Feeding Nepenthes

[Ghan3sh]

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,...?

[Aliamyz]

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.

[arvin555]

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

[David]

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.

[caseyhoo]

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...

[David]

Casey,

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

[Marigoldsfail21]

Originally Posted by Aliamyz

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.

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?

[strath76]

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.

[caseyhoo]

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...

[bactrus]

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.