FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So I've had a new little VFT (two full traps and a third baby one) that I've recently brought inside, as I saw the neighborhood squirrels eyeballing him. I've had one of these before but when I moved to college my parents kind of forgot to take care of him until I could come back for him (however, that one lived on a nice windowsill, which I can't really do right now). I'd rather not keep him on my windowsill a the moment because my bedroom window faces straight west, and if he were out in the main part of the house I think he might fall victim to a few of my housemate's friends (they are the kind to poke traps over and over just to watch them close). So long story short, I bought him a clip on lamp fixture with a 26 watt CFL, it's usually stationed about six inches from the plant, is this okay and will it promote healthy growth?


tl;dr bought a 26 watt cfl for my VFT, is this awesome? Y/N?

I don't know if wattage relates to color temperature, but you want a color temperature of 6500k. I would check the box and see if it says anywhere what the color temperature is.
Sorry if this didn't help.

Cameron

P.S. Welcome to FlyTrapCare!!!

Yeah, it didn't say anywhere on the box, I've noticed the traps have maintained a normal red color since being inside (about a week or two). The traps are also remaining active as well, I just fed him some kind of winged insect I found in the house and he closed pretty rapidly, I'm just a little concerned about the slow growth of the new trap, haven't really seen much progress since it came up about a week ago.

As long as you have a light with 6500k color temperature, and its around 26 watts ( For one plant ) you should be okay.

Color temp and wattage are not related at all. There are 6500K 26W lights as well as 2700K 26W lights.

The move from full sun to fluorescents shocked the plant. That trap will probably not look quite right, or will be very small, when it finally opens. New growth should continue after about two weeks from the initial transition, and your plant will be fine. Give it 14 to 16 hours of fluorescent light per day (turning on and off around the same time every day, otherwise it'll get confused and may not grow properly).

As for the light, the wattage is fine for a single plant; if you can move the light closer to the flytrap, do it - about 4 inches away would probably be best. Place a thermometer of some kind near the topmost leaf of the flytrap and as long as the temp emitted from the light doesn't push past about 90 degrees where the plant is, you can move the light even closer until you get to around 85ish, but don't have the CFL any closer than a couple inches or you may cause leaf burn.

Remember that fluorescent light intensity diminishes exponentially as you move it further away.

26W is fine for one plant, I agree. 6500K color temp should be a bright white light (almost blue in color). If it's yellow/orange in color, that's low color temp and is no good for what you're trying to do. Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Lowe's all sell fairly high wattage CFL's at 6500K, no more than 10 bucks max, I'd guess. The higher wattage, the better (e.g. 42W is about the highest watt CFL you'll find in a regular store).

6500K color temp is often referred by its selling name "Daylight Bulb", so "Daylight" = 6500K. 6500K is also mostly "blue spectrum" which promotes leaf growth and has enough red spectrum to promote regular flowering as they would do in nature. 2700K/3400K etc. are red spectrum lights (your usual "lamp" lights that are yellow/orangish and produce a "warm" glow kind of light) and don't really promote much in the way of leaf growth.

Replace the CFL once a year. You may not notice the light output has diminished by looking at a year-old CFL, but your plants will definitely notice.

Lastly, brand matters. Generic or "store" brand CFL's don't produce as much light output as, say, GE, Sylvania, TCP, ValueTek, or Philips; all are very common.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the advice, guys!

I think I might go back to the store I got the light from, see if I can find another and figure out if it's a 27 or a 65, if not, I may just buy a daylight bulb.