Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

I was taking a look at my sundews recently; After flowering four times in a row, some of my capensis weren't looking so good, and my adelae, despite being so easy to propagate, never seem to make it past a 3 in diameter. Since feeding is generally considered more important for droseras, and mine haven't really caught much recently, I went and bought some freeze-dried blood-worms for them for the first time.

I was impressed with the response the capensis had to feeding. This is one of the smaller ones, just to show how drastic the curling is on some of the leaves...
https://forum.petpitcher.net/attachme...1&d=1312611686


https://forum.petpitcher.net/attachme...1&d=1312611872

It's too early yet to tell how this will affect growth, but I have high hopes. *biggrin2*

Anyone want to share their experiences feeding their plants with bloodworms?

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Wow, it looked so hungry!:laugh:
Tarence fed his S. psittacina with blood worm juice, the plant grown up to a handsome giant and the colour is redder too!!! But that sounds disgusting:spinning:to me!

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Just ignore the creepy-sounding name; you can crush up the B.W.s in a plastic bag then apply to your plants with a toothpick or pipette. The stuff looks like peat when crushed, and doesn't smell; the only downfall is the leaves won't look as pristine.

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Hi,I recently bought some frozen blood worms...
May I know what it the differance between freeze dried and frozen??
Or I can take the frozen BW ice cube and dry them under hot sun??
Will the neps rot if I put liquid worms into them??

Sorry for so many questions...
Best regards Sam,
Thx

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Hi Sam.

I'm not quite sure what you meant by your first question. Freeze-drying is a process of dehydrating perishables by freezing them then letting the water evaporate out. It isn't kept frozen after that. I would figure that both would have about the same amount of nutritious value as far as CPs go.

Just make sure that the food is thawed before you feed your plants with them. Moisture shouldn't be a problem, in fact I rehydrate my freeze dried BWs before feeding them to my plants.

The worms would probably turn to liquid in the pitchers anyway. Just be cautious that you don't overfeed.

Hope this helps. :smile:

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Tarence blend the frozen BW with blender, then injected the juice into the pitcher :spinning:!!!
I told him not to serve me fruit juice whenever I visited his home. :tongue:

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

walao geli man.....
i just feed my neps blood worms yesterday...*biggrin2*
i fed them the worn whole...

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

How i wish to feed my starving vtf with that....But im not allow to do so:spinning:

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

@ Jimmy - Not allowed?

@TS - I will never think of blenders the same again. :spinning:

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

hi TS, thx for advertising my blood worm juice to all the nice folks. Now no one will accept any reddish coloured drinks in my house. LOL.

Hey, it works tho. I just did my 7th round of juicing & the CPs do show improvement esp the droseras. Yay !

Marigoldsfail21 : I usually spray the bloodworm juice on the sundews, covering like 50% of the leaves at most. They love it. The sarracenias usually don`t show any growth spurt & Neps are not very reactive as well.

It`s the sundews which gets pumped up. I do it like once every quarterly. All the best !

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Mainly due to storage problem, family members dont like the idea of freezing it together with our food (me too).

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

If you don't want to store it near food, try to get some freeze-dried worms rather than frozen ones. They keep well since there is barely any water in them, so you don't need to refrigerate/freeze them and you can keep them faaaar away from your food. :smile:

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Is the freeze-dried worm suitable for vtf?

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

I don't see why not. They are just dry is all; If you really want, you can rehydrate some with a bit of distilled water before you feed them to your plants.

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

*biggrin2*anyone knows where to find freeze dried blood worms in penang?*biggrin2*

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Figured I should post an update:


https://forum.petpitcher.net/attachme...1&d=1317249518


https://forum.petpitcher.net/attachme...1&d=1317249518

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

this is the before & after pics of the bloodworm feed ?

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

Both new pictures are of after the feeding. The first one is a couple weeks after the feeding, while the second is recent, about a month and a half after.

Capensis is quite any easy species, but this is the fastest I've gotten one from seed to flower.

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

I am from South Africa where these plants come from.

To prevent curly leaves, D Capensis need bright light. The plants in your photos are very green, no red pigment. Give more light without the heat and you will have healthier plants. Take a look at this photo of one of my pots with a few plants in it. Yor plants do not need to be as red (unless you have alba variant), but should display some red coloring.

Flowering four times in row will drain a lot of energy. With D Capensis as most CP's, they need good light to be healthy. Feeding bugs is not as important, they can survive with out it. As for feeding, I feed my plants bloodworm without mashing etc. As long as it is not in a terrarium it is fine otherwise mould may grow on the worm.

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

in M`sia, it`s quite difficult to get sunlight on the plants without the heat.

unless we have angled sunlight streaming into an aircon area for a few hours daily which is difficult to find. *smile*

so we have to make do with our conditions & protect it from the a`noon heat the best we can.

Love your super healthy D.Capensis, Zoit.

Re: Drosera Food: Bloodworms
 

I leave my plants outside in full sun during spring time while the temps are still cool, about 28 deg C. Very soon I will bring my plants inside from harsh dry summer, about 38 deg C. I chose a windowsill for my plants that get direct sunlight till about noon and stand the plants in water trays. This is more than enough D Capensis.