FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Does anyone know, or have any idea if isopods would be good for a VFT? I have a culture of them that I use for my dart frog tank, and I was wondering if they would provide a good source of nitrogen for fly traps?

I google image'd "isopods...Are they tiny those light blue bugs in compost that seem to come in the THOUSANDS? (we have them in our compost bins )

Its no problem to feed them to vfts. You have to make shure that they crawl in the trap by themselves. Otherwise they furl and build a ball. Then the vft-trap could habe problems to close and digest.

Isopods are crustaceans, they are filled with tons of calcium. I don't think they'd have really high protein content, but then again I don't see anything wrong with feeding them to plants.

Well, as dave said, they are not the best food but hey, food is food.

Only thing i noticed is that a shell is left after the bug has been digested (was one of the few bugs i could actually find to feed my first vft)

No. They, for VFTs, will kill the trap. Has something to do with the edges bruising the trap I believe. Any sort of pitcher would be fine, though.

I've never heard of that Katya, as far as I know, ants bees and wasps usually cause the trap to die as they virulently bite and sting the trap.

Maybe it is just that the trap had already closed a lot of times and so it died. Idk, I just can't see Isopods giving a lot of nutrition to a VFT.

I've fed isopods to my VFT no problem! Surprisingly they can be pretty tough and can climb out pretty good through its teeth, so keep an eye on it until it forms a seal. Other than that though, no problem Ironically they leave a white corpse after being digested, as far as nutritional value for VFT, I am not sure. I know more predatory bugs (bees, wasps, spiders, etc.) are more nitrogen rich and beneficial, only trick is you need to be careful because they can either hurt you or chew their way out sometimes.

I do catch wolf spiders. If you just grab them when they are running from something (which is almost always a bigger wolf spider) then you can entice the larger one and catch it as well. Feed the small one to a small trap, and the large one to a large trap.

Repeat as necessary.