FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi everybody
So after the debacle with my 9 month old VFT seedlings, I was offered a mature plant, no idea how old.
I've had it for a little bit over 20 days. I got the basics covered, distilled water, plenty of direct sun, proper and moist medium etc..
Also I have fed it freeze dried bloodworms one time and it caught two spiders with a bit of my help. I don't ever feed it (or intend to I'm the future) more than 2 traps each week, so I'm surely not overfeeding it either.
Anyways, when I first got the plant the leaves were short and the traps were big, since the day I got it I assume the plant has been adapting to it's new environment (new pot/medium, light and water conditions), the old leaves turned black pretty quick, but new growth has been replacing it. However this new growth is growing longer leaves, and somewhat smaller traps. Considering this, I've assumed the old owner was growing the plant under different conditions, probably artificial lights ( my uneducated guess), since he lives not that far from where I live.
During the past couple of days the new growth has slowed down a bit, but not completely stalled.
My question is, is it possible I'm doing something below optimal? Am I right to assume he was using artificial lights?
I'm attaching 3 pictures one from when I first got it (3 days in) and you'll surely notice the difference.
Any help will be appreciated

3 days in

some old traps suddenly turned black (I assume this has to do with acclimation to the new conditions)

most old traps have dried and been trimmed, new growth shows longer leaves and somewhat smaller traps, it has also slowed down considerably

It receives around 8h of direct sunlight during clear skies

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Give it time. 20 days is a drop in the bucket compared to the life cycle of a fly trap. It's going in a positive direction, so just keep doing what you're doing.

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It looks really good to me, new growth looks great and very healthy.

I would slow down on the feeding a bit. Venus Flytraps don't need food to be healthy and can actually suffer from too much feeding. I would only worry about feeding once it is growing well and all requirements are met. I'm pretty sure that it's upright traps are just seasonal growth. If you don't know, Venus Flytraps have growth that is upright in the Spring and early Summer and growth that is close to the ground in the mid summer and early Autumn.

My plants have their traps closed 99% of the time with something always in them. Traps that my kids find that haven't caught anything they feed by hand. They use needle tweezers and have mastered catching bugs by the legs and feeding it to the right sized trap. They have gotten earily good at it. Nature keeps them gorged 90% of the time though, it's rare some days to even find an open trap to feed.

The only down sides I've seen so far with keeping them fed almost 100% of the time is you don't get to enjoy the beauty of the trap and they grow out of control (which for me can be a bad thing).

Just my experience so far.

Thanks for the input everybody. =)

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