CP terraium - Plants only

[Chrisinator]

Thanks, Chris! The VFT's are doing great! At this point, I would recommend against feeding them any sort of fish food... frozen blood worms totally rot the traps, and they don't respond at all to flake other than the closing mechanism. But other than my mistakes, they're growing like mad and seem very happy. I'll try to get pics up later.

There are neps that stay relatively small. The ventricosa, for instance seems to be growing way more out than up. I've read about others that stay smaller, but I can't think of the names atm. They really do come in all shapes and sizes.

I've seen the thread about your paludarium. It looks great so far. I'm really curious to see how you'll build these into it!

Thanks! I've been getting reviews about them needing sunlight and I saw your thread and thought it would be interesting if I can pull it off. What type of lighting do you have and the wattage? I gave one frozen blood worm but I'll try to go with insects. Do they seem to catch small crickets and all?

I think I'm gonna try the ventricosa since I like the growth on it and it will probably look nicer. I'll keep hunting for smaller species since I have a limitd place for them to be in.

And thanks for reading my journal.

 

[jbradt]

Actually, I feel a little bad now. When I first read your journal, I must have been skimming pretty badly; I didn't even see the VFT question. I hadn't looked at it in a while, actually. I just checked it out again, and I can't believe I missed another outlet for the full-frontal-nerdity that is this thread!

Anyway... over the drosera tank (standard 10g) I have 2 x 8.5" reflectors with 100w CFL bulbs (daylight, 6700k). Over the uprights I have the same bulbs in a 10.5" reflector (one each). It's definitely true that the coloring of the pitchers will change depending on the lighting. I've seen that in the pitchers that have grown on my neps, but it doesn't seem to take much to bring out some really nice reds and pinks. The droseras all have excellent colors.

I've never tried to feed a cricket to a VFT. I guess theoretically I would guess it would eat it as long as it was small enough to fit inside the trap. I was also wondering if freeze dried blood worms would work better... haven't gotten around to trying it though. Maybe you'll have different results with yours.

 

[GEV83]

I would use caution when feeding crickets. Ive heard that they can and will eat away at the inside of the plant. After all crickets love eating plants. Just becareful when using crickets. I think flies would be better.

 

[jbradt]

That makes sense. I wouldn't have thuoght of that.

 

[PaulJ69]

Dubia!

 

[jbradt]

I have actually heard/read of people making a fertilizer mix of crickets/dubia in a blender with distilled water to feed their plants...

 

[GEV83]

That I wouldnt try myself I think in an enclosed area like a terrarium it would cause bateria and mold which could attack and kill your plants. I would stick to flies or something else. If you didnt mind you could still feed crickets as long as there pre killed. Its the same thing they do with snakes. Granted the mice are bought pre killed and frozen and the crickets you got to kill yourself.

Alot of insects have strong mandibles to include roaches. Anything trapped and fighting for its life will try to escape by any mean necessary. That includes biting. Ide rather be safe then sorry.

 

[PaulJ69]

Just brought in my plants that I put outside acouple days ago. Alot of new growth on my Scarlet Belle and a little growth on pretty much everything else. I probably should not have put my Sundews outside... If I didn't bring them in i might have lost them.
All in all good day.

 

[jbradt]

holy cow! :grinyes:

I got the heliamphora heterodoxa x minor today. This is actually the plant that really sealed it for me that I wanted to get into these, so I'm totally stoked. I had pictured getting a tiny plant with a couple small pitchers. I was totally shocked to open the box and see this:



In this one, you can see that the rim of the pitcher in the center took a little damage, but other than that it looks great!

 

[PaulJ69]

Wow that is alot bigger than id expect too. Pretty cool!