FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I purchased a thin leaf sundew from California Carnivores about 1-2 months ago. Its been really struggling. I thought this was due to the crappy mix I repotted it in. I have been flushing the soil daily to lower the tds. I had it down into the 20s ppm so let it go a few days. When I reflushed it the tds was back at 110

Today I noticed tiny green bugs (mites?) on some of the leaves. Tried to get a pic but they are too small. Any thoughts on how to proceed.

Well, 1-2 months is kinda the reset period for a sundew to recover from shipping. However, if you have pests (sounds like aphids), they won't recover until you deal with the pests.
A few, light,weekly applications of a mild insecticide like Bioadvanced 3-in-1 should clear it up, but sundews don't like insecticides. They will go downhill further with the application, but should recover if it's not too far gone and stays a little alive.
Think of it as "mostly dead", and all you need is Miracle Max and his chocolate coated miracle pill of insecticide and TLC.

I looked at some photos online and agree aphids. I also looked online and see that spraying with water containing a bit of dish soap is a method the get rid of them. Since I don’t have any insecticide I am trying that approach first.

Ordered the recommended insecticide. Amazon has it for 1/2 the price of anywhere else I can find. Since it won’t arrive until approx. Thurs I have made a mild dish soap solution and am submerging my sundew in water for 24 hours.

Will thoroughly rinse and flush when removed.

And no its not dying yet so no need for Miracle Max. It still has new leaves growing almost daily but the turn black as they uncurl.

I can't say I've seen a sundew quite that mangled by pests, but there's a first time for everything. I would be careful using soap though, CP's don't always react well to it.

When one of my Capensis got spider mites I submerged it for 4 days in distilled water. It was upset for about a month but it killed the mites. I don't know if this would work on aphids, but you might want to leave it dunked for more than 24 hours.

NIMBULAN,

It that bad for two reasons other then aphids.

• Its newly repotted.

• See my other posts about the bad Perfect Plants carnivorous soil I got and the high tds I have been fighting

Submerged it in a mild dish soap and 0 tds water all day and over night. Removed from the solution this morning. Sprayed the sundew with clean 0 tds water to wash away residue of soap. Flushed the media numerous times as well. TDS coming out of final flush was 10 ppm.

Hopefully I have washed away all the soap residue and the aphids are dead.