FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello,

I recently just mail-ordered a young venus fly trap. he came perfectly healthy, but im worried i poisoned him. I unfortuneatly trusted my grandparents with buying his water (to them if you can drink it, it's fine) and i saw he was getting sick. Some of his traps are turning black or are lined with black, and his leaves are yellow with black spots. I quickly went through my care sheet, and I've been doing it right so far. He gets sun, he's moist, he's fed. I checked the water and it's purified bottled water and not distilled! he sits in a dish with it all day so he doesn't dry out, I've only had him for 3-5 days. can i still save him if he is sick? if so, how? please help!

Of course you can, it'll very okay. Try to get distilled or reverse osmosis water. If you can put a container outside, collect rain water(not off the roof, just straight from the clouds). He could also have some dying traps from change of condition. Maybe his light was different where they had him, humidity could be different. I would switch the water, and not stress. He will be just fine. You caught it early, so it's okay. Can we have a pic?

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If the plant still has some green to it, you can probably save it. The best option is to immediately repot the plant in fresh suitable media. However, if suitable media isn't available, then you need to remove as much of the mineral contaminants as possible.

For a peat-based substrate, flush the soil with pure water by top watering until water drains out of the bottom of the pot. Repeat this process until the draining water registers 50 ppm or less.

If the plant is in LFSM, unpot the plant and gently separate it from the moss. Squeeze as much water as you can from the LFSM. Soak the moss with pure water. Squeeze it dry again. Test the rinse water and repeat until TDS reads 50 ppm or below. Most of the bottled water I've tested rings in at around 225 ppm, so it might take 3 or 4 rinses until the moss is clean enough. Repot the plant in the moss.

Good luck!

If its only had that water for a few days, just flush it through several times with distilled water and it will be fine. If you have a TDS meter check the outflow.
If the traps are turning black and the leaves yellow in 3-5 days it is unlikely to be the water that has caused it that quickly. Is the plant outside in full sun, was it purchased from greenhouse grown material, what temperatures is it experiencing?

Cheers
Steve

ZERO WATER filter pitcher with the little meter ... keep that meter handy as we cannot trust what bottled water labels say.
$.60 Gallon Distilled WalMart H20 is my backup to Zero Water pitcher.
Helps keep the soil algae/fungus down a bit as well.

Show us pics please. Also u said not with distilled water you might want to reread vft care sheet again. These plants are like weeds given the correct conditions so there is hope still. We need pics so we can see ur plant and growing area