FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

At least one experienced grower and seller I know recommends using this brand of fertalizer.

He dilutes the package dilution, which is like one tablespoon to 1 gal of distilled water x4 and mists it on the tops of his
plants, esp very young plants.
This is not something that is done often, but he told me it really stimulates growth.

Does anyone else do this or have any comments?

On the other hand, there are those who insist on no fertalizers at all.... ever!!!

Well ya could create a control group of say typicals and try it out!

I've tried the Maxsea at the reccomended strength. A few of my plants started growing some deformed traps so I stopped using it. I have no idea if the Maxsea caused the deformed traps but my plants are doing fine without it. I go to Petsmart once a month and buy crickets to feed and my plants are growing like crazy ...

I've only recently started foliar fertilizing my flytraps. Feeding them is safer and seems to yield better results. If you only have a few plants, I recommend feeding them. For me, I have tens of thousands of mouths to feed, so I can't possibly feed them all. That's why I've started using an orchid fertilizer (I chose not to use Maxsea because it has urea in it) at half strength. It's still too early on to know if it's helping much, but it worked very well on my Pinguicula and Nepenthes (before I sold all of them).

DTDream18 wrote:I've tried the Maxsea at the reccomended strength. A few of my plants started growing some deformed traps so I stopped using it. I have no idea if the Maxsea caused the deformed traps but my plants are doing fine without it. I go to Petsmart once a month and buy crickets to feed and my plants are growing like crazy ...

Since I have a tarantula, I always have plenty of crickets. For the VFT's, I have to remove the back legs and sometimes cut the cricks
in half (yeah I know, it sounds sadistic!!LOL!!).
My cricks are gut loaded with good healthy stuff to transfer all those nutrients to whatever eats them.

I also have a small colony of Dubia roaches, but they would leave alot of outer shell behind in the trap.

A nice soft juicy crick is best

DTDream18 wrote:I've tried the Maxsea at the reccomended strength. A few of my plants started growing some deformed traps so I stopped using it. I have no idea if the Maxsea caused the deformed traps but my plants are doing fine without it. I go to Petsmart once a month and buy crickets to feed and my plants are growing like crazy ...

After you make your normal dilution mixture as instructed, I am told you need to dilute that even more, 1 to 4 w/ distilled water,
and only lightly mist the tops of the plants, not pour the stuff in the pot.
Is that like what you did?

Well to be safe you could first try it on a plant you don't care about that much and your not afriad of losing.
Then if it works you can use it on your better plants, if it doesn't you should dilute the mix a bit more.

I may try the Maxsea one more time. Maybe I'll try diluting it even more. How often should the plants be sprayed ?

DTDream18 wrote:How often should the plants be sprayed ?

I'm starting with a very light misting every 2 weeks. You could also try it once every 4 weeks and see if you get results.

What did yo use to gut load? I'm considering getting the "gut load" stuff at the pet store in te reptile section. Any suggestions? I have a terrarium to keep the crickets. Also will be getting some mealworms too.


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