Insect "curtains"

I have purchased some young carnivorous plants for the first time. As I do not like bugs of any kind dead or alive I read you can feed them tetra fish flakes or floating pellets. Questions:
1. I read you can crush pellets and finely scatter over Sundews. Is that OK.
2. You can drop fish pellets or flakes into pitcher plants but do you crush the pellets then drop them in or leave them whole. How much do you add to a pitcher and do you pop them into every pitcher or just some?
3. Can you feed Venus Fly Traps with diced pellets or would small pieces of flakes be better?
My search engine queries completely confused me. Thanks

 

I thought some if not most fish food was vegetable based.
I think mostly you leave them to their own devises, pitcher plants can be jam packed at the end of the season.
Venus fly traps are a bit different, I find each trap rarely catches more than one fly.
I did used to feed them tiny amounts of cheese, but whatever you feed them you have to agitate the trap for some minutes afterwards otherwise they just open up again.

 

Final questions perhaps. I am going to make a small bog garden in a plastic trough for my new plants.
1. When I buy bags of specialised carnivorous soil from GC for it can I add perlite?
2. Can I add seed compost to bulk it out as I have a lot left over from Spring?
3. If no live insects about do you manually feed all pitchers on a pitcher plant at once or just one or two. Thanks.

 

@waterbut I would just use the carnivorous soil on its own. Don't add the seed compost.

My Venus fly trap in our living room does catch flies - the other day it caught one and it was buzzing like mad with its front legs sticking out. Felt a bit sorry for it. They say not to feed them with too large flies or other meat.

My pitcher is outside and is naturally full of all sorts of bugs so it is never manually fed.

But you could just drop in a fly now and again if you can see the pitchers are empty - it's easy to have a look inside.

 

Carnivorous plants in general like very acidic conditions adding seed compost could upset that as it probably contains some lime.
Perlite floats in my experience, I wouldn't use it, moss peat is OK if you can find some.

 

Our compost for all our insectivorous plants we buy from a carnivorous only grower. He exhibits around the country and we are lucky to be able to go and get the compost he uses for our plants. No we do not add anything like seed compost to the mix.

 

Thank you all for your tips. Still waiting on my delivery.

 

Does any one know of a supplier for dry and live Sphagnum moss that does not charge the earth for delivery. I was going to be charged £35 for a bag of moss from one supplier.

 

I wouldn't add perlite, add horticultural grit or sand if you really want, but you're buying specialist compost so I'd use as is.
Don't add seed compost.
I don't feed them at all.
Fish flakes or pellets sound like a bad idea to me.
When I first had insectiverous plants they lived indoors and the pitcher plants never needed feeding. The Venus fly trap got the occasional small piece of raw mince. For the past 30 years they have lived outdoors in summer and cold greenhouse in winter, more recently outdoors all year round, I've never considered feeding them in winter.
At first mine lived in the compost they came in and then they got repotted intopeat of which I still have most of a big compressed bale and that was where my sphagnum moss came from.
These days they live in washing up bowls in a mix of peat and chopped sphagnum moss that comes from around the plants, birds pinch the dry moss from the edges as nest material.
The main thing is to water them with rain water or distilled water if rain water not available.
Do not use softened water from a domestic softener, water from your tumbledryer can be used.
If you lived in Devon I could let you have some sphagnum moss.

 

I have two small pots of young cobra lilies in my summer house (with no insects) does anyone know how to feed them with dried food in the summer or should I just buy one of these food sprays from the GC.

 

We planted out some cobra lilies in 2010 into a bog garden. They survived the -10 degrees that winter. They have continued to extend and now have taken over the bog garden which we don't mind at all. We don't feed them or water them at all. They have to survive on what is around them but if we do have a very warm time for weeks then we will give them some rain water from one of the butts. We also have some in our garden room. Again we don't feed them at all only rain water. Even though it doesn't seem as though there are any flies about we are always amazed when we cut back the brown pitchers the amount of debris from different types of flies.

 

I wouldn't try feeding them they are adapted to growing in poor acidic soil, catching flies is how they overcome that, so just put them outside after the last frost.
I know they are hardy but y/ours might get frost damage if they have been growing in protection.

 

When you say "Cobra lilies" do you mean Darlingtonia californica or some other insectiverous plant?
I've never had much success with Darlingtonia, despite having tried several times. Having read up a bit they seem to be able to cope with drier spells better than some other pitcher plants, such as Sarracenia. They also seem to prefer cooler gently moving water to more still water conditions where the water can get quite warm in summer.
In summer they will trap enough insects for their requirements, at this time of year they are not growing much if at all so any form of feed is wasted.
Interestingly the RHS have Darlingtonia as only being hardy in coastal and milder regions of the UK; unlike Sarracenia where some species can cope with -15°C.

 

Agree @NigelJ they grow with their "feet" in the cold and their "heads" out in the sun and that is why we planted out some outside which have done brilliantly since 2010 coldest spell -10.