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Yay! got my vft's!

and you're all thinking... "that was lightning fast, you just posted about ordering them this morning?" well that's because i ended up not ordering them... i was wandering through home depot and they had a bunch of very healthy-looking VFT's, with labels in big bold letters stating "NOT COLLECTED FROM THE WILD!! PROPAGATED USING TISSUE CULTURE!!!" so i figured, heck, let's give it a shot. they were inexpensive enough, and if they die tomorrow, i'll take my forty lashes and submit my order to PFT immediately ;) but they look extremely healthy so i'm really hoping that won't happen!!!

but anyway.... they're cute little guys in 3" pots, i got those plastic dishes for them to sit in so the pots are in about 3/4" standing water, no covers, as suggested here. they're on my dresser which gets good (though indirect) sun in the late afternoon, i have a compact flourescent bulb maybe 6" over the plants for supplemental lighting for the rest of the day. distilled water of course. and one's the "typical" eyelash kind while the other is a "dente"-type with the short fused teeth.

sound like a good setup? i'm hoping so... if these do well i think i want to try my hand at some s. purpurea's, which i *would* have gotten with the original terrarium, had mumsy dear not been so against the idea
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ah well. i'm content for now anyway
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also... should i wait for the plants to "settle in" a bit before i feed them? and then, how many traps to feed at a time?
 
Congratulations, Moonflower! It sure wouldn't hurt them to acclimate to their new conditions. I, personally, would wait. They need more photosynthetic nourishment than the critter kind. In other words, that can wait. Window sill light can be adequate. Putting them outside for the real thing is much better. If you put it (them?) outside, you should put them outside for part if the day at first and increase their time outside, over a period of a few days. Happy growing!
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Welcome to the club of CP growing!! *bwahaha you will soon find the sick mentality that will accompany the plants* heehee...:D
If you have any other questions, be sure to post em! this place is great for that!! lol
 
I just got my VFTs from PFT.com on monday. so far they
seem to be doing good. Anyone know how long it'll take
em to start looking healthy again?
 
i'd put them outside out of a terrarium, they will grow GREAT! be sure to slowly aclimate them to the high light levels of the sun, though.
 
Congratulations on your new acquisitions, Moonflower. And welcome to the forums as well.
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They would do very well if you put them outdoors in the sun, but if you have the supplemental light, then they should be ok indoors.

As for feeding, I wouldn't worry about that. They normally take care of that themselves, especially outdoors. But if you really want to feed them, make sure its live prey as the bug struggling helps trigger the second phase of the trap closing; make sure the bug is no larger than 1/2 to 1/3 the size of the trap itself (you don't want bug parts hanging out if you can help it). You'll hear various things like "no more than 2 bugs per month" but that kinda thing isn't true. You need to think about these plants out in the wild--they eat as many bugs as land in open traps.

Let us know how your plants are doing.
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Won't be long before you have MANY CPs...happens to everyone.

Suzanne/PAK
 
aw thanks for the help guys
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they seem to be doing wonderfully, the "dente" opened a new trap already and the "typical" is opening a new one as well. although i do notice that a couple of traps on the "dente" have a scalloped look to them on the trap edges... they seem to work fine but they are funny-looking.

also wondering... will they ever turn pink inside like i see some plants have? right now they're both very small and bright green. just wondering
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The best chance of them getting color is if you keep them outside. I DID notice that last year, when I was actually trying to induce dormancy, I took mine home from the lab, they got some color when I kept them in an open, screened window. Apparently, real light was coming through the screen enough to give it some color before it went to sleep for the winter.
 
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