FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, just registered here and what a great forum!! But anyways, more to the point, I've done quite a bit of research over the winter and early last month I started to buy some flytraps. Now I have about 30 or so plants, various cultivars and sizes. I have them in an aquarium/terrarium with the top open, two 18" flourescent grow lights about 7-8" above the plants. I potted them in pots ranging from 2-4" in a mix of 50% Fertilome SPM, 40% regular perlite, and 10% LFS to keep the perlite in place. They always have a few centimeters of sodium free distilled H2O in there. Temp is about 70-75. Humidity 50-65%. Giving them 18 hrs of light due to having artificial light. I also clip the flowering stalks.

OK, that said, here's the problem; some of the plants traps discolor and dry up prematurely, and some of the new leaves come out too red and even distorted, like wavy. Edges of brand new leaves will discolor and grow very slow. I have ruled out everything I can think of, and i do not know what these growth characteristics point to. HELP!!

Fertilome SPM? I hope that is pure sphagnum moss you are talking about. If it's enriched with anything, it's killing your plants.

If that's not the case, since you are growing in a terrarium, the still air and high humidity is probably started a fungus or some other unholy growth in the pots. I've had this happen before and drier conditions help.

Where are you located? Is it possible for you to give your plants full sunlight?

If that is not possible, consider letting the terrarium evaporate till there is no water left then add a bit. Also put a fan next to it and let it blow over the top. This should dry the surfaces of the leaves, especially the parts that are just below ground level. Humidity is not something you have to worry about. Too many nasties love humid, warm places and grow faster than a VFT will.

As you said you did a lot of research. I'm assuming you know the basics such as

1. Light
2. Pure Water
3. Peat Moss mix for the media (lfs is fine too)

Hello and welcome to the flytrapcare forums!

Adam pretty well covered it. I'm not familiar with Fertilome SPM either and a quick search in google didn't yield any results that made sense. What is Fertilome SPM?

Perhaps you can figure this out from Adam's post, but it's really, really hard to keep VFTs healthy in terrariums. They do better growing outdoors or in greenhouses.

What cultivars are you growing? I'd love to see some photos.

On a side note, what are you doing with your flower stalks? I'm trying to get my hands on flower stalks from non-typical Dionaea. If you're willing to send some to me, I'd pay for shipping and if I'm able to get them started in tissue culture, I'd send you back plants as well.

Thanks for the help so fast!! Fertilome is just the brand name of the SPM. From all the info on the package, it looks to be pure and without fertilizer. The humidity issue i can fix but the soil is never soaking wet and i have inspected the rhizome of the worst plant and its white, and sturdy with no mushyness. The whole terrarium in general has no signs of being stagnant. And as for growing them outdoors, that is the plan but in Illinois its still too cold for the amount of growth they have aready produced(i think). The flower stalks have been clipped already but if they shoot up an alternate stalk, i'll let you know, Matt. And I will have more plants in the mail, as they are addicting. I'll try to get my meager grow list up soon.

Have you repotted recently? Or were they potted from a bare root shipping? A lot of times any breaks to the roots limit the rate at which the plant can absorb the water. They must be given time to regrow. The limited intake of water usually affects the oldest leaves though. In your case it may be worse off and even the new leaves are affected. After I repotted one of my plants, it actually shrunk in size to half of what it used to be due to the disrupted root system. It's still healthy and growing, but just smaller.

Can you keep the grow lights above the plants without the terrarium? That would help the air flow better.

Do you get any sunlight in your apartment/house? Sunlight does magic on these plants. I have my indoor plants in the sunshine and I supplement in the evening with the grow lights for the smaller ones to give them a boost. Perhaps your plants will recover if you maximize their light intake.

It may be that your plants are still adjusting to the new conditions and you should see new proper green growth in a couple of weeks if you give them a minimum of 4 hours of direct sunlight. If that's not possible, I'd crank up the grow light exposure to 20 hours a day. 4 hours of dark should be good enough for them.

Molo wrote:The flower stalks have been clipped already but if they shoot up an alternate stalk, i'll let you know, Matt.

Ok thanks!

Molo wrote:And I will have more plants in the mail, as they are addicting.

I hear that! I'm always on the lookout for plants that I don't already have.

As far as your problem with the traps drying up prematurely and some new leaves coming out red and distorted, I think I've seen this before with some plants that I had in a terrarium for a few weeks. I'm not sure what causes it, but when I put the plants in sunlight, I don't have those problems.

If you post a photo, that would help diagnose the problem, because if the traps are drying up or aren't forming at all, that could be a sign that the plants aren't getting enough quality light. That would be easy to tell for sure from a photo.

Adam wrote:Have you repotted recently? Or were they potted from a bare root shipping?

Can you keep the grow lights above the plants without the terrarium? That would help the air flow better.

Do you get any sunlight in your apartment/house?

All my plants I received bare root and only have been repotted once. I will take them out of the terrarium and place them in front of a south facing window, because if i dont change the process, i'll just get the same result. What gradient should i use to acclimate them to sunlight? Also, the photoperiod for march is less than 18hrs(which they have been growing with) so will the sunlight trigger dormancy?

Matt wrote:If you post a photo, that would help diagnose the problem, because if the traps are drying up or aren't forming at all, that could be a sign that the plants aren't getting enough quality light. That would be easy to tell for sure from a photo.

I'll get them some sunlight and try to get photos of the plants soon.

Molo wrote:What gradient should i use to acclimate them to sunlight? Also, the photoperiod for march is less than 18hrs(which they have been growing with) so will the sunlight trigger dormancy?

I don't know what gradient means in this context, but I would acclimate them to shade or sun through a window before placing them in direct sunlight. The south facing window that you mentioned should be fine to put them in without having to worry about burning them.

With regards to the decreased photo period, yes, it's likely that your plants will not look very good for a while when you take them out of the terrarium. I had some plants in my terrarium last spring until about mid April. When I took them out, they lost a lot of leaves, but they came back in a month or so.