Feeding Nepenthes
 

I have read some posts on feeding nepenthes and although it seems possible to feed them with liquid fertilizers i would like to do it in a more natural way e.g. feeding it bugs.
Now, from what i have read ants seem like the perfect food for the neps but ants aren't sold in reptile shops. So are there people out there who feed their neps bugs and which bugs are best? I have read somewhere that mealworms aren't as good because they have too much calcium. So which is best, flies, crickets,...?

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Ok..this might sounds crazy but this actually works for me.
I'll apply some honey to the lid of every nepenthes and automatically the next day, the pitchers will be full of ants.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Like Aliamyz I too have tried putting a discarded candy near my neps, and the next day lots and lots of ants, some of them of course would find the pitchers and "explore" inside. Therefore I agreed to a view that keeping neps around house doesn't kill off all the insects in the area, but maybe rather attract insects to where they are! :)

If you want to spend for the food, my vote is Crickets, but I really haven't spent money on my neps to feed them. The most active feeding I have ever done was to catch some coackroaches to feed to my VFT, and I have stopped that already too!

TTFN
Arvin

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

ghan3sh,

I feed my neps with pet shop crikets as I live in an apartment. Not much insects living high above in the air.

They seem to love crikets. I can see a spurt of growth within 1-2 weeks after I feed them the crikets.

However, if your pitchers are small, you need to cut the crikets into smaller pieces. That's what I do for my gracilis pitchers, sibuyanensisa, younger plants, etc. For bigger pitchers I'll drop 1-3 crikets in the pitcher.

I tried mealworms before and like you said its no good. I do not know about the negative effects of calcium in mealworms, but my neps did not really show a spurt of growth when I feed them that. By the way, I thought calcuim is good? Some people even use egg shells soaked in water and placed under the sun for a couple of weeks to have the calcium leach into the water to be used on their plants.

I'm not sure but i think calcium in the pitchers should not be a problem. If it is used on the roots, then there will be problems. Afterall, the pitchers do capture bugs etc and most defitnally would desolved calcium into the picther fluid when they are digested.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

May I know how about bloodworm that normally use to feed fish? Can I use it to feed my nepenthes? My fridge alway have a pack of them...

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Casey,

I've never tried bloodworms before. maybe others have tried it before.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

That's brilliant! maybe I should set one of my neps outside for a day and try that. There's plenty of carpenter ants for my nep to munch on out there.


Also does anyone know if freeze dried krill will work for feeding neps?

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Casey, I have read a few books that talk about using bloodworms to feed CP's. Not just Nep's but also drosera. I haven't tried it myself as my plants are outside and seem to do alright for themselves but it has definately been done by others in the past.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

So far, my ping like bloodworm. I think cindy also feed her ping with bloodworm, but, not sure she feed it to others CP or not. She even use bloodworm to write some wishing word in her ping... :tongue:

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Hey I use cricket for neps and bloodworms for droseras. Similar to what David's finding, my N. gracilis did show a spurt of growth after feeding. Maybe also because I pop a tablet or two of control release fertiliser and a pellet or two of organic fertiliser into the media. Cricket is pulpy big and juicy. Anyone tried roaches yet? Maybe those wriggly worms bird rearers use, super worm or oat worm? Tried a baby lizard and my dead betta, the pitcher just rotted, too powerful for the plant. Instead, it became a fly maggot culture- which is good for my drosera.

Sometimes, on a clear hot night, I'll use a torch (LED) to illuminate my drosera tray. Attracts quite a lot of insects too even high up 17 stories from the ground. Thinking of using a 18w florescent when I have the time to install one. Anyway this is off topic.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Hmm, freeze dried krill, that is seafood, maybe better not to try, its a bit out of the normal stuff that Neps will find in their pitchers :) Then again so does seaweed based fertilizers. :)

I have found a big Roach in my Truncata pitcher once, when it was still quite new (the plant), I left it alone, the pitcher is still okay, but can't say if it helped or not. Then again mind you that the Truncata pitchers are quite thick and we know they can even take small mamals without problems. Wait, I guess we can generalize or conclude that what you feed depends on the species of Nep, some neps have more delicate pitchers than others.

Cindy, maybe you can post a photo of your technique of using wishing words on your Pings :) That sounds interesting and artistic.

I have never fed my neps bloodworms, I have fed my VFTs some big tubifex worms (the are fish food mainly) and they like it, no growth spurt noticed of course. My only comment with Bloodworms is that they can potentially really be found naturally in pitchers just like mosquito larvaes, so maybe they are okay as food. I do have quite a lot of bloodworms living in my water trays, can surely try to feed them to my pitchers.

TTFN
Arvin

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

1. mealworms
2. bloodworms
3. crickets

All will work. :1thumbup:

The famous photo people talks about... :laugh:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...n_pings_rs.jpg

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Ban Aik,

My findings are the same as yours. It is the use of mealworms that does not give me that good results. Crickets for my Neps are great! I did not say feeding crickets to my Neps does not show a spurt of growth.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Apologies David, skimping over things always ends up in a bad way.

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Doesn't calcium augment the pH-level? So i figured that feeding the neps calcium rich food would make the pitcher fluid less acidic and makes it harder to "digest" the mealworm. In the same way i think that ants, which produce formic acid, could lower the pH and augment the acidity of the fluid and thus be easier to "digest".

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

really cute way of feeding your CPs Cindy! Thanks for sharing. Too bad I don't have a Ping to do the same, wife might like it, though she might turn up her nose if she realizes that the hearts are made out of worms :)

TTFN
Arvin

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Wow, that's so artistic!

Re: Feeding Nepenthes
 

Hello! I'm new to nepenthes.

I bought my nep at a large local nursery a week ago. The employee I questioned about caring for the plant advised me to fill the pitchers about 1/3 full of distilled water every so often. In my internet searching I have read that this is not recommended, however, during the trip home most of the fluid from inside the pitchers spilled out :blush: and now those pitchers are shriveling (just cut off 7 smaller dead pitchers). I understand that the fluid inside a healthy pitcher is not exactly "water" but might it be at all advisable to add some water to the remaining emptied pitchers?

There is one pitcher which opened a day or two ago. When I gently shake this pitcher I can hear fluid. Feeding time!

From what I've read crickets are a choice food for newly opened pitchers. I've never dealt much with crickets and the thought of live crickets escaping my feeding attempts and thereby let loose into my apartment seems... sucky. Can I feed my nepenthes frozen or otherwise inert crickets?