FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Sunday, February 1, 2009

I was surprised this morning to see that one of my tiny baby Flytraps had caught its first meal, a tiny soil gnat. (photo below)

This plant is about two months old (2 months since germination) and the little black seed can still be seen attached to the cotyledons (seed leaves).

For anyone who may be interested, the seedling tray is a 200-cell Speedling brand insulating styrofoam (polystyrene) tray with a plastic insert (so the sand doesn't scratch the styrofoam.
-Steve

Wow! That's awesome! Thanks for sharing that photo.

Matt wrote:Wow! That's awesome! Thanks for sharing that photo.

Hi Matt. I hope you're doing great. I just love watching these little guys grow from seed.

Thats great
are those any perticular stones u have in there? and is it just standard peat moss?

WORMSS wrote:are those any perticular stones u have in there? and is it just standard peat moss?

Hi-- Those "stones" are tiny grains of sand. Here's another photo with a straight pin for scale--



My usual Venus Flytrap mixture is 50% sphagnum peat moss, 30% silica sand, and 20% perlite. Lots of other mixes work fine. I like to use sand because--well, I just like it for some reason--but also for weight. Most of the planting containers I use are extremely light (insulating polyurethane foam), so if I were to use a mix with just sphagnum peat moss and perlite, if it were to almost dry out the container could easily be blown over by our sometimes stiff wind here in New Mexico, US.

If you decide to use sand in your mix, be careful about the type of sand you get. Many types of sand near the ocean or in rivers contains many kinds of rock, some of which are relatively soft and water soluble. The minerals in those bits of rock can kill Flytraps (I've killed many that way). Silica sand on the other hand is almost pure silica, silicon dioxide or quartz. It is inert and insoluble, so it doesn't harm the plants.

One way to tell the difference between silica sand and other types of sand--if you have a magnifier--is to look at the sand to see if almost all the grains are translucent. If so, it is very probably silica sand. If there are many opaque grains, the sand may have bits of other types of rock (such as metamorphic, conglomerate, sedimentary) including clay, limestone, granite, marble, etc. Those can dissolve and harm Venus Flytraps and other mineral-sensitive plants.

Those lovely tiny traps are very cute! I learned that there are lots more kinds of sand than silica and perlite. (I knew there were more but not that I knew there were that many. Stupid Lily...)

That's really great! Thanks for sharing

Hello,

WOW!
Awesome picture.
Its so cute.

Luis

Wow, that's the cutest thing ever! Thanks for posting!

hb

Steve_D: do u have any updates? its been 20 days, thought it would be cool to see the development.

WORMSS wrote:Steve_D: do u have any updates? its been 20 days, thought it would be cool to see the development.

The thing is, I'm not sure I could locate that specific little Flytrap in the large tray of 200 small plantlets. I'll try though. I'll look for the tail-end of a tiny bug still hanging out of the trap, and if the trap is open after having digested what part it could catch, I'll take a closeup photo of that.

Thankie

OK-- Here's the little baby Flytrap, 21 days after it's first meal The tiny trap that caught the insect has opened again, the soil gnat is now just a dry husk, and the plant has put out some vigorous new growth.



For comparison, here is one of the original photos of this Flytrap from 21 days ago, Feb. 1, 2009.



Steve

That's awesome Steve! Thanks for finding that little guy and giving us an update.

thankie Steve

how deep are your little pot thingies?