FlyTrapCare Forums

Hi all! I hope everyone’s doing well, i recently got some b52 VFTS from predatoryplants, which is a pretty reputable source, I have had them for a couple months now and up until recently they been healthy with large bright colored traps, however, recently thingd have changed, the traps are now constantly closed and j have no idea why and now they’re starting to blacken, im also noticing new growth has some rot on it or never fully develops into a full leaf, the stems are also turning dark red but that might just be sunlight but i never have ran into this, I have done some research and it says it might be root rot? Or pests? I ordered some proper insecticide so I’m gonna try that but man I need some help, and yes I use distilled water and use the water tray method to keep them moist not wet.

VFT's need much more light than what most artificial sources can provide. In my opinion, your plant is either going dormant due to lower light levels; it thinks it's turning to autumn because it was used to more light at PP. Or it's slowly dying from lack of light, and the traps not closing is a sign of the plant saving energy.
I would put it outside in indirect light for a week, then put it in direct AM sunlight with indirect light after noon and for the rest of the day.

Its very hard and expensive to mimic full sun temperate conditions in a home. I grow my flytraps in the back yard, I just keep them watered and change the media every other year and they thrive.

this was my 1st fly trap it came in a 3in pot years ago.

Well the traps are closing but they’re staying closed that’s what I’m confused about and yes I do understand that I need to get them more light but they had to slowly be reintroduced to light because it took them a while to get here in the mail and I didn’t wanna blind them with the sun when I first got them so I been using artificial lighting for the most part and i thought maybe it was dormancy too but like the actual stems are starting to rot as well and I never actually have had to put one through dormancy yet because it’s been a couple years since I had the.mn I recently started growing them again so

movement takes a lot of energy the plant gets from light.

Everything said about the light above but also those traps looked sealed. Is it someplace it can trap lots of bugs, particularly roaches? They take forever to digest and generally the trap will die because of it.

So a update, those plants did die off not due to the light conditions but actually pests, but hwere what im not understanding, if they aren’t getting the amount of light they neee then woukdnt they not be vibrantly colored? Because when I first picked them up ther were all green, barely red, under my care they all claimed a deep red Coler which in my experience anyways, means it’s getting all the light it needs and is healthy

What kind of pests killed them?

Im not quite sure but I know it wasn’t due to lack of light as they were getting 12+ hours a day, whatever it was was triggering the traps every night.

It seems weird that something simply tripping the traps closed would kill them. Flytraps are plants and produce food through photosynthesis just like other plants…they don’t really need bugs to survive. A large bug could kill one by being to large for the trap to digest and it rotting inside the trap, but you would have seen bugs crawling around if there was an infestation of that size. The ingredients for the demise of the plants as you described would seem to be some or all of these:

*Growing medium too wet.
*Cool temperatures.
*Mediocre light.
*Fertilizer tainted growing medium.
*High TDS water.

I would look hard at cultural conditions and see if something needs changing. Best wishes.

I used distilled water for all my flytraps and have never had this happen before i dont quite understand how it happened though because it wasn’t like they were just closing and then opening they thought they had caught something and then sealed everytine and there was nothing ever there and the growing medium I used was spaghmum moss for those, for my newer ones im trying a mixture of peat moss and perhlite as people say they work better for drainage,, I have never used any fertilizer for my vfts, and the light situation shoudla been fine, now I have better light conditions somewhat i jjst dont ahve the type of money to pour 100 dollars into grow lights, what grow lights work best for budget you think?

I also used the water tray method for watering, id let the tray dry and the plants become just moist, then water

Panman wrote:... Is it someplace it can trap lots of bugs, particularly roaches? They take forever to digest and generally the trap will die because of it.

Had similar symptoms after over feeding my first VFT with a big ol’ crusty cricket. What was inside the closed decaying traps?

I'm no expert, BTS, just giving you some food for thought.

As for cheap lights, the Yescom's appear to be an inexpensive favorite, preferably the white-light version. They're not the brightest, though, and flytraps demand strong lighting. You would need them positioned closely to the plants. They're not the highest quality lights but lots of people are using them so they must be pretty good. $60 will get you a pair of them... https://www.amazon.com/Yescom-Ultrathin ... f9840&th=1

If you had other flytraps that did well under the same conditions, though, it seems something specific to the dead plants was going on... ????

So I watched CPH on yt and he recommended and sansi grow bulb as well which I actually just picked up, i live in an apartment so rigging up a yescom isn’t an option for me, but are the sansi bulbs a good alternative?