Howdy

[theDeedo]

Let me first say VERY NEAT SITE YOU HAVE HERE!! I love sites like this that educate as well as promote knowledge and conservation of earths little rare treasures like carnivorous plants.

Let me first give a proper introduction to myself.
My name is Dominic,
I live in Kentucky located on the eastern part of the united states. I get the full affect of every season here. The winter is like the antartic, the spring is in full bloom and baby animals and flowers everywhere (its spring now!!!). The summer is like a jungle here, very humid and lush greenery everywhere, and the fall is beautiful and crisp with all the leaves changing a myrid of different colours on the trees.
I work at the moment as a business analyst for the Convergys corp. Not my dream job by any means but it pays the bills. I do what I can to keep my surroundings "naturistic" like trees and plants in my office. If I could have an aquarium in here with fish i would . I used to be a vet tech, I have worked in plant nurserys, on farm crews, in animal kennels, anything I can find to keep me close to nature. Thats where I find joy. I started going to school for zoology/biology but never got to pursue it further due to money problems. I plan on going back and adding botany to my criteria.

My current hobies include sal****er aquariums (which i have just recently embarked upon), I have alot of houseplants, so much so that one would think I have a jungle in there but if you ask me I dont have enough. I have an American bulldog and plan on getting another female this summer if possible, I love to study and raise different kinds of animals, insects, and reptiles (my girlfriend does not care so much for the insects and reptiles i tend to enjoy). I plan on starting a vegetable garden this year as well. I am a nature lover to the fullest.

I have became a member on this site because every spring the local nurserys and the local walmart get tissue cultures of carnivirous plants like venus fly traps, honey dews, butterworts (i think thats how you spell it) ect ect. But although I have a very green thumb I have not had the best of luck with them yet. They dont come with very detailed care instructions, but I have learned a little through the years of trial and error. Like for instance I know now that they need to be watered with purified water because tap water will kill them quickly. I had a buddie who had alot of luck with different species, leaving them on his back porch and giving them rain water and spring water. My plan is to get a little 5-10 gallon aquarium in my office window and get a few growing in there before taking them home. My questions as of right now are this...Can I use florecent lights to grow them healthy? If not how much sun will they require? what is the best growing medium to transplant them into (normal soil vs peat moss or another medium)? and is there any insects that I should avoid feeding them, and how ofted are they fed based on size of the plant? Thanks again for the great site guys and look forward to meeting you all.

[theDeedo]

oh and how come i dont see my Avatar when I post messages? Is the avatar different than my profile pic?

[paphioboy]

Hiya and welcome to PP. Hope you will enjoy sharing your experiences and learning from each other on different sides of the planet...

[David]

Hi Dominic,

Yes, the Avatar is different from your profile picture. Thank you for your lenghtly, but interesting introduction.

To answer your question, yes, you can grow CPs under florencent lights. However, it works best with Drosera, Pinguicula and dionaea muscipula. Check out this archive for more information. As a guideline, make sure the florencent light you use is 6500k. In the wild the grow on wide open sites that receive sunlight the whole day.

Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote some time back. It's a general cultivation guide:

Tropical Pitcher Plants (Nepenthes) requires at least 5 hours of filtered sunlight (about 50% shade cloth) and humid conditions. The growing medium has to be either acidic or neutral in pH, well drained and poor in nutrients. A commonly used growing medium is sphagnum moss. They can be placed in a plastic pot with dried sphagnum moss and watered when the media starts to feel dry.

Sundew (Drosera), Venus Fly Trap (Dionaea Muscipula) and American Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia) can be grown in full sun all day. You can use sphagnum peat moss or sphagnum moss as its growing medium. Place the pots in a tray of water to ensure that the potting medium is kept wet all the time.

Other carnivorous plants like West Australian Pitcher Plant (Cephalotus), Sun Pitcher (Heliamphora), Butterwort (Pinguicula), Rainbow Plant (Byblis), Bladderwort (Utricularia) and others can also be grown in similar conditions. However, they need extra care with humidity and sunlight level. For the genus Heliamphora, temperatures need to be cooler especially at night.

As for the media to use, it is best to grow them in their prefered media. different genus has different requirements. On feeding them insects, different species/genus have different requirements as well.

[plantlover]

Oh welcome Dominic. Have a good time at Petpitcher.

[marvin1997]

Hi and welcome Dominic to petpitcher! You mean growing plants in an aquarium like a terrarium? Well Venus Flytraps and Sarracenia (American Pitcher Plants, those that grows ike trumpets) like direct sun. Just put them out in the sun. Is the honey dews sundews? Those plants with sots of glue on them? They also like full sun. Well I can't really reply everything here, I'm not very experienced at growing them in a terrarium. Maybe someone else can help you

[edwardyeeks]

Welcome Dominic! Hopefully you enjoy your time in this amazing forum! Based on your environment, I believe that it is very suitable for growing lots of CPs. Venus flytraps and sarracenias usually have dormancy during winter. However, nepenthes are tropical plants and should not be exposed during winter. I think your terrarium would do nepenthes good while most of the other CPs will grow beautifully outside.

Welcome again!

[theDeedo]

Thank you all for your warm welcome. As to answer Marvin, yes i think i ment sundew (must have had mellons on my mind) and yes a terriarium was what I was going for, but it seems the fly trap and sundew will need more light than what I can provide with florecents. which should not be a problem. Thank you David for the articiles, this will give me some info to digest. look forward to learning alot here and hopefully growing some big man eaters...lol..joking.

[David]

You can grow vfts and sundews under florencent lights. Place the plants about 6 inches from the light. I had a red dragon which continued to be red under florencent lights. Same with my sundews. For my growing conditions I realised that for sundews and vfts, they prefer some air circulation, so do not cover the terrarium completely.