- Sat Jul 11, 2020 12:51 am
#358634
Hi everyone!
Decided to try my hand at growing from seed a little over a year and a half ago. VFTs are looking pretty good, but I'm a little worried about one of them - and hoping to just get a second pair of eyes on what might be going on.
Background info:
- Yes, using distilled water, doing my best to keep damp but not in standing water
- Growing in sphagnum moss
- Feed them every 1-2 weeks (morsel of rehydrated freeze-dried bloodworms) assuming they haven't caught anything. I've found the odd spider carcass and I keep 'em near the bananas because I figure the fruit flies that occasionally show up might do something other than be an annoyance.
- Using artificial LED grow light (wide spectrum, has IR, red, blue, white and UV LEDs). Not much choice here, I have no outdoor space and no windowsills with direct light; it's essentially a basement apartment with the windows shaded by the balcony of the unit above. They've been doing very well so I don't think that's the issue. Light is on from about 7AM to 10PM since it's summer. Will shorten going into the fall and put them on a cooler windowsill for dormancy come winter.
- Had a fungus gnat issue at one point, used one of those yellow sticky traps to great effect. Regularly trim fully blackened traps, use neem oil as necessary on the rare occasion I see any mold.
As you can see, they're looking pretty good. Yes, I know I need to repot 'em soon. I slipped 'em into some larger pots a few months ago and they've already started to outgrow them. Need to get some deeper pots for the big guys and move the smaller ones up in size... Anyway, this is the one I'm a little worried about: The new growth seems to turn black at the tips. I know this is commonly over-watering and it's possible it was a bit too wet a few weeks ago but it's been on the drier side the last few so I'd have expected it to recover by now - but as you can see one of the newer traps has a tip starting to turn black again.
Not sure if related, but this particular plant also behaved a little weirdly when I re-potted it last - You can see in the first photo it has two growth rings - after re-potting it appeared to have abandoned the old one and just started growing from a new location further down the root. I found out when new traps started poking out of the bedding instead of the center of the growth. There's been no new traps out of the old center since then- it's just kept the existing traps green but they don't function as traps anymore.
Probably being paranoid but figured better to post a few pics and have the plant be just doing something normal than not asking and having it be something I could have prevented/corrected.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: Bonus points if you can ID them and tell me what cultivars I got in my mixed seed packet
Decided to try my hand at growing from seed a little over a year and a half ago. VFTs are looking pretty good, but I'm a little worried about one of them - and hoping to just get a second pair of eyes on what might be going on.
Background info:
- Yes, using distilled water, doing my best to keep damp but not in standing water
- Growing in sphagnum moss
- Feed them every 1-2 weeks (morsel of rehydrated freeze-dried bloodworms) assuming they haven't caught anything. I've found the odd spider carcass and I keep 'em near the bananas because I figure the fruit flies that occasionally show up might do something other than be an annoyance.
- Using artificial LED grow light (wide spectrum, has IR, red, blue, white and UV LEDs). Not much choice here, I have no outdoor space and no windowsills with direct light; it's essentially a basement apartment with the windows shaded by the balcony of the unit above. They've been doing very well so I don't think that's the issue. Light is on from about 7AM to 10PM since it's summer. Will shorten going into the fall and put them on a cooler windowsill for dormancy come winter.
- Had a fungus gnat issue at one point, used one of those yellow sticky traps to great effect. Regularly trim fully blackened traps, use neem oil as necessary on the rare occasion I see any mold.
As you can see, they're looking pretty good. Yes, I know I need to repot 'em soon. I slipped 'em into some larger pots a few months ago and they've already started to outgrow them. Need to get some deeper pots for the big guys and move the smaller ones up in size... Anyway, this is the one I'm a little worried about: The new growth seems to turn black at the tips. I know this is commonly over-watering and it's possible it was a bit too wet a few weeks ago but it's been on the drier side the last few so I'd have expected it to recover by now - but as you can see one of the newer traps has a tip starting to turn black again.
Not sure if related, but this particular plant also behaved a little weirdly when I re-potted it last - You can see in the first photo it has two growth rings - after re-potting it appeared to have abandoned the old one and just started growing from a new location further down the root. I found out when new traps started poking out of the bedding instead of the center of the growth. There's been no new traps out of the old center since then- it's just kept the existing traps green but they don't function as traps anymore.
Probably being paranoid but figured better to post a few pics and have the plant be just doing something normal than not asking and having it be something I could have prevented/corrected.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: Bonus points if you can ID them and tell me what cultivars I got in my mixed seed packet