FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I have heard that maxsea is a good fertilizer for cp's but u want to know how much to use and what cp's to use it on


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I use MaxSea on my flytraps, sarrs, and bladderworts. it doesn't seem to hurt them and it works well. I use 1/4 teaspoon to 1 gallon of distilled water

Do you spray it or just water it? How often?

Soil fertilizing can cause algae growth. Just mist your plants with the solution.

I have found that for my plants, I never, ever can root-feed with 1/4 strength MaxSea (my standard foliar concentration). They do not tolerate it.

I see, that makes sense. But how often to spray it? I am planning to try out maxsea next spring on some of my CPs.

I use 1/4 strength once per week. Just one light misting, I don't do much. Every couple of weeks I will heavily mist the plants with plain water to try to wash off any residual salts that might be on the leaves.

Thanks for the advice! I will try it next spring:)

Sorry, one more question, do you use the all purpose one or the acid one? Will the acid one do better? as vfts like lower ph.

All purpose, I guess. I've never seen the acid type.

They have 3 types, all purpose, bloom and acid, see http://www.maxsea-plant-food.com/products.html I guess it is always safer to start with all purpose first.

Duh. Sorry, I'm not thinking correctly today. If I had been, I would have told you 16-16-16 is the one you want. The one with the iris on the front, that's what I remembered, but I should have just told you the NPK ratio.

All that aside, MaxSea is by far the best all-purpose CP fertilizer. It will make your plants grow like never before. Just remember that for more delicate plants like Sphagnum and the Queensland sundews, you don't want to use it once a week. Use a low concentration (1/4 tsp per gallon), and try to only do it every two weeks, at most. Sarracenia and Nepenthes are very tough and can easily take and enjoy a misting of 1/2 strength every week.

To be safe, if you're ever trying it out on a new plant, use a slightly more dilute concentration (like 1/6 or 1/8) every two weeks and work your way up as the plant adjusts.

Always flush the soil of fertilized plants every month to eliminate any excess buildup.

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation!

I second the tip on Queensland sundews, D. schizandra in particular is susceptible to mold and leaf burning but it does seem to appreciate an occasional light fertilization. Maxsea is great for feeding Drosera since you can just mix and spray the leaves instead of tediously feeding each one like you would do with fish food or dried insects. You can use it exactly the same way on Byblis as well.

Soil fertilizing is actually ok for large-leafed Utricularia and to some extent Pinguicula grown in inorganic media (since it has no nutrients to begin with). With utrics use a low concentration and just pour some on. I use a little less than 1/4 tsp/gallon for sturdy things like U. calycifida or U. longifolia and less for others, especially if they grow really wet like U. nelumbifolia. Be careful though, it'll often turn your sphagnum mucky green and degrade it (the easy species won't mind too much though). It also seems to work with low concentrations for G. hispidula, but mold and algae grows everywhere from the wet conditions and warmth.

The best part is since you generally need only low concentrations, unless you have a huge amount of plants a single jar of Maxsea will last ages.

zsyxcbibi wrote:Do you spray it or just water it? How often?

I "paint" it on with a tiny oil painting brush. just apply it to the leaves; that way it doesn't get into the soil

Ugh, that sounds a lot of work. I have a lot vfts, I can not afford the time to do that