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Digestive fluid and watering?

neon-eon

Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring li
My pitchers are grown without a terrarium and I don't have a mister to water them. they seem perfectly healthy. My question is do open pitchers produce digestive fluid even without high levels of humidity. Also I water them every four days, is that enough? I've heard that they naturally secrete digestive fluid but i've also heard they need water in the pitchers.
 
Yes, the pitchers develop with a neutral pH fluid already in them. Very lowl levels of humidity may cause evaporation of this and adding water will help, but you should also add prey to start the digestive process. Adding prey will raise the pH so when you add water, it won't dilute it so much, and you should have low mold problems.
 
Edit: That was fast! Ninja post!
 
EDIT: ditto to JLAP
 
You can also simulate captured prey by shaking the pitchers if you don't want to add live bugs or feed it something that does not move. Just give the pitcher a little shake for a few days.

xvart.
 
my n. ventricosa grows on my desk under lights, so it's a fairly low humidity environment, but i never have problems with empty pitchers. i water it 1-2x/wk and mist it a little more frequently than that and its pitchers are usually about half full. you could try the "tray method" used for orchids to increase your humidity a little- place the plant in a shallow tray (even one of those plastic dishes for indoor pots) full of pebbles and water. the water evaporates to increase the humidity around the plant, but the pebbles keep the pot elevated and keeps the plant from getting "wet feet". my orchid seems to like this idea anyway
smile.gif
 
Live, struggling prey makes for soupy Nepenthes and gooey Sundews.
 
I've finally got a mini greenhouse for my plants.
woot.gif
The temp. is in the low 80's and it seems pretty humid in there now. I started this topic because I fed one of my young pitchers a spider. The spider crawled around on the top and fell in. I waited a few minutes and it didn't crawl out, that was the last time I saw it. until I read the reply I wasn't sure if it was stuck or if it drowned. Yeah, each plant has at least pitcher about an inch long or so. because the openings are small I can't quite see to the bottom of the pitchers yet. In a couple months I'm hoping the opening will be big enough so that I can look all the way inside the pitchers. thank's for the info, I'm probably going to go bug hunting in a few minutes and feed some more of my pitchers. man if it were summer I would have no problem finding meals for my plants.
anyway thanks for the info.
Now I don't have to go to bed each night crying over my pitchers and praying that digestive fluid will magically appear (JK)


Thanks, peace
 
If you have a bright light you can hold the nep up between your eye and the light and you should be able to see a line of fluid, depending on the species and color. As they age they will start producing fluid before the lid even pops.

xvart.

edit: fixed typo.
 
  • #10
[b said:
Quote[/b] (quogue @ Dec. 18 2006,11:38)]Live, struggling prey makes for soupy Nepenthes and gooey Sundews.
ok then... what about when you feed a sundew some freeze dried bloodworms? i put some on my D. Capensis 'Albino' and its alredy in knots. quite a sight to see!
Alex
 
  • #11
My Capensis and spatulata stopped making dew, probably cause of low humidity and not enough light. a couple nights ago I got this really nice miniature green house. hopefully they'll start making dew again... Also I put a spider on my capensis. It was probably about a quarter of an inch across. I left it there for three days and it wouldn't get stuck nor would the leaf curl around it. I don't know, might have been to big... anyway I got angry and fed the spider to my Ramispina. How big of an insect can a Capensis take?
 
  • #12
anything that is edible(no rocks, ect.) and is light enough to be on the leaf and have the leaf not collapse... anything that falls under that(and then some!) your capensis will eat. it may mold and rot th leaf...but itll sure as heck try!
Alex
 
  • #13
Today I gently poured the water out of my sanguinea into a cup to see if any thing was in there, it was all thick and runny. I also held one of my closed ventricosa's up to a light. It now has a little fluid in it. All my pitchers seemed happy and ready for a long awaited meal, I celebrated by going to the woods to scope out some slugs and worms. I gave my truncata a nice big slug. (I got that plant from Jeff, the Sarracenia north west guy, at the saturday market) I think all my plants really like the green house now and it's starting to show.

-peace
 
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