FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

evenwind wrote:

Jozo wrote:Yesterday, i bought my first ( not planted by me ) Venus.
I wanted to know how much water do i need to give them and how many times a week.
Why are all flytraps closed? I doubt that all of them had breakfast already
I am living in place which now is fairly cold 7 degrees celsius to 21 degrees celsius in this time of the year and there is no very much of sun light + humidity is about 70-80% in my place. What should i do?
I appreciate all the help i could get. Thanks

I'd assume the traps are closed because they were triggered sometime during all the movement the plant went thru while you were buying it. The healthy traps should open in a few days. The older, starting-to-die traps may not reopen at all, but that's okay, too. If the plant is otherwise healthy, new leaves with new, young traps will start to grow as soon as it settles in.

As far as water: You're trying to keep the media damp - not dry, not soggy wet. You're going to have to figure out yourself how often to water in your growing conditions by regularly checking the media for dampness. When the soil feels dry, it's time to add water. After a week or two, you'll get a feel for how often to add water to maintain "dampness". Whether it works out to every day or every 2 weeks depends on all the variables (temps/humidity/light/etc.) in your setup.

Your temps seem pretty good to me - they're very similar to the low end of the VFT's natural growing range.

Actually, from what you listed, the only real problem I see is the lack of light. You may need to supplement your sunlight with artificial lights.

Hopefully, some of the folks with more expertise than me will chime in here and give you some additional advice (or correct mine!).

evenwind wrote:As far as the fish food, the simple answer is "Yes". There's a technique to it, of course. Briefly, you have to dampen the food, make a little ball of it, drop in the trap and after the trap triggers, massage the outside of the trap (mimicking the struggles of live prey) until it seals. You find a lot more info as you search around on the Forum.

I use 4' full-spectrum T8 bulbs for my plants. But that's probably overkill for you. I really haven't had much in the way of experience with any other lighting but I've seen many threads about single bulbs or LED clusters that would fit your needs. Rather than give you vague or bad info, I suggest you look in the "Artificial Lighting" Sub-Forum for more guidance.