You live in zone 7B-8. You don't NEED them inside...if you want them aquarium-bound, then leave the aquarium outside.
Really, really, really trust me on this. I've got >75 Sarracenia and have been raising them for years. They are MUCH happier outside!
I don't know your location (I'm in the upper midwest) but the idea that they have to be kept at rainforest humidities is bunk. I grow them outside in pots but have to bring them inside in the winter. Assuming you don't have a desert climate, just make it a micro-bog outdoors.
Good luck.

Sounds like a Lowes cube (of death) purchase! Anyways, VFT's are sunlight lovers and artificial lighting isn't enough to sustain them in the long run. They really do best when outdoors (and protected from squirrels, birds, and neighborhood kids!)

What type of pitcher plant do you have? Is it an American (Sarracenia) or Asian (Nepenthes)? Americam pitcher plants, while almost maintenance free, also really belong outside. Asian pitcher plants can do well indoors, under artifical lighting, or at a window sill.

I am using a 30w fluorescent shoplight for a bunch of plants in a closet, for the winter, and I don't think it's enough. Can you buy a 40W light?

What type of sundew do you have? Below are pictures of possible plants that you may have purchased. If you can discern whether these are what you have, I can help you with possible approaches, depending upon what you have available to you.

General window sill approach:

{{gwi:550238}}

Closet Sundews:

{{gwi:550240}}

Asian Pitcher Plants:

{{gwi:547540}}

American Pitcher Plants:

{{gwi:430821}}

{{gwi:430817}}

D. adlelae on far left:

{{gwi:546990}}

Hi,

Just to add to the comments, there's a great link at this site: www.cobraplants.com On the right side towards the bottom, click on the link that says "Go Fetch Spike" It will basically tell you what plants are suitable for the conditions you want to grow them in - but if you're already living in a great area for growing these plants, take the advice above and try growing them outside! Cheers!

Ummm...whatever you do, don't put the aquarium outside! That is almost certain disaster...trust me on this!

He's right though on the other parts though, sarrs aren't practical in an aquarium for very long anyway...they get too big and they also like more light.

Sundews and flytraps are fine in an indoor aquarium and outdoors (WITH NO AQUARIUM). I grow them both ways. I even had a flytrap to ok in an east window sill last year...it only did OK, not great.

Good luck!
Joe

I agree with Dnieter.
You will be far more satisfied watching them thrive outdoors than struggling with puny indoor terrarium plants.
They'll get plenty to eat, you won't be using any electrical energy and other than keeping them watered and protected, perhaps, in the winter, you won't expend much energy in growing them and keeping them fed.

Oh wow....
information overload! AAHHHH!
LOL
OK, let's see...
I don't have any plants yet, so I don't know what kind I will have. (I love those pix, by the way - awesome!)
I don't have to keep them inside, I just thought I did, if that makes sense. LOL
So I could plant them outside, even over winter? We do get a few nights in the teens around here, and a week or so worth of freezing days. I always thought they needed 65 degrees and high humidity, and that's not what they'd get around here too often. We have humid weather, but it also gets very dry at times.
So, if I wanted them outside, could I use the tank as a planter (I could put enough soil or whatever they need in it to plant them only 2-3" deep in the tank)?
What kind of soil do the need, by the way?
(See, I told you I'm new to these plants! LOL)
Thanks for all the help so far! The plants will thank you for it!

I keep my VFT's & American pitcher plants in buckets w/handles, as minibogs, outside for 8 months of the year and tote them to the cold attic, by a window, for dormancy.

The bucket idea sounds good. I have some tin pails and I have some large planters (about 20" across and 18" deep) that might work. The only place I have to bring them in for the winter would be just sitting them under the carport. Anywhere inside would be too dark for them. Would they get too cold and die under there?

Personally, I would not use metal buckets or trays. Carnivorous plants do not like mineral buildup in their soil and water. Use plasic or pottery pots, buckets, and trays if possible. Rain water and distilled, peat/perlite 50/50 mix acid soil, no fertilizer. The terrarium used as a tall pot sounds cool, but might get a bit heavy to cart around if you need to verwinter the plants somewhere warmer. Most of the species you listed need dormancy during winter down to about a good 40 degrees Fahrenheit for 3-4 months. Some can tolerate lower temperatures for a day or two, but not in the long run. High humidity is a big myth that needs to be busted about most of these plants.

Good luck with your plants.

If they were put in plastic planters, how large would the planters need to be? I'd like to have 1 or 2 pots, with mixed plants in each if possible, but I also want to make sure they have enough room.
Thanks!

For depth, I would say at the least 5-6 inches as most grow long extensive roots. Some Sarracenias get to a foot to three feet in height. Venus flytraps get about 8 inches to a foot across at most. Small sundews will grow in just a few inches space maybe 1-2 inches, but large sundews will grow out to varying sizes according to type.. some only 4 inches across, some up to a foot tall or more. You would need a planter type about one to two feet across to get a good number of plants and good depth to the soil mix I would say. If you go with two planters about about a foot across, you could get a number of young plants together in a nice setup. The 20 inch planters you were talking about would be nice if they aren't metallic. Anyway, I would make sure to separate the tropicals and North American species so you could easily overwinter the tropicals in warm indoors spaces under flourescent lights and place the North American species in that garage during winter so they could go dormant in cold dark conditions. After North American spcies go dormant from lower light intensity in fall, they won't respond to light, unless the light photoperiod gets longer, they are probably getting ready for snow and plant materials to cover them like what sometimes happens in the wild. With increasing warmth and light in spring, they will spring back to life.

I am going to try to stay away from the more tropical ones, just bc I won't really have the space for them come winter. Those 2 big planters I have are plastic, so they should work good. Would you seal up the drainage holes so they'll held water, or buy a big deep saucer to keep under them filled with water? If it won't rot them I'd rather fill in the drainage holes (less work here in the 95-100 degree summer days to keep the saucers filled up) but I'll do whichever is best for the plants.
Also, once they go dormant in the winter, do I keep them wet or let them dry out? Is it a good idea to throw a sheet over them (to make it darker/keep the cold out)?
I appreciate all the help!

What I do is sit my buckets in a plastic container of rain water. If outside during the growing season, I keep the buckets sitting in water. When in the attic, by the window, it still sits in the container, but not sitting in water. I keep them barely moist. They shouldn't be covered because of the postential for mold. What you aiming for in the winter is to provide cold (near freezing)almost dry conditions. Now some people uproot their plants and apply a fungicide to the roots and then put in baggies, placed in their fridge, where it will be cold and dark. I like to keep them cold, exposed to the air, and have nature (light & temp) determine how long tp stay in dormancy and when to wake up. Do you have a garage with a window? Can you rig up an artificial light that stays on as long it (with a timer or manually)is daylight? Have you considered some low maintenance window sill plants, like these?

{{gwi:550238}}

{{gwi:549129}}

Yeah, it typically is a good idea to give the plants drainage as bacteria and fungus can build up in stagnant wet soil. Putting a large water tray under the pot or planter serves many purposes. One, it aids in holding extra water without waterlogging the plants, two, it gives extra ambient humidity, and three, it serves to cut back on pests and critters as a kind of moat for the flightless smaller one's. Even indoors, I have to keep rewatering mine every 2-3 days due to evaporation from their trays.

Wintering, don't overwater them. Just barely moist soil is best, no water in the tray. According to conditions, if plants are left outside all winter in freezing conditions, they might be mulched or covered with a bag on the coldest days and left open during the above freezing days. If you can get them in a garage or enclosure, that will help keep down the incidence of a total freeze below their tolerance. most North American species can tolerate 30 degree weather for several days quite well even in pots. (Moreso the Purple Pitcher Plants, they like it even colder in winter.)

Sorry, that's what I meant but it didn't read right.
When I said make a mini-bog, I meant not in an aquarium, as in, you don't NEED no stinkin' aquarium...that's where I was trying to get to with the idea that you don't need ultra-high humidities (as you would obtain in an enclosed aqarium.)
I regret the confusion.
Basically, go buy a cheap, lightweight container like those that look like pottery but are made of the lightweight stuff, fill bottom half with peat moss, top half with long-fiber sphagnum moss, and then soak with rain water or equilavent. In your zone I would only bring the pot in if it is going to be exposed to long periods of temps in the twenties, because although they tolerate freezing, they don't LIKE being frozen, get it? The bogs they grow in give off heat from the material underneath, so even though something like a S. purp. lives in northern Canada and can happily live through -30 degrees Fahrenheit, the roots and rhizomes are hunkered down in their fermenting sphagnum bog. Put that same plant in an enclosed container and leave it outside in the winter in 20 degree Fahrenheit weather and it will suffer/croak.
Simple, eh?

Well, I've got a bag of peat moss and a bag of perlite. Can I just mix those 2 together and plant in that, or do I need the long sphagnum moss, too?
Thanks everyone!

You do not necessarily need long fiber sphagnum, the peat moss will be fine... you said bag of peat moss though. A lot of times, hardware and nursery stores will sell any basic moss in bags of fertilized soil and call it "peat moss," not realizing that some people like to try to grow carnivorous plants that require acid soil that is poor in fertilizer. If the "peat moss" is not in a bale of dried material that smells slightly sour and musky, it might not be peat moss. If it smells of fertilizer, like normal lawn soil and potting soil from the bags of premixed stuff, it is not peat moss, particularly if it does not say Premium Canadian sphagnum peat moss or something similar on the bale. The bale you are looking for is covered in plastic but in a cube and is very light weight as it has been completely dried for shipping and has no additives, like cow patties, in it.

It always helps to double check your source for such soils when you grow carnivorous plants. Most nurseries that do not specialize in carnivorous plants will just look at you funny and hand you a bag of fertilized stuff. I have had them try that with me once only to have me depart for another source that knew what they were talking about.

Good luck with your plants.

What I bought is Miracle-Gro Sphagnum Peat Moss. It is loose, not in a brick like the Jiffy Peat Pellets. It is brown, and smells musty, if that helps. I hope this is the right kind, as I couldn't find any other.
By the way, when you order CPs off line, do you normally have to acclimate them to less humidity/more sun like you do when you buy them from Lowe's?
Thx!

Uh oh... Anything with Miracle Grow is a sign of impending disaster. That is fertilized. Anything with Miracle-grow printed on it probably has tiny letters that says, "enriched with miracle-grow plant fertilizer." This is discussed frequently around various carnivorous plant circles to help keep new carnivorous plant growers from mistaking these products as potential carnivorous plant soil. If you get perlite that has miracle-grow or the word enriched, it also has fertilizers addd to it. One cure for me is to simply buy premixed soil from carnivorous plant nurseries (an online search will get you reputable nurseries like California Carnivores and Sarracenia Northwest) as that is the stuff they use on their plants.

When you buy CP from online, some might be preacclimated and some might not be. I know that cobraplant.com, which is Sarracenia Northwest's site, does acclimate as many of their plants as they can, growing most outdoors in Oregon humidity and full sun (some plants, like the Drosera adelae can only handle shaded sun). None of my plants suffered shock or stopped growing after I received them from that company. They usually state which plants require special circumstances, like their newest stock of Nepenthes ampullaria, which is a swamp plant that they have to keep in terrariums and greenhouses as it has difficulty adjusting to low humidity.

I would either buy soil from a CP nursery or take the Miracle-gro back and try to find the bales of Premium Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss in a 2x2 foot cube like bale and perlite that has no additives to it at all. It is difficult as many hardware stores and nurseries that do not deal with CP might not know what you are talking about and might not even think to stock what you need.

Good luck with acquiring the right potting mix.

isn't that funny. Just the other day I saw a miracle grow add where they were telling us all the stuff they put in their wonder-soil and I couldn't help but laugh just a bit at how strange all us CPer's must seem to the typical plant crowd... "STUFF IN MY SOIL??? GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!!"

Here is a link that might be useful: Aracknight's Deadly Delights

In my opinion, any plant oughta have some semblence of acclimation.... especially those bought at Lowes, H.D, Walmart, etc... Those plants are likely to have been cooped up in those cubes or domes for several days, under poor lighting, with no air circulation, or watered with tap water. So it's best to open them up during the day and close by night for a few days, before exposing them totally. With plants that have been shipped to you (Ebay, online store, a fellow hobbyist), they were probably taken care of by whomever, but travelling 2-3 days sets them back. So again, some acclimation to temperature and humidity is a good idea.

Oh no... well, I guess I'll go back to the stores and see if I can find some without any additives. I didn't realize that just a little was so bad, I thought you just weren't supposed to really fertilize them.
Thanks for the tips on acclimating them, too.

flwrgrdnmom,

Yeah, just a little would slowly kill them over several months, like slow torture. It burns and rots their roots.

Back to the store for me.... : (

OK, I found this yesterday... tell me what you think...

100% Organic Potting soil - ingredients:
50% peat
25% forest products
10% sand/perlite/other

Not sure where the other "15%" went, but that's all that's listed.
Do you think this would work?

Well.... not sure what the 15% is, nor the "forest products". I wouldn't trust it. What I would trust are the 2.2 or 3.5 cm bags of sphagnum peat - like Schultz or Lambert brand. And even then I thoroughly rinse them before use. I just don't know what 40% of it really means and that could be fertilizers. I HAVE sphagnum peat to give you if you can't find it where you are.

I'll just use the other stuff for potted plants then and look some more for just absolutely plain peat moss.
Thank you for all your help! : )

Hello flwrgrdnmom,

Those bales of peat are hard to find sometimes. If you cant find anything that is just pure peat with no additives, then you could order your soil from the place you buy your plants... Most carnivorous plant nurseries sell the premixed soil too. At least you know it would be safe.

hi folks, im about to get new pitcher plants in the mail and i need help on how to set up my 25 gallon container which im going to grow them in. im getting s lucophyll willissii, s luecophyll Xflava, and an s pupuria venosa. i heard im suppose to make a mixture of peat moss and sand, but do i add any potting soil to this at all? i live in nc fla. around zone 10 in which we do get a good freeze on occassion. do i need to bring them in the house at that time? should i put the container part way in the ground? should i put holes in the bottom of my 25 gallon container? help please thnxs

Hello Mitzi,

1. Never use potting soil with carnivorous plants, it will rot their roots.

2. Is the container a terrarium? If so, you would do best using it as an open top planter as those plants do not need additional humidity, especially in Florida. I would use a container with holes in the bottom for drainage as moss breaks down and stinks horribly when not allowed to drain well. It becomes a cesspool of bacteria. Use a large water tray under the container with a couple inches water in it and clean it every week or so to get rid of mosquitoes and algae.

3. The pitcher plants you are getting are North American plants that go dormant in winter. All of them can grow outside all year long with no problems. Just give them lots of sun, lots of mineral free water, and no fertilizer at all. Bringing them inside in winter can throw them off dormancy if you place them under grow lights and can induce mold and infection.