FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Some of my gallon jugs and spray bottles are getting some yucky gunk inside, mainly at the bottom due to housing rainwater. Does anyone have a trick to getting that stuff out?

Soap, water, shake them around vigorously. A long handled bottle brush if necessary.
However, if the TDS is still good, it's probably not necessary.

You can also put vinegar in the container, put the top on, vigorously shake the container, and let it sit for a day or two (with some intermittent shakes). Then you can dump the vinegar down the drain or into the toilet bowl and rinse the container with some water.

DragonsEye wrote: ↑Wed Aug 07, 2024 12:03 am You can also put vinegar in the container, put the top on, vigorously shake the container, and let it sit for a day or two (with some intermittent shakes). Then you can dump the vinegar down the drain or into the toilet bowl and rinse the container with some water.

Or use it as weed killer, just not on the lawn.

DragonsEye wrote: ↑Wed Aug 07, 2024 12:03 am You can also put vinegar in the container, put the top on, vigorously shake the container, and let it sit for a day or two (with some intermittent shakes). Then you can dump the vinegar down the drain or into the toilet bowl and rinse the container with some water.

So does that mean that a small amount of vinegar residue that might remain in the container after rinsing won’t hurt CPs? And if that’s the case, could I repurpose a vinegar jug into a planting container?

I don’t really know what products I can safely use on/around them (like soap, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, vinegar).

As long as you rinse the container well you should be fine. After a good rinsing, there shouldn’t be enough residue left to have any effect at all.

By the way, another use for the vinegar after you’ve used it for a sterilization purposes, would be for any of you that get plant saucers or drinking bowls from your critter/pet that gets a crusty mineral buildup due to your water, would be simply to pour the vinegar into that saucer or bowl for a little while, and it will dissolve away the mineral buildup. You can even dilute that vinegar if necessary to make sure that the saucer bowl is completely filled with liquid. Should work just fine. Then just thoroughly rinse it out and mineral buildup should come off and you won’t have to worry about any real vinegar residue left in the saucer bowl.

For bio-funk, I'd try OxyClean. Let it soak overnight. Home brewers use it to clean out their fermenters. For mineral buildup, I'd use citric acid instead of vinegar. It's stronger and doesn't stink.

I ask friends for clean, empty gallon jugs from their spring water or distilled water. Specifically, I stockpile rainwater to use over the winter on our indoor plants/dormant VFTs. Sometimes these jugs get a little algae buildup, but then I recycle them and ask for another batch of clean jugs.

htbm wrote: ↑Mon Aug 12, 2024 12:16 pm For bio-funk, I'd try OxyClean. Let it soak overnight. Home brewers use it to clean out their fermenters. For mineral buildup, I'd use citric acid instead of vinegar. It's stronger and doesn't stink.

Are oxyclean and citric acid safe to use in containers that will hold plant water?

Hedonista wrote:Are oxyclean and citric acid safe to use in containers that will hold plant water?

Well you'll probably want to make sure it's "OxyClean FREE", which doesn't have perfumes etc. to be potentially left behind after rinsing. Safe enough for washing glass/plastic fermentors for brewing stuff for human consumption, why not for plants? Just rinse it out. Citric acid is what makes citrus fruits and sour candies/gummies sour and is part of the metabolism of all aerobic organisms, so uh yeah. Just, again, rinse it out so you're not throwing off the pH of your plant water, same as vinegar. It's a stronger acid than vinegar but not *that* much stronger and obviously non-toxic.

Update: I found a pretty slick way to clean algae out of gallon jugs. I put about 1/2 cup of silica sand in a jug along with a little dish soap and a couple inches of water. I shook it vigorously, let it sit just a bit, then did it again and rinsed. Algae came out like a charm. Only negative was that a few grains of sand wanted to hang out in the jug afterward, but since it is sand I use for CPs anyway, that doesn’t seem to be a problem. The sand did a great job of scouring all the gunk out of the jug. Not sure the soap was even necessary, but why not?

DragonsEye wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2024 3:56 pm

I know this is off topic, but I just now zoomed into your pfp and realized it was a flower and not a moth

Bill Phoenix wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 2:35 pm

DragonsEye wrote: ↑Sat Aug 10, 2024 3:56 pm

I know this is off topic, but I just now zoomed into your pfp and realized it was a flower and not a moth

That’s a U. sandersonii, I believe. They look like little bunnies.