process of changing leafs (traps), and is growing new ones.

I would not be worried unless if it moves to other pitchers specially the young ones.

Don't check at the roots at all, it will just give it shock.

It could be that perhaps you are over feeding, if you put pellets or worms in 2-3 pitchers of this heli I don't recommend that.



Best,

~jht-union.

jht-union wrote:How long ago did you received the Heli? If you got it recently, it probably is just changing leafs.

It seems to me that it is just going through the process of changing leafs (traps), and is growing new ones.

I would not be worried unless if it moves to other pitchers specially the young ones.

Don't check at the roots at all, it will just give it shock.

It could be that perhaps you are over feeding, if you put pellets or worms in 2-3 pitchers of this heli I don't recommend that.



Best,

~jht-union.

I got it about 2 months ago.

I'm pretty sure I tossed in a small osmocote pellet a while ago, then one fish pellets per pitcher in two of the pitchers. Is that to much? how much do I feed a heli?

You didn't over feed it but I rarely if ever feed mine as sometimes it causes more headaches than the gains. To each their own. I wouldn't feed it again for a good long while.

IMO growing heliamphora in ambient humidity is a bad idea you also should have some idea what your real relative humidity is and it's prior growing conditions. These plants don't take to acclimation well at all and it must be done correctly or it will indeed die from desiccation.

I can't help you without knowing what your parameters are and it's likely you won't be able to grow it without knowing them either

Cory wrote:You didn't over feed it but I rarely if ever feed mine as sometimes it causes more headaches than the gains. To each their own. I wouldn't feed it again for a good long while.

IMO growing heliamphora in ambient humidity is a bad idea you also should have some idea what your real relative humidity is and it's prior growing conditions. These plants don't take to acclimation well at all and it must be done correctly or it will indeed die from desiccation.

I can't help you without knowing what your parameters are and it's likely you won't be able to grow it without knowing them either

Its probably the same as average room humidity. I haven't done anything to increase humidity for it. How should I increase humidity for the heli? Would a separate more enclosed terrarium suffice? or should I do something else?

It's going to have to be sealed up quite a bit to increase humidity drastically. I run humidity very high as do many other growers of heliamphora. Some run completely sealed tanks with near 100% humidity 24/7
Idk where you live but if its somewhere that requires running a furnace your humidity is likely really low.

Better mist and bag off the plant until you figure your conditions out. If its showing brown spots already its worse than it looks. Bagging it off will keep it from drying further and buy you some time until things get sorted

Bagged it up. Would a sealed tank be a solution for this? That seems easy enough, I can go get one tomorrow.

Mostly sealed top with a thermometer and a hydrometer to see where your at. Guessing will cause your grief and your plant issues. Heliamphora is easy to grow if your conditions are right and nearly impossible if they are not. Don't guess or assume. Get gauges and get it setup and see where your actually at and go from there your going to have to make sure your parameters are acceptable prior to reinstating the plant into its new environment. It's going to take quite some time for it to acclimate and resume growth again.

Here is my quick fix solution. Plastic wrap over a small plastic aquarium and an aquarium air stone in a dish of water. I bought a humidity gauge at petco, not sure how quality it is.

Humidity gauge was reading 15% initially, now its around 85% humidity.

I'm not sure if this is a long term solution though, but I also don't want to invest a lot of cash into a big terrarium project for one heliamphora... I'm not sure when i'm going to buy more. Anyone have any pics of their set ups, or links to examples? I'm looking for something relatively small and inexpensive, but also a bit nicer than plastic wrapping my plants..

Update:
The gauge is now showing 90%

Also, what I thought to be a flower stalk is actually an emerging pitcher.

That should work just make sure you have some air flow or you will have mold soon. Bright light is needed but make sure your temps are within tolerance as a partially sealed terrarium will heat up an hold heat for a long time.

The humidity gauge you have is ok for now.

Cory wrote:That should work just make sure you have some air flow or you will have mold soon. Bright light is needed but make sure your temps are within tolerance as a partially sealed terrarium will heat up an hold heat for a long time.

The humidity gauge you have is ok for now.

I have to disagree with Cory on that one, i tried my helis for a month without air flow (in a terarium with 2 golf bal sizes holes, no fans) and they didnt show any signs of mold or reduced growth, however when putting a big a** fan in there (6'diam) they did slow down a lot, so id advice you to keep some ventilation but dont overdo it

Ps. i use similar gauges, and they are more about 5% accurate, which is enough for this goal.