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Ask questions about how to grow and care for Venus Flytraps

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By Apollyon
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#355593
Hey, I purchased a FTS Purple Ambush a month or so ago and it was going great until recently. Recently it has displayed a lot of dying traps and I believe the crown is dying back. There was a division next to it that was showing growth but the new trap darkened as well. I have it under T5HO lights currently, though I'm acclimating it and the others in the tray to the outdoors in intervals, using the overcast weather to my advantage. I've stayed away from fertilizing this plant because it was the one that I did not want to risk. Also, the red pigmentation seems to have spread through the leaves, I'm at a loss here. I plan to repot the others with the algae into a new medium if the sun doesn't burn it out. I've begun to let the tray dry out and top water as well. Is this plant salvagable? Any help is much appreciated.
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By Apollyon
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#355594
I should point out that the leaves aren't as yellow as they appear here, it's under a 3000k flowering tube in that spot thats giving it a more yellow glow. It's a light-medium green
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By Artchic528
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#355600
Red pigmentation is how a flytrap plant reacts to the light. Like a tan. For the naturally deep red variants, they just have a whole lot more red pigment in their cell structures.

What are the growing conditions? What kind of water do you use? How deep is the pot? These things will help us narrow down what is wrong. It could be a result of something being amiss, or it could be from parasites like mites.
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By Apollyon
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#355605
Yeah, I dropped the water level from below and decided to top water. The pot is a standard one they sent out it had LFS. It looks like it's approx. 5inx 4-5in deep. I'm using distilled water. I was thinking it was a reaction as well but then the traps all began dying so I'm unsure. I'm going to let the pot dry more thoroughly between waterings and hope it isn't completely rotted through

The weird thing is that traps in smaller pots aren't showing any of the same adverse reactions. If it's rot is like this particular VFT is sensitive to the water, I never really let it get above 1/6-1/5 of the pot height whenever I filled it. most of the time it was sitting in like a cm :/
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By Apollyon
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#355719
Not yet, though I was considering doing a repot into perlite/peat/silica for when I keep it outside. When the temperatues rise it'll get close to 100 degrees and I don't think the LFS is going to hold up to the temps without water sitting in the bottom. I think that is a good idea. If the plant shows any more decline I may go for broke. I'm thinking the one crown is a goner. The other isn't growing but the traps are fine..so far.
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By Matt
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#355759
Definitely crown rot from being kept too wet and/or lack of good air movement from indoor growing. It will need to be uprooted and any browning in the center of the rhizome should be removed. It might survive if that is done, but it will likely turn into a bunch of small plants and have to regrow. The other crown looks healthy for now, but that rot can and does spread.

Outdoor growing would drastically reduce the risk of this sort of rot.
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By Apollyon
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#355809
Think I should go ahead and do the peat moss/sand thing? Also, do you have suggestions on how to go about removing the browning? any insight would be helpful, Would sharp scissors do the trick or does this need to be a surgical razor knife thing? I took it out of the water and let the guy dry out pretty good over the last couple of days, still has some moisture in it though. I'll probably go ahead and repot the others all at the same time.
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By Matt
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#355897
Apollyon wrote:Think I should go ahead and do the peat moss/sand thing?
Why is that? I think crown rot is even more common with peat/sand/perlite than in NZLFSM.

Apollyon wrote:Also, do you have suggestions on how to go about removing the browning?
It is not a fun or easy process. It essentially requires uprooting the plant, gently pulling the leaves to reveal the center of the plant. There is usually some easiest and most direct way to the center of the rhizome through the leaves. Inspect the center, if it is brown, remove all until the brown is gone.
Apollyon wrote:Would sharp scissors do the trick or does this need to be a surgical razor knife thing?
I usually just scrape it out with my finger nails, but anything sharp will work.
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By Apollyon
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#355906
Right on, thank you Matt. I only considered peat because I didn't know how long LFS would hold to Florida sun in summer. I work close by house though so I can come back for lunch etc. I'll definitely defer to your recommendation.

It does sound tedious but I'm not stranger to uprooting and working underneath the soil, I'm going to do that tomorrow and go ahead and upgrade the others to decent size pots before I see this happen again.

I believe I have a general idea of the process now, thank you very much for your help and tips. Here's hoping it works out, I'll post at a later date if it makes it.
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By Apollyon
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#355988
Thanks man. I handled the "procedure" today. I bare-rooted them and got them in different pots, and I'm keeping them outdoors in the full sun (shaded for right now though). The rhizome surprisingly looked worse off on the crown that didn't die back. There wasn't a whole lot of browning yet, but i scraped anything not green and cut all the black off entirely. I'm hoping one of them makes a comeback. One I'll be surprised if it survived, I had to scrape pretty deep. I didn't hack away at the rhizome at all though and I was very careful removing the LFS from the root systems. Repotted all of my VFT starters as well into larger pots and got rid of a lot of the algae.

Hoping it takes, I learned my lesson with these guys :P
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By Matt
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#356047
Sounds like you did a good job! It should start growing again, but it might turn into a bunch of tiny plants. That's what usually happens for me when our plants get crown rot and I clean it out. It basically ruins the crown of the rhizome, but some of the rest of the bulb is usually viable and will start growing.
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By Apollyon
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#356064
Yeah, hope so. Thanks Matt. Tiny plants would be alright, definitely take tiny over nothing :P They're outside now, no shortage of mosquitos and the like out there. It gets pretty intense. Should they survive they'll get plenty of bugs lol. The one crown I mauled, like you're talking about. It wasn't brown yet, so much as soggy and grayish. Like on it's way. I checked them out a couple times throughout today and still green, so that's a good sign.
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