Will tank water be ok till I get some distillers water?
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Carnivorous plants
- Thread starter dragonfish
- Start date
Should be actually. We do treat the tank water to remove all of the crap that would hurt the plant too. I didn't even think of that lol.
Lol ok I sat it in my ac70 on top of my bio max. I have a little ghetto light I made for my pothos witch is hanging above the tank so it's in direct light. It's got a 6,000K ultra sun bulb in it not sure if that would be good enough.
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Regarding water...I wouldn't ever place these plants in typical tank or pond water, and distilled water very much depends on the source. I usually buy "drinking water" that's labeled as RO filtered. Tends to be < 30 ppm from what I have tested so far, but again it depends...most recommend at least less than 100 ppm TDS although I've read as low as 50 ppm for a limit. I once had a mini-bog pot with some NA native species. Accidentally placed it in a spot where it was watered by the sprinklers connected to city water...plants were not happy and it took considerable flushing of the soil before they recovered.
As for media...pure peat (nothing with fertilizer) is perfectly fine for most carnivorous plants, maybe not Nepenthes though as they tend to like lighter, airier media for their roots. Some Mexican Pinguicula can do fine in a more mineral-based media. I used to keep my Drosera/VFTs/Pinguicula in peat with sand and/or perlite although I recently switched to pure LFS for most of my collection. Sand type doesn't matter so much as long as it is inert BUT I've found that larger grained is better. Smaller grains tend to compact (kind of like concrete) and aren't good on roots or for water retention. I've done fine with play sand but it varies in quality considerably.
As for media...pure peat (nothing with fertilizer) is perfectly fine for most carnivorous plants, maybe not Nepenthes though as they tend to like lighter, airier media for their roots. Some Mexican Pinguicula can do fine in a more mineral-based media. I used to keep my Drosera/VFTs/Pinguicula in peat with sand and/or perlite although I recently switched to pure LFS for most of my collection. Sand type doesn't matter so much as long as it is inert BUT I've found that larger grained is better. Smaller grains tend to compact (kind of like concrete) and aren't good on roots or for water retention. I've done fine with play sand but it varies in quality considerably.
Transplanted my VFT today. Not sure if I mixed the sand and peat moss well enough 
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My two i just got recently. The VFT I'm trying out a passive solar distillation/auto watering device which seems to be working so far
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I got a vft in summer of 2012 a year later it as in real bad shape and this is when I learned of the dormancy period. At this point I figured I had nothing to loose so I placed it in my freezer and thanksgiving will be 3 months. Should I remove it then or wait for longer daylight hours?
I've heard freezer may be too cold and refrigerator is a better option. 10 weeks is supposed to be the minimum so if the plant survived the freezer it should be ready for "spring." Hope it's alright, if not it seems like every hardware store has carnivorous plants right now.
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