Hello sylence,

Here's a link to some useful info about your VFT.

http://cobraplant.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=8&chapter=1&zenid=0d131ce8a4612312256512c8b9ae5b62

If it where mine, the first thing I would do is remove the plastic dome, top water it throughly with distilled water, because regular tap water will kill it. Then would set it in a water tray with about 1" of distilled water in the bottom, and move it outdoors. VFT require full sun through out the day in order to flourish, but if your plant has not had that much light you may want to gradually work up to it by starting out in partial sun. Also this time of year VFT's should be in winter dormancy. Read through the care sheets on that link, there is a lot of good info there!
Good luck

I agree with All things.

Should the pot be sitting directly in the 1 " of distilled water? Or should it be sitting on gravel or pebbles? I'm just wondering if keeping it directly in the water would cause root rot.

Thanks.

Yes the pot should be submerged in the water. VFT's are bog plants, in there natural habitat there is cool spring water constantly fed to there roots. In the hot summer months, I like to freeze distilled water ice cubes, and place a couple in there water trays to make them feel at home. Oh yes, and be sure when you remove that plastic dome please through it in the trash! With that thing on there you can get all kinds of mold, and in full sun you would roast your plant. That may have been your biggest problem.

And I might add, it probably would be a good idea to get a sulfur-based fungicide like sulfur dust, and apply it to your plant. It could have a mold infection causing the dieing back. You can find it at any garden center. Just be sure you fallow the instructions.
Good luck

Add too that hopefully the vft hasn't been sitting in full sun while covered w/ the dome. [Not an uncommon mistake believe it or not.] That would cook --literally -- the poor thing in no time flat.

Btw, if you got the plant from Lowes, one nice thing to remember is you have a one year "warranty" on it.

If there are a lot of traps, trim off the ick ones with sterilized clippers to stave off the badness from spreading.

I agree about the plastic dome. VFT's do like a good dose of humidity, but not that much, and they do require air flow--which those cute plastic domes they sell them in do not. I would also recommend that if it came in one of those fitted plastic boxes, please remove the bottom part as well--and plant your flytrap in a generic plastic pot with drainage holes in the bottom. Place your VFT in the pot in a cottage cheese container, sushi tray or open topped 1 gallon fish bowl--something with at least 1" of space for water. VFT like to be submerged by approx 1/3 the pot height in water.

The water should ideally be rain water, but water from a nearby stream would work. Some advise against this, but I used to use water from the downspout of my house (some people believe the chemicals from your roof can adversely affect your CPs--but I think it depends on the age of the roof and the materials involved)--and noticed no ill effects. Other options are distilled water from the grocery store, this is okay, but don't use deionized water--for the same reason its not considered potable--being DI means that its non-reactive for like lab experiments, but left for long opened and it can grow all kinds of weird bacteria--consider it an amoeba magnet--and bad for your plant. Something I've read from several sources and have used in a pinch, is to leave your tap water out, in a milk jug worked for me, with the lid off for about 48 hours. This will allow the chlorine that is usually in municipal tap water to evaporate off and should no longer be detrimental to your plant. Though if the municipality adds floride I would reconsider.

Also something to remember with fly traps is 'not to play with the traps very often.' No one else has mentioned this yet, but the traps only last for about 4-6 closings each--then they will die and be replaced by another trap growing from the middle of the plant. But if you exhaust all the traps at once, you could potentially kill it. Fly traps don't really require feeding, even if they're inside. They only need about 2 or 3 small insects a year, and even in your house, some hapless insect might just wander into it about that many times. So only play with like one trap every couple months, if you just can't help yourself.

The other thing that all things green mentioned that could save you is fly traps do need a winter rest period, for about 2 months in the middle of the winter. They get really unexciting during this time, and don't seem to grow at all. You may notice the traps getting all spindly (for this reason, I try not to buy VFT in the winter, and would advise you to do the same. The hardware store is just in it for the money, and if they're selling them right now, the plants probably haven't rested at all).

This means keeping them cooler (40 or 50 degrees F should suffice--although some people just wrap them in tin foil and put them in the fridge (I haven't tried this yet)) and drier (just moist--not sitting in water)--possibly in your garage, until spring comes. If you don't do this the first year you might be okay, but you really must try to give it a rest every year, other wise the plant will exhaust its self. Also, though they are quite pretty, unless you want the seed, trim off any flower stalks you might see on the VFT as your plant will be less vigorous while growing the flower.

For a great CP manual--if you're hooked--I recommend "The Savage Garden" by Peter D'Amato.

Happy CP-ing!

Plantgrrl: I'm amazed that anybody knows about deionized (DI) water! I AM a laboratory analyst, having worked in a few environmental laboratories. At one "mom and pop" lab I was allowed to take a room in an apartment used for supplied, to house my CP collection. I was allowed to use their DI water.

Scenes from the lab:

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Today I work for a pharmaceutical lab and we have WFI water (water for injection). Unfortunately, I am not allowed to take any home with me, not even the water they would dump down the drain.

A word of cuation about evaporating tap water: Tap water containes varying degrees of dissolved metallic salts. Evaporating removes Chlorine, but concentrates the salt ions. so if there is Mg, k, Mn, Ca in the water, evaporating would make it worse. This approach is great for tropical fish, but potentially bad for CP's.

I have also used collected downspout water, collected rain water in plastic trash barrels, melted snow, and streams. It's chancy, but if you can't get distilled water from the grocery store, it's worth a shot.

I learned to slowly acclimate these plants. When purchased in the "dome of death" the humidity is generally quite high, the condensation can be seen and sometimes quite a lot of it. The plants over the time of being shipped from wholesale nurseries that use domes have been deprived of light and are adjusting to the high humidity in the dome. No fast UPS shipping; just a long, cold/hot (depending on time of year), dark ride to your store. Most plants I have found are still kept in the dark at stores. The plants have gone through radical changes in their environment and many look poorly or are dieing because of it.

When I purchase one in a dome, I bring it straight home. I check to make sure the pot it is in has drainage holes, remove the top and top water the plant until it runs well out the bottom, thus flushing the soil incase the store has set them in tap water before putting them on display. I trim off any black traps or leaves, pitchers, etc. leave all that is green for photosynthesis. I cut one whole in the top if it is in the plastic cylinder type of dome or slightly prop up one side of the dome, only about 1/4 inch. I then put it under my plant lights, but further away then normal because of the dome and the fact that the plant is not now use to strong light. Usually about 10 inches from a 3200 lumen light. It is placed in a water tray of distilled, RO or rain water caught directly from the rain, no runoff. As I understand it, it's not only the chlorine that can kill the plant but lots of other minerals as well that are in our tap water, wells, runoff, lakes, streams, etc. I would be a bit reluctant to use stream or lake water for the same reason, not knowing what minerals could be in the water. Use a clean plastic tray for the same reason. I once had a gift plant arrive with the pot in a pretty metal container. First thing was get rid of the metal container.

Every 4 days lift the dome a little higher or cut another small hole in it. Keep working with it, allowing it to adjust to the humidity in your home for the next couple of weeks. By then the dome should be full of holes or almost off and you can just remove it and move the plant to brighter light. I move it to 12,800 lumens of light until the outside temperature is close to the inside temperature of my home and then move them outside. I also don't rush to repot them.

Here is a picture of some VFTs that were in domes, I purchased Dec. 6, 2007. In the back you can see some VFTs are still in their same little pots, I am gradually repotting the ones purchased that day. The plants were not dormant, I did put the question of dormancy for these plants purchased in December up here on the forum. Knowledgeable answers were no, don't force them into dormancy at this time. The two pots in front under the domes are capensis seedlings. You can see how I am slowly raising the domes on them.

Maybe I am being overly cautious, maybe not. I purchased 23+ plants in domes last year, my first cps, and all are doing well.
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nycti, just curious - how big are the pots those VFTs in and how many traps did they have when you bought them? I bought one last year around August/September from a grocery store, and it was in a 1" pot with 2 bigger traps and then a couple that had just sprouted.

I'm just curious because if yours were similar to mine, then I'd like to know what you are doing to get them so full! I will be repotting mine when it comes out of dormancy and I'm hoping it's full like that by the end of the summer.

Hi jmach,

Wish I had some secret to tell you, like sprinkling magic dust on them or something. The most I can say is I follow my above post.

On Dec. 6, 07 I purchased 11, all they had more like a rescue poor things, from a 99 cent store for $10.89. Then I spotted 2 more set aside looking real bad, they gave them to me saying they were just going to die. They were in Bloomrite nursery domes. The pots measure 2 1/2 inches across the top, typical wholesale pots. I have repotted 9 of them so far into larger pots and a few of them had 2 rhizomes per pot. Looks like I will end up with around 18 plants, all survived. Now, they are all constantly putting up new traps, growing and coloring up nice. (i.e. one plant has a trap ready to open, a trap forming on a leaf and a new trap starting in the center) Even the moss I found with them is surviving. I did not put them into dormancy and they are under 12,800 lumens of light, 13 hrs, daytime temps 68 - 70. I top water every other day with RO (less than 50 ppm) or rain water in a bottle with a nozzle top (mustard bottle type), tray water is kept at about 1/2 inch never less. I use half Canadian peat and half perlite mix for soil, though the ones in the pic are still in the original pots and soil from the nursery.

However, the VFTs I purchased last summer that have been outside since fall and have gone through domancy are looking pretty sad. They are small and more like clusters. From what I have read they are supposed to be like this through the winter. We don't get real cold winters, 50 - 60 during the day. I'm hoping with repotting them soon and warmer temps starting that they will spring back to life and look more like the indoor ones in the picture.

Spring bring us life.
Hope this helped,
Nycti

Interesting. I think I might invest in a different lamp for my plant this spring. I currently just use a desk lamp with a 100-watt CFL, which according to the package produces only 1750 lumens. This one light has worked very well in keeping my VFT (and my pineapple plant) alive - the plant was an impulse buy so I didn't really do any research first and had to make due with what I had.

After I repot the plant at the end of April I am going to find a deeper container to put the pot in - I took apart a coaster for the one I have now so it only sits in maybe a little over 1/8" of water.

Hopefully more light and water will help - I think a decent summer out of the grocery store will do it well too.

I would suggest a "shop light", the cheapy 4 foot kind found at HD or Lowe's for about $8.00. I use 2 of them together. When shopping for tubes (bulbs) for them I picked the highest amount of lumens I could find which is 3,200 per tube, so 4 = 12,800. These lights last a long time and are energy saving to. I recently read to change the tubes used for plants after a year, that the color spectrum diminishes even though the light looks fine to us. When I replace the plant's tubes I mark the old tubes "used" and save them for ceiling florescent lighting I have in other rooms. Adjust the light so the plants are 6 - 8 inches from the lights. A Christmas tree light timer is handy to keep the lights on schedule. This is more a set-up for plants that are suppose to be kept inside, not go dormant, tropics, seedlings, etc.

I have also read that VFTs do better outside in the natural sunlight. I plan to put all of mine out as soon as the temps rise a little more. Our summers are very hot so I will have to move them inside and take advantage of the light system when the temps get to high, then back out in fall. I guess I will be on the opposite schedule of most of the country.

Most of what I have learned is from reading archives of cp forums and from asking questions. This is a friendly forum and has been most helpful, especially Mutant Hybrid's and Petiolaris' posts.

Nycti

I'm hoping I can find a smaller fluorescent fixture - anything over 2 feet is pushing it, with moving to and from school and the amount of space I have in my apartment. I am leary of putting my plant outside, although it would be a lot easier...but when I come back up to school in August I will have to move it inside again, and I figure it will be easier just to keep it in a window with some artificial light throughout the summer rather than bring it back indoors for the later part of the summer.

I agree, this forum is a great resource and I like that people are willing to help you when you're new to the whole thing.