FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I received my order of 15 flytrap seeds from FTS and went ahead and sowed them on 50/50 peat/perlite. The seeds are resting on top, not under the soil.

I've also put saran wrap over them and punched holes in it for ventilation and to let excess heat out. I'm planning on germinating them and, hopefully, growing them indoors through this years dormancy. I'm using a 14 watt light bulb(package says 50 watt equivalent) rated at 5000k.

Having done research, I'm aware that 6500k is ideal for flytraps but that is when there are already leaves, etc. I'm using the 5000k mainly for heat, though I don't want to cook the little buggers. The light bulb is about six to eight inches from the top of the soil. When I put my hand under the light above the soil I can feel the warmth, it's not hot. I'm confident that several hours under the light won't overheat the seeds, though I do turn on my ceiling fan occasionally to provide ventilation.

Here are some pics of my setup: So it's not the best picture, I've cleaned up the germination chamber and rinsed it off with distilled water prior to getting things going. And, yeah, the light is seven inches from the soil. Any and all advice/tips is welcome. Thanks!

That setup looks great to me ironjaws, when I first started growing I had 100% germination of 20 seeds in one of those terrible "Jiffy Greenhouses" under a desk lamp that was before I knew better, and they all germinated within a week. Flytrap seedlings can be very forgiving. As long as they are good quality seeds I'm sure your going to have fantastic results. Things to remember: Always check for mold or any type of fungus, and bugs love baby flytraps especially fungus knats and their larva can wipe you out within a week if not killed immediately so keep an eye out for those, and don't overwater.
:] Good luck growing!

Looks great, just have 2 tips,
Keep an eye out for mold (in my experience i loose a few seeds due to mold)
and check temperature, something can feel warm or hot depending on the humidity so u actually would like to know a number.

What light cycle are you using?

Thanks for advice and the luck, Zombie_walker(I still think that's a wicked name ). Mold or fungi never even crossed my mind thanks for bringing it to mind .

Sander- I'm pretty new to growing plants in general, and even newer to growing plants indoors, this will be my first time. How would I go about checking the temperature? What should the temperature be?

The light cycle I'm using is 12 hours on and 12 hours off. I'm leaving the light on at night because the nights are getting cold. I'm thinking about leaving the light on with the saran wrap off at night, and then turning the light off and putting the saran wrap back on during the day to keep the warmth in. Does that sound like a good idea, or am I inviting mold and whatnot?

What does the mold/fungi look like and how would I get rid of it? Thanks for wishing me luck Zombie_walker! . I really appreciate the advice and the tips everyone!!

Sorry to jump in and bogart some of the answers here; You can buy a probe thermometer in any baking aisle of a grocery store; They'll fit nicely inside your germination chamber; if you go to a garden center, you can get a thermometer with a humidity gauge as well. Temperature should be at least 70 for germination; although 80 or so is not bad either, and can actually speed along the process.
I would go with a 15 or 16 hour light cycle; twelve is almost borderline dormancy light cycling (dormancy lighting is around 10 or less). I don't know what kind of room you're keeping them in that they would get that cold; you're in San Jose, right? Are you just rockin' some serious AC? If you can keep them a minimum of 70 degrees at night, that would be great; I used a heating pad at night which I manually turned on; it turns itself off after 2 hours; my insomnia allowed me to turn it on again sometimes in the middle of the night; I'm certain that the heating pad brought the temps into the 90s at times; no ill-effects that I've seen, though. But there were plenty of times where I slept though and didn't restart the heating pad; some residual heat kept it warmer for an extra hour or two, I'm sure, plus my wife gets cold easy so we're usually in the mid to high 70s in the house anyway.
One 14 watt (50 w equivalent) bulb is probably not going to cut it; I would start by finding the 26 watt (100 watt equivalent), and getting four or six of them, preferably 6500k, or getting a couple of four foot fluorescent tube fixtures, and through some T8s or T5s in there. I know it's probably a lot of trouble; but those seedlings are going to need a ton of light to be healthy and strong.
Good luck, Ironjaws. I hope you have great success with the seedlings. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate.

I agree with what brooks said, except for the lighting part.
Do they get any sunlight or just light from the lamp?
I have some seedlings under a 10w led and they are doing ok, but they get indirect sunlight about 8 hours a day (west facing window).

sbrooks wrote: Are you just rockin' some serious AC?

Some serious AC/DC whenever I can , sorry that was a bad joke .

sbrooks wrote:You can buy a probe thermometer in any baking aisle of a grocery store; They'll fit nicely inside your germination chamber;

Picked up a thermometer from the grocery store on my way home.

sbrooks wrote:Temperature should be at least 70 for germination; although 80 or so is not bad either, and can actually speed along the process.
I would go with a 15 or 16 hour light cycle; twelve is almost borderline dormancy light cycling (dormancy lighting is around 10 or less).

Thanks for the specifics, I'm pseudo detail oriented and knowing what the temp range and amount of light should be and knowing what it actually is, using a thermometer(duh) is reassuring.

sbrooks wrote:One 14 watt (50 w equivalent) bulb is probably not going to cut it; I would start by finding the 26 watt (100 watt equivalent), and getting four or six of them, preferably 6500k, or getting a couple of four foot fluorescent tube fixtures, and through some T8s or T5s in there. I know it's probably a lot of trouble; but those seedlings are going to need a ton of light to be healthy and strong.
Good luck, Ironjaws. I hope you have great success with the seedlings. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate.

Thank you for the positive thoughts !That seems like a bunch of light for what I'm doing; I've only got 15 seeds, is all that light really needed ? I picked up a 23w 6500k cfl on my way home tonight; dang that's a bright one! Should all 15 of my lil' seeds germinate, would I be able to use the one 23w 6500k cfl as a supplement to sunlight, or would I need to get more lights? I'm also low on space, so a big or even a moderate setup would be very difficult for me. Like I said before, I plan on growing these babies through this years dormancy.

Sander wrote:Do they get any sunlight or just light from the lamp?
I have some seedlings under a 10w led and they are doing ok, but they get indirect sunlight about 8 hours a day (west facing window).

Well, they get very little sunlight, if any. The bulk of the light they get is from the bulb. The only window in my room, which is the only place where my chamber doesn't risk falling over or anything, is a north facing window.

I do plan on moving these buggers, once they germinate, into another pot and begin introducing them to whatever direct sunlight we get this dormancy, and use the 23w 6500k cfl as a supplement. Does that sound like a good idea, or will I risk losing my seedlings that way?

I truly appreciate the help everyone !

ironjaws wrote:

Sander wrote:Do they get any sunlight or just light from the lamp?
I have some seedlings under a 10w led and they are doing ok, but they get indirect sunlight about 8 hours a day (west facing window).

Well, they get very little sunlight, if any. The bulk of the light they get is from the bulb. The only window in my room, which is the only place where my chamber doesn't risk falling over or anything, is a north facing window.

I do plan on moving these buggers, once they germinate, into another pot and begin introducing them to whatever direct sunlight we get this dormancy, and use the 23w 6500k cfl as a supplement. Does that sound like a good idea, or will I risk losing my seedlings that way?

I truly appreciate the help everyone !

If they do not get enough sunlight, 23w should do it (exactly what i used last winter).
I would leave them in that mix untill they have at least 3 carnivorous leaves, otherwise u might risk breaking the small root and losing the seedlings because of that (i would only recommend transplanting then if its absolutely necessary if u have no experience with it and dont want to lose any)

Yeah, you guys are right: I got a little overzealous with the lighting. I was assuming a larger growing area, and apparently overlooked that you only have 15 seeds. IMO, I would go with one (or two) of the 100w equivalent CFLs. You had asked about mold or fungus? If you get any, increasing circulation should dissipate it; maybe neem oil, which I have used on seedlings and fresh leaf pullings when necessary, but I'm not absolutely sure of whether it has adverse effects on tender shoots or seeds trying to germinate if used too much. But I have seen mold/fungus disappear just by making their environment a little less friendly with more air circulation. Let us know how it "go"!

sbrooks- Thanks for letting me know about how to deal with mold/fungus, seems easy enough. As far as the lighting goes, I've got another two of those bulbs should I need them .

I'm sure I'm going to have more questions, but for now I'm planning on taking pictures as soon as I see that these babies germinate ; seeing as how it seems that I'm checking on them every ten minutes... when I'm not asleep . I will definitely be keep y'all in the loop.

So I sowed these bad boys this past thursday. I don't want to jump the gun here, but since sunday (four days after thursday) i noticed that one of the seeds looks a bit weird, like the pointy end of the seed seems to have split open and there looks to be something white sticking out of it. I wish I had a better camera to get a pic, but I believe that that seed has germinated!

As soon a I'm able to get a decent pic I'll post it to show you guys!

I'm no expert but I think that's germination right there

Aw, shoot! I moved the seed while taking the saran wrap off. The white sticking out of it is now pointed downward into the soil, I don't want to move it and risk damaging what little roots their are(if in fact that seed has germinated).

Rest assured, as soon as I see that other seeds have germinated I'll get pictures up(if I don't screw it up with the saran wrap).

So I got back home from school just now and checked on my lil' seeds. I took off the saran wrap to let in some fresh air.I can see that one of the seeds has what appears to be a white protrusion with a red little tip. That seed for sure has germinated ! I tried taking a picture but my cameras won't focus on something so small . I guess I'll post pictures of the resulting seedlings!

I did do something different this morning to my setup: I've noticed that when I turn off the light, after a while the temperature inside the germination chamber gets down to around 60-62 degrees. So I placed a cheap heating pad I got from walgreens a long time ago under the germination chamber.The chamber is actually an automotive alignment shim kit container that I cleaned up and removed the lid. The lid is on the bottom and the actual germination chamber is on top of it. There is about a 1/8" gap between the lid and the chamber.

I turned on the heating pad to low and waited ten minutes, then checked the temperature. It got to around 70 degrees. I then decided to set the heating pad to medium and turned on my ceiling fan for ventilation. After another ten minutes I checked the temperature; a solid 76 degrees. I then left it as it was until I got home just now and noticed that the chamber was full of condensation, before using the heating pad there was little to no condensation in the chamber.

The temperature swing before was from about 82 degrees(with the light on) to 60 degrees(with the light off); a good 20 degree swing which I'm sure isn't too good for seedlings.

Thanks, sbrooks, for the heating pad suggestion; I believe that it's gonna be a huge factor in the success of these seeds germinating. I'll let y'all know about any updates .

Out of 15 seeds, I can say for certain that there are 9 green little seedlings and 1 red little seedling sprouting . I'm still not able to take a decent pic , but again, as soon as I'm able to you guys will be the first to see these little babies.