FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Huge, healthy pitchers with ancient, disgusting water in them, old flies from months ago. Do I need to change out their water? How often? How do they get fresh water in their traps in the wild?

They don’t get fresh water unless it’s Purpurea and the old fluids are flushed out. You will have to wait until the pitcher dies so you can cut it off.

Sundeewz wrote:They don’t get fresh water unless it’s Purpurea and the old fluids are flushed out. You will have to wait until the pitcher dies so you can cut it off.

Good to see this! So when the wind blows my Nep. Miranda or any other Nep, I usually add distilled water to replace the fluid. Should I not be doing this?


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Nothing bad will happen from adding water, it’s just that the plant will naturally refill itself using water from the media and enzymes. So, you do not have to fill it.

Worse, if you fill them, sometimes they can flop over, and break the pitchers off. Especially with large-pitchered plants like Miranda.

Also, sometimes I drain them so they don't slosh all over my furniture and stuff.

Sometimes if you put fertilizers like osmocote in the pitchers, refilling them with too much water will very easily cause the upper half of the pitcher to be “burnt” as the walls of the non-digestive zones are less resistant to fertilizing. And I noticed that in some species/hybrids like globosa x ampullaria the digestive zone may be no more than one-fifth of the pitcher’s height so the natural fluids will, if you let the pitcher regulate it’s own fluids, be no more than a tiny puddle at the bottom of the pitcher.