FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I bought a vft Friday night and it's now Sunday. I managed to collect a little rain water yesterday but it has since ran out. I'm new to vft care and am anxious about doing something wrong but also have read that they should sit in 1cm of water at all times? I have no way of buying any purified water right now as the shops are shut and I just wanted to know if it would be better to sit it in tap water or distilled water until the shops open again. Any tips, tricks and constructive criticism are gladly appreciated.
- A nervous vft beginner

Tap water varies greatly from city to city in the amount of Total Dissolved Solids contained. (TDS)

These TDS build up in your media and cause your plant to slowly go downhill.

TDS values of 50 PPM or less are recommended for CP.
You can buy a TDS meter relatively cheap from Amazon or similar. They are under $20 (USD).

Here is a link to USA cities PPM values. Pop in your Zip Code and it'll give you the value for your municipal water supply. http://zerowater.com/tds.aspx

If it's a choice between letting your plant dry out and giving it less than ideal water, give it the tap water. You can top-water it and flush out the minerals when you buy some distilled water.

Just my two cents worth.

Good growing,
Mike

Distilled water is what almost everyone uses.

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I'd definitely recommend distilled water. On the other hand, if you live somewhere where distilled water isn't readily available, you can buy deionised water from local car shops rather cheaply.

also as long as the medium is damp and not dried out, it will be fine you dont need to leave vfts sitting in water 24/7 a lot of folks will recommend against it even.

they key is to not let them dry out.

Tap water will work in a pinch (unless you have seawater for tap water) - I've used it sometimes. Obviously your plant will start to deteriorate if you use it as your main watering source, but if you water your plant like 2 or 3 times with it then flush it out with distilled/rainwater you should have no problem. The problem isn't the water itself - it's the minerals that build up in the soil over time.

but yes your plant will be fine tonight waiting for you to get water tomorrow haha