FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

penatrap wrote:

tommyr wrote:

penatrap wrote:i got these lights
https://www.amazon.ca/Spectrum-Reflecto ... den&sr=1-8
i know they're most likely not 600w but they'll be good enough for vfts.. right?
i'll probably be bringing them in in about a month or two

That's overkill IMHO. Regular shop lights would be fine and far cheaper. This is until they can go back outside in full Sun right?

yes... I also thought they were overkill, but my friend (who knows I like plants) got them for me as a gift. will it burn the VFTs? I thought they loved full light

Placed far enough away it shouldn't burn them, it's just that I was trying to save you money but I didn't know that light was a gift!

update number 2
so we had a freeze... and I noticed like yesterday that the VFTs were completely frozen and I was paranoid (cause of how I killed my first VFT from a few years ago) so I brought them in. well, they're thawed.. but the leaves look wilted and worse (although they're still pretty green). like, darker green but not in a good way if you get what I mean

I've checked the temps for this week and it'll stay just above freezing so I think i'll put them back out

penatrap wrote:so we had a freeze... and I noticed like yesterday that the VFTs were completely frozen and I was paranoid (cause of how I killed my first VFT from a few years ago) so I brought them in. well, they're thawed.. but the leaves look wilted and worse (although they're still pretty green). like, darker green but not in a good way if you get what I mean

Yeah, that's pretty standard when a flytrap freezes. It damages the tissue to some extent. Best to not let it happen, but it won't kill the flytrap.

penatrap wrote:I've checked the temps for this week and it'll stay just above freezing so I think i'll put them back out

Good call, as getting good light is important. Just be sure to cover them if it is going to frost or bring them in if the forecast changes and it might freeze.

woop woop another update -

so it's been about 2 months since i've put them out, and the leaves are looking really bad. like, the only healthy (ish) green i see is near the centre - after trimming off all the dead matter (one of the traps was getting fuzzy mold on it too, yuck) the only thing left of the plant is a little bunch of thin green leaves in the centre. I decided that this was enough for the poor plants and someone earlier in the thread told me to do a 10 week dormancy (close enough I guess). They will probably not be as healthy next spring but to me it's better to have a slightly more tired plant than a completely dead one.

So now they are bathing in my grow light placed ~2 feet away from my plants. I was thinking maybe only a few hours a day for this week?

Or maybe my judgement is completely wrong and I should just let them do their thing outside in their wilted state. That's what I'm on this forum for lol - you guys tell me what you think

I would mostly agree with your reasoning. Those are not looking optimal, so cutting the dormancy short and placing them under lights is probably the best option right now. With plants that were already weak to begin with giving them a long dormancy with hard freezes would probably kill them. Some of those look like the damage may be going down to the rhizome making them more prone to rot. I wouldn't even do short photoperiod at this point either, just blast them with light.

mk, they will 100% burn but they will be getting 8 hours tomorrow as per your advice

hopefully the shock doesn't kill them anyway LMAO

so after 2 days of blasting with light all the leaves haven't yet burnt to a crisp which is surprising for me.. I can actually see some of them colouring up in the middle so I guess that's a good sign?

penatrap wrote:so after 2 days of blasting with light all the leaves haven't yet burnt to a crisp which is surprising for me.. I can actually see some of them colouring up in the middle so I guess that's a good sign?

Not all lights are created equal, so if you are using a weak one (or keeping it very high above the plants) it wouldn't burn the leaves.

You can use this light, it’s overkill but works well if you are careful about acclimating your plants. Some growers here use similar strong LEDS and their plants color up beautifully.