FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, I just got a Venus fly trap from Bunnings and I have a few questions. Mostly about dormancy.
1. I left my VFT for about an hour as soon as I bought it and I found out that my sister had been feeding it small ants. I heard that you shouldn't feed the traps while in a state of dormancy... my sister fed almost all of them!
2. Is my plant dormant? It has some black leaves hanging around and is not very high. I'll post a picture.
3. There is some sliming stuff growing on my plant! I heard it was just algae and need not to be removed but idk... is it harmful? Is it even algae??
Please help.
Sunny

1. Deeply dormant plants usually do not have functioning traps so feeding is not usually an option. If they trap food, it's fine.

2. It looks like a dormant VFT. In harsh cold weather, it might keep even less traps, but in milder weather it would look like yours.

3. You don't want anything slimy on the leaves of your plant. Slime is normally a sign that it's staying too wet. In small containers, like yours appears to be (though it's hard to tell), it can be difficult to keep it dryer without drying out completely, especially with LFS.