FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi everyone, I recently acquired my first two pings - a P. laueana and a P. ehlersiae. The good news is that they both seem to be doing ok... One leaf on the main laueana plant is going transparent and I fear it's probably gone but I hope the overall plant is doing alright. The extra baby laueana that came with the main plant seems to be thriving, and I even have a strike from an extra leaf that had fallen off that I laid in the pot.

Onto my main concern, the soil is molding. My questions are 3 fold:

1) Is the soil too peaty? Do I need to remake a new soil with more minerals? It's currently a mix of peat, perlite, and vermiculite. I'm thinking about replacing some of the peat with turface.

2) Is there anything to be done about the mold? Is this a result of overwatering, or a product of the soil mix?

3) Does the mold pose a significant risk to the health of the plants? I'm especially worried about the leaf strike and the smaller plant.

Thanks as always for taking your time to lend me your knowledge, I look forward to reading what you folks have to say.

My thoughts.
Yes, too peaty. I usually do about a 3:1 perlite:peat.
I stay away from vermiculite because it breaks down and becomes ugly.
It looks too wet. Letting it dry should alleviate most of your mold issue.

I prefer a totally mineral mix - turface/aragonite/silica sand/lava rock/pumice and maybe chicken grit. But definitely ditch the vermiculite. And at least most of the peat.

I stopped using perlite for this exact reason. I am not by any means saying that is what the issue is but when I was using perlite I had the same problem. It might be too much watering. Here in the PNW it is humid most months which is why I figure I was having the issue. I stopped using it and no longer have mold issues.