FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I was wondering, because i'm starting to get pretty scared how it looks. All its big traps died, and the small ones wont grow. they arent big enough to get fed, i dont even think they are big enough to close on a large ant. For this, i am worried, since now i can't feed it at all. It is fall over here. It's closing on winter too though. it's october, so it's very close...

i was just wondering, to make sure...? it basically looks like a regular plant, like it always has, but it wont grow any more to put new things in, new bugs.?

You may not be giving it enough light. How much light are you giving it? Also, don't worry about food, Venus Fly Traps don't need food. They will definitely be okay without food for a little while. How much water are you giving it? It may be rotting due to over-watering, especially since cold temperatures are creeping their way around when dormancy nears. If you give it enough light and not too much water, they should be fine!

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the help, it turns out they do close. i accidently triggered 4, trying to get out dead traps that had mold on it x.x i fed half a slug to one of the traps a while later

it defedently gets a few hours of sun, its always in a window, but i dont know how much sun it *actually* gets. ill need to check on that, but i think it gets plenty?

i might be over-watering it...i play it twenty times lol, so thats a posibility. ill hold back on that...

Yeah, because the water can cause rotting even if its not tooo wet..... Just don't water it unless it starts to get drier.

Tijopi11 wrote:I was wondering, because i'm starting to get pretty scared how it looks. All its big traps died, and the small ones wont grow.

When you ask questions like this, you need to let everyone know the region you live in, what kind of container, water and growing medium you're using, and what conditions the plant is growing in (inside? outside? in a window? under lights? how cold? etc.)

All that said, if you are thinking the plant might be preparing for dormancy, read this topic:

Venus Flytraps Looking Awful? Read This!
http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/vft-s ... t2973.html

Thanks Steve_D,

i really honestly didnt know how to describe/put it out.
I live in Colorado
Uh...i'm not sure what you mean here? I'm using destalled water, i dont know what a growing medium is...
it's growing inside, next to a window.

And thanks for the link, i will look at that soon

If you can put a picture up, that would help the most

Tijopi11 wrote:i fed half a slug to one of the traps a while later

As a newbie flytrap grower, I'm slightly confused by this. It was my understanding that, in order for the plant to completely close, form a seal and digest its prey, it had to be stimulated by the live prey even after closing. If that's right, doesn't that mean that it will never seal and digest a dead prey? (since I've only fed it live pray, I don't actually know what would happen in this case).

Weltall Zero wrote:It was my understanding that, in order for the plant to completely close, form a seal and digest its prey, it had to be stimulated by the live prey even after closing.

A live insect inside the trap continues to stimulate the trigger hairs, causing the trap to close more tightly and begin the digestion process. However, the trigger hairs can also be stimulated by a person gently squeezing or rubbing the trap from the outside, several times over the course of an hour or two, causing the trap to form the seal and begin digestion even if the insect inside is already dead.

Steve_D wrote:

Weltall Zero wrote:It was my understanding that, in order for the plant to completely close, form a seal and digest its prey, it had to be stimulated by the live prey even after closing.

A live insect inside the trap continues to stimulate the trigger hairs, causing the trap to close more tightly and begin the digestion process. However, the trigger hairs can also be stimulated by a person gently squeezing or rubbing the trap from the outside, several times over the course of an hour or two, causing the trap to form the seal and begin digestion even if the insect inside is already dead.

Aaah, I see. Another new thing learned. This isn't in any flytrap tutorial I've seen!

On the subject of feeding, by the way, I've often read that feeding the plant (live prey or otherwise) isn't actually necessary for the plant's well-being. I'm assuming this is because peat moss provides the nutrients the plant would otherwise get from insects. Is this correct?

Weltall Zero wrote:I'm assuming this is because peat moss provides the nutrients the plant would otherwise get from insects. Is this correct?

Not entirely. While peat moss may have a few nutrients in it that the plant could absorb, I believe it's mostly devoid of all nutrition that plants like (NPK or nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium). In order to get energy to grow, they photosynthesize energy from the sun. That is the reason why flytraps need so much light to be healthy.

I'm not a plant physiologist nor a botanist, so much of what I write there may not be "technically correct", but the underlying assertions should be.

Matt wrote:Not entirely. While peat moss may have a few nutrients in it that the plant could absorb, I believe it's mostly devoid of all nutrition that plants like (NPK or nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium). In order to get energy to grow, they photosynthesize energy from the sun. That is the reason why flytraps need so much light to be healthy.
I'm not a plant physiologist nor a botanist, so much of what I write there may not be "technically correct", but the underlying assertions should be.

I see. I've read that nitrogen is an essential element for building cell walls, and since the marsh soil flytraps grow in natively is very nutrient-poor, they supplement it by absorbing nitrogen (and other elements) from captured insects. In theory, this can't be supplemented by photosynthesis, as it only transforms compounds into other compounds (specifically, CO2 into organic compounds); it doesn't have the ability to generate any atomic elements that are not there, like nitrogen. I'm reading that peat moss, though poorer in such elements than other gardening mediums, is still about 1% nitrogen (it being organic in origin), which is probably still higher than the native marsh soil (this last part is a wild guess/assumption though).

Sorry to engage in such musings; though I don't have a formal biology background, I tend to find this stuff fascinating.

Weltall Zero wrote:Sorry to engage in such musings; though I don't have a formal biology background, I tend to find this stuff fascinating.

No need to apologize. It's a very interesting topic of conversation and one that I too am very interested in. I've talked before about taking time to learn more about plant physiology, but I haven't made an effort to do so up to this point.

Nitrogen in an inorganic form available to plants is also supplied by rain.

Tijopi11 wrote:Thanks for the help, it turns out they do close. i accidently triggered 4, trying to get out dead traps that had mold on it x.x i fed half a slug to one of the traps a while later

it defedently gets a few hours of sun, its always in a window, but i dont know how much sun it *actually* gets. ill need to check on that, but i think it gets plenty?

i might be over-watering it...i play it twenty times lol, so thats a posibility. ill hold back on that...

Hey there! Besides the over-watering,I've heard you should not feed slugs.Its not the food the plant realy needs...Insects like flys,mosquitos and such are fine,but never slugs,the nutrients are diferent and not good for the VFT.Im also new in having and caring for VFT,so i hope im not wrong,im just trying to help!