FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I have a range of sundews from the burmannii d.sessilifolia, typical Cape sundew an albino, a "big pink" one last aliciae the other Is dead I'm sure it's all black. While I have pictures and dates written down I have them in a little greenhouse with a t5 light well one fixture. Holds 4 floresnt and the other is just a small 2 t5 bulbs, I have air movement- humidity and most are in a little saucer or w.e to hold water via tray method- however one pot is too big I cant find anything that will allow me to use tray method so I make sure I water it well and yet my plants are still not doing good the leaves have deformed on two plants and the burmannii isn't pink like it should be there right under this light from 7AM to9PM on an automatic timer WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON I recently sprayed neem oil but I haven't seen a difference

I have more pictures and closer up please any if you who consider you're selves to be great at this please help me bc I keep buying them and there dying I dont understand these all say great for beginners but yet why the hell is it so fn hard to keep them alive my typical sundews have even started to decline and they were doing the best when I started buying a few different species

The big 3 are light, water, and media.

Light is usually the problem.
Full sunlight is best for most CPs(After being introduced to it gradually if they come from a death cube or an unknown source.).
With adequate light, you get nice Red color and sturdy traps and tentacles.
Reduce the light a little and you lose the Red.
Reduce it a little more and you start getting longer, stringier etiolated leaves.
Reduce it even more and you lose the traps and get deformed leaves.
I run LEDs on my my inside plants. Fluorescents, esp T5s generate too much heat for me. I try to get 3000 - 5000 lumens at the leaves of the plant. (Full sunlight is approximately10,000 equivalence)

Water should be distilled water, rain water, or reverse-osmosis/de-ionized water. It should have a TDS well below 50. (TDS meters are available for 10 - 20 bucks at Amazon.) A very few municipalities have water that is pure enough for CP.
These minerals build up in your soil and eventually kill off your plants, slowly.

Media should be acidic nutrient free.
I use a 50/50 mix of peatmoss and perlite.
Some substitute sand for perlite, but it has to be calcium free clean silica sand.
Some companies like Miracle Gro put fertilizer in their peatmoss, this is a big NOPE for CP.

This is my oversimplified 2¢ worth.
Check out Matt's VFT care and page at http://www.flytrapcare.com

Good growing,
Mike

But I have a temperature/humidity gage and a fan and a small humidity Would run when needed and there abt 9 to 10 inches above the plants I'm almost certain these are the same bulbs the women I buy all my plants from or rather she might use the longer T8 I think I'm going to ask and I've rinsed the media before a few times I am in the process of rinsing out even more times with water but these lights are at the very least still bright lights, It still doesn't seem to reason that light is why these even wide leaf Capensis leads are stunted the humidity is always above 40° the water this i mean i buy it and it says distilled water on it- maybe i need to still buy some meter for it? I'm going out of mind ...

CAN ANYONE HELP ME PLEASE??? the light is close idk the exact distance to the plants but maybe at least 12inches above and this is what my wide leaf Capensis looks like

You didn't mention anything about feeding your plants. Do you feed them periodically? Indoors, they'll catch nowhere near what they can easily handle outdoors. And if grown in unnatural conditions, a lack of food will definitely have an effect. Good luck!

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Yes i feed them there outside in a little mini green house so bugs do get to them also but I still give extra and I've read tht small leaves like this are caused by not enuf light but the women I bought them from uses a t8 and I dnt have room for a light that big so I have a T5 with 4 lights and another that's only got two bulbs so I know it's got to. Be at least somewhat good enuf- but I had it like 12 in above them I read yesterday tht t5s need to be close to the plants so how close to put lights?????

What type of media mix are you using?

Average temperature range inside the greenhouse?

To clarify, you have these outside, but with supplemental lighting?