FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey guys,

I am fascinated by venus fly traps from a few weeks and just got my very first two traps on 7th of june. (a week ago). They are Bimbo and Schuppenstiel.
I live in the netherlands (meaning humidity almost always 50%+ and usually lots of rain). They came without pot and the guy who sells them told me to buy "turfstrooisel" (some sort of moss) and mix with perliet, and the final mixture looks like below:


That's exactly what I got, I put my traps there, and I've been watering them with rainwater and i've fed some of the traps as well with bloodworms and one with mosquito (which trap already reopened). Now I see one trap of Bimbo is turning black and I don't know why Also two leaves and traps of Schupi are starting to turn black I removed already one dead leaf from Schupi when it arrived and fed only one trap from it by far.

I am keeping them outside and putting water in the little dish so it soaks from the soil and keeping them under the sun all day outside and take them inside only during the night as it does get cool sometimes. What am I doing wrong? I see some leaves and traps growing but I just noticed something is happening I am so attached to them already and definitely don't want them to die Please HELP and tell me what to do. These days it's very warm. Can it be that I am keeping them under the sun for too long? Or that I am putting 0.5cm water in the dish everyday? Or wrong soil? Too big pot? Both are in different pots, a bit bigger for their sizes. Please advise..

Here are my traps and the leaves and traps I am talking about


Please tell me I didn't kill the plants. First week they are very sensitive right? And I put them under a lot of and warm sun

Please tell me I can still save them

A. you only want to feed one trap a week when he is that small, can lead to a "indigestion" of sorts.

B. make sure you are watering with RO or distilled water.

C. When I feed mine bloodworms dab them dryish after rehydrating them, if I left the worms too wet I found that traps tend to rot or go downhill

They should be fine, did you acclimate them or just throw them into the sun? Both work, but throwing him out there will cause more stress. Also how cool are we talking, you should be able to leave them outside, they are fairly hardy plants.

Don't feed them yet, wait another month for them to get back to health. Don't take them in at night either, they will be fine down to 5 Celsius ish in growing months and they don't need any seashells either. Make sure to keep the soil moist and not wet.

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I put the shells so they don't get all dirty. Didn't wash them though.. thing is it rains a lot in the netherlands and they can get soaked very easily if I don't take them in.

Another question: Can I mix the lights? I bought a CFL Dura Light bulb 18W / 1080 lumen / 6400K for the times when we have no sun (as this happens often), so can I use it when there's no sunlight or it strictly must be either sun light or artificial light and cannot mix them?

I am trying to keep the soil moist, I hope that's what I am achieving. I see new growth, but I hope some of the traps dying out won't harm the rest of the plant.

Also the soil shrank and now my plants are not on top of the pot but kind of "inside" and I'd like to add more soil, but I am afraid to do it because I will stress it up more.

@Rammplins I used a tiny bit of toilet paper to touch the worms to in order to remove excess water.

as long as the soil drains well the rain is not a huge deal, just dump the tray water - it is better for the plant to stay outdoors rather than move it inside and outside daily as it will stress the plant changing it from one condition to another so rapidly.

I'd leave it outside full time, on the really hot days 90 degrees or higher, a little tray water - outside of that keep the soil moist but not wet and other than that give those babies a lot of sunlight! if you just received the plants and they aren't fully acclimated to the intense sunlight - use a shade cloth, screen or even a ledge/overhang outdoors to shield it from the direct sunlight move it to direct sunlight for an hour or two per day and other than that let it received filtered or indirect sunlight, keep doing this but slowly increasing the amount of direct sunlight and it should adjust itself. you may still burn some leaves/traps to some degree but as long as the plants needs are met new leaves and traps will grow stronger than before.

on the soil mix you made, just be sure that neither of the items has any types of additives or fertilizers as they can kill the sensitive spendily roots of the fly trap pretty quickly! I wouldn't worry about feeding them yet, just get them acclimated to full sun first, looking better then feed a trap or two a week, but generally outdoors they will chow down on their own! (I still feed ours because I can't help myself)

I think the shells can cause a problem - especially since you didn't wash them. They look like saltwater types which means that both remnants of ocean salt and calcium can drain into the soil. You'd be much better off with cleaned quartz pebbles - or nothing at all.

@riveraXVX Would slowly increasing sunlight matter still after they've been under the sun from 9AM till 8PM for a week? I realise this might've been my totally terrible mistake for this But I will try to do so and will try to resist taking it inside. Only when I get too many bad rainy days in a row and i can put it under artificial light for more than a day.

For the soil, I don't know if you'd recognize the thing on the picture,
but these are the stuff they told me to use.


@evenwind If i wash the shells with distilled water may I keep them in the pot just to keep the plants from dirt or is it really better off without anything?

@aniDimitrova looking around online and using online translators it does look like that is a type of peat moss which should be sufficient I do believe. if you check the ingredients list on it and the perlite just make sure there are no additional additives to either product as for them already being outside a week I might provide it some protection for part of the day (a simple shade over top to filter some light out) and still up it a bit as you go just make sure its getting enough light - we have been doing that with ours that got burned fairly badly just "restarted" the process for acclimating them more or less and slid them under a table on the porch to block some of the light out and gradually left it out in full sun it took a solid month now and the plants still don't look great but the new growth is budding up like crazy now as of this past week! its a bit of a slow process it seems!

if the outdoor weather is an issue many people do just grow successfully indoors with grow lights - I can't speak much for what/how/recommendations there at all though! we are only about 3 hours from where they grow naturally!!

@riveraXVX On the bag it says:

PH (water zone): 3.5 - 4
Added fertiliser: 3kg / m3 compound organic biomass
Npk 6-5-7 (+4)
That's all, the rest is like how to use it etc.

I do not think it has added fertiliser as it says organic biomass, I think this means how much to add. Maybe you understand this better?

I really have no idea, I am afraid, but the pH seems good, right? From what I read it should be around 3.5-4.
But if the soil was not suitable wouldn't they have died already?

AniDimitrova wrote:If i wash the shells with distilled water may I keep them in the pot just to keep the plants from dirt or is it really better off without anything?

Washing would certainly help, a long soak would probably be even better - to get rid of any salt. But the shells themselves are made out of calcium carbonate, which is one of the compounds that it's wise to avoid. I'd remove them.

I personally would not use that peat moss, I'd look around for a 100% peat moss that has no added materials to it and give the plant a good soaking in proper water before going into the new bedding.

someone with more experience than I will have to weigh in on the added nitrogen but my guess is they have added some type of manure to the mix to raise the nitrogen content (?) or some other type of composting material which your VFT's will not like.

since they grow naturally in highly acidic/nitrogen free conditions I'd try to stick as close to those conditions as you can to keep them happy/healthy!

hopefully some other folks will weigh in and can be more specific though, I'm still learning also. I may be understanding the packaging wrong also.

The perliet is good, the garden peat(tuinturf) is wrong. You need to buy peat Moss (turfstrooisel).
And I agree on the Shells...they can leak minerals into your soil.
Good luck



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@Kwient I wrote an email to the person who sold them to me and he was very kind and said that indeed my soil was wrong and has some added fertilizers, evem if not much. So i ran to the shop today and got turfstrooisel. Just repotted them, removed the black bimbo trap and hopefully they will survive now.
Thank you.. if i knew "turftstrooisel" is the dutch word for peat moss would've been much easier. I read online, translated stuff, but wasn't really sure. Thanks!

@riveraXVX you're totally right, it seems it's wrong, so I got the right one now, i just hope they will survive another shock of repotting within 1 week.

I removed the shells, even if I really like them, the guy from the nursery advised the shells are not a problem (this few) unless if there are many of them to leak our calcium etc, but better without them.

@ALL THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR ALL YOUR ADVISES! I might bother you more soon, hopefully i won't need to And will soon show you happy plants ♥

awesome! good to hear you are more than likely situated!! since they were potted in the other fertilizers I would be sure to top water to help flush out the material. although if they are outdoor and getting frequent rain nature will take care of that itself!

best of luck!! I'm finally getting to admire the new growth from our poor traps that weren't doing so well can't help but go out and see how they are doing every day!

Good job .
Instead of the Shells you can buy sphagnum Moss (veenmos) to put on top of your soil. Then your plants wont get dirty either after rain and it looks good when it grows green. Also very good cause it prevends your soil drying up to quickly.
Make sure to rinse the sphagnum Moss a few times before aplying


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