FlyTrapCare Forums

Two days ago I fed my flytraps some betta pellets. I have been feeding my sundews betta food for a while but never tried it with flytraps, and I thought I'd give it a go. I had to use a needle or massage the outside of the trap to get it to start digesting, but it seems like they are all liking it. I'm interested to see if anything is left in the trap, how long it takes etc.
I also use live crickets for their food with good results. We'll see if this fish food works though (since a little jar of betta food has SO much in it) For smaller traps I used one pellet and 3-4 for really big traps.

Let me know if anyone else has done this and your results. Also wonder if it works well with Nepenthes and Cephalotus.

how did it work for your sundews mate? any good results with young dews also?

Ok, so, i tried feeding my plants fish flakes, and they molded on the sundew, so that was a bad idea. but my VFTs also had the flakes and they seemed to do fine with it, only after they opened back up some gunk from the flakes was stuck on the inside of the trap, with proper rinsing im sure it would come out (not much worse than insect wings)

Anyone else try flakes?

I've used the beta pellets with my sundews and it works well. I crush them up to a dust and as long as you don't put a large amount on the leaves it works great. If you get too much on there they will mold. After the leaf returns to normal I typically spray the remaining pellet dust off the leaf. Also, if you put too much on the leaf it could burn the leaf and it'll die. Somewhat the same why an insect to large for a VFT tends to do.

I have not tried it with cephs, nepenthes or sarracenias, but I have had the same question. Every time I pull a pellet out I look over to my ceph and contemplate whether or not to put on in. I haven't done it yet, but have toyed with the idea of it. I hope someone else comments about this.

it wouldnt kill your ceph the worst could happen is the pitcher dies

I also crushed the pellet into dust for my smaller sundews such as aliciae seedlings. Works well. I'm already seeing bigger growth on those. growsundews.com recommends using a piece as large as the largest "dew" drop on the leaf so I stuck with that rule of thumb. I did use whole pellets for my d. burmannii and they seem to devour them. Waiting to see how the VFT respond

I've been using some flakes with my flytrap seedlings. Mix it to a fine paste with like one drop of water and use a toothpick to put it in, enough for about 1/3 the trap size.
Haven't tried it with my older flytraps yet, but the seedings do great with it. In 4 months they were getting close to the size of my year and a half old flytraps.

floridadancerguy wrote:Two days ago I fed my flytraps some betta pellets. I have been feeding my sundews betta food for a while but never tried it with flytraps, and I thought I'd give it a go. I had to use a needle or massage the outside of the trap to get it to start digesting, but it seems like they are all liking it. I'm interested to see if anything is left in the trap, how long it takes etc.
I also use live crickets for their food with good results. We'll see if this fish food works though (since a little jar of betta food has SO much in it) For smaller traps I used one pellet and 3-4 for really big traps.

Let me know if anyone else has done this and your results. Also wonder if it works well with Nepenthes and Cephalotus.

So what happened after the experiment? I would like to use fish food to feed the VFT too.

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I know this is dragging up an old post but I'd like to hear other people's experiences with flake and/or pellet fish food.
I used to have a few fish tanks, tropical and marine and I had tons of food that would've been great to experiment with.

Darsh85 wrote:I know this is dragging up an old post but I'd like to hear other people's experiences with flake and/or pellet fish food.
I used to have a few fish tanks, tropical and marine and I had tons of food that would've been great to experiment with.

I’ve has great success with betta pellets for sundews and cephs, and OK success with them for seedling flytraps.

It is a PITA to feed them to baby flytraps, but it does work. I do wet them first for flytraps, but for sundews and cephs, they go into/onto the traps dry. I grind them up for most sundews, but just drop them into the cephs.

bananaman wrote:

Darsh85 wrote:I know this is dragging up an old post but I'd like to hear other people's experiences with flake and/or pellet fish food.
I used to have a few fish tanks, tropical and marine and I had tons of food that would've been great to experiment with.

I’ve has great success with betta pellets for sundews and cephs, and OK success with them for seedling flytraps.

It is a PITA to feed them to baby flytraps, but it does work. I do wet them first for flytraps, but for sundews and cephs, they go into/onto the traps dry. I grind them up for most sundews, but just drop them into the cephs.

Cool thanks, I used to have a freezer full of brine shrimp, bloodworms, krill, daphnia etc etc. but I sold all my fish stuff when I moved. Yesterday I thought I was buying bloodworms but I mistranslated and I bought something like "larva sticks". I fed them to adult and seedling traps wet and threw a few into my Sarrs but yea it was a little messier than I expected so I'm keeping an eye on them. But for sure it's attracted more flies haha.

I checked several kinds of betta pellets and they all had ingredients quite unlike flytraps' natural insect protein:
— wheat, corn, potatoes, etc. (often the first ingredient)
— saltwater fish
— shellfish
— squid
— yeast
— honey
— minerals (copper sulfate, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, etc.)

There were hardly any ingredients similar to insect protein. One brand has silkworm pupae, some have various larvae, but also all those other things.

I have been reading about feeeding fish food to the plants. My question is which one? I go into the store and there must be 10 different types, tropical, glow, etc. Doesn't seem to be a default basic food.
Are all good? Or is there any ingredients in some of the mixes to avoid? Thanks, Charlie.

Most people use freeze-dried bloodworms.

Thanks, I have them also. I was just curious. I will use them. charlie.