Water, water everywhere, but nothing for my flytraps to drink!
Most tap water supplies in first world nations is treated with chlorine and/or fluoride and often contain large amounts of calcium and magnesium. These chemicals are toxic to Venus flytraps, in fact they’re probably not much good for plants in general, but Venus flytraps are particularly sensitive to chemicals in their water supply and it’s use can slow down the growth of your flytrap and sometimes even kill it.
If your plant is kept outside and there’s plenty of rain water available then you wont have any problems. But if you are in a dry spell or your plant is kept inside, then it’s a good idea not to use tap water for your plant.
Other options instead of using tap water are:
- distilled water
- rain water - collecting from your roof is usually quite easy
- bottled filtered drinking water - expensive!
- filtered tap water - make sure it’s a good filter though
Filtered water normally contains some chemical residues, but not enough to cause grief for your Venus flytrap. Spring water often contains significant other minerals so isn’t recommended, but is still a better option than using tap water.
evan responded on 04 Dec 2007 at 1:47 pm #
Aquarium and Fish stores have chemicals that you use you dechlorinate water. usually just a few ml per 50 gallons of water
Ryan responded on 06 Dec 2007 at 5:47 am #
Dechlorinating water with chemicals sounds entirely bogus. The only way that could work is if the the chemical you added was able to either convert the chloride ions into a gas or solid. If they create a gas, then you should see bubbling when the chemicals is added, however that gas is likely to be chlorine which is highly toxic to humans. If a solid is created then a solid will precipitate out in the bottom of the container.
The only way I can think which would remove chloride anions from solutions and form a solid in the process is to add a soluble silver(I) salt. The silver would coordinate to the chloride anions and precipitate out silver(I) chloride. However you would need to add a stoichiometric amount of silver(I) salt or you would run into much more serious problems of silver poisoning.
Off the top of my head I can think of any way to convert chloride ions to a gas, but it’s probably possible. However I suspect you would end up with similar problems to the silver approach above or issues of excess chlorine gas release.
Ryan responded on 06 Dec 2007 at 5:59 am #
I did some googling and found these things … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campden_tablets
They contain Sodium metabisulfite which is a common mild reducing agent. It is used in the production of wine and beer to remove mono-chloramine from water supplies. I’m assuming this involves a simple anion exchange by swapping the chloride anion with the metabisulfite, forming sodium chloride and aminesulfite. However the chloride ions are still there, they’re just not present as mono-chloroamine any more. So although these are sold as ‘dechlorinating’ tablets, they actually do not remove any chlorine at all.
The chloride anions are just as bad for your plant as mono-chloroamine so these wont be much use for a Venus flytrap.
kim responded on 09 Mar 2008 at 9:07 am #
Does it matter whitch kind of water i use? Can i just pour some water from the watertap?.
Ryan responded on 10 Mar 2008 at 10:04 pm #
Hi Kim.
Definitely don’t use tap water unless you have no other option. Tap water usually contains many nasty extras which can harm your plant.
Mark responded on 01 May 2008 at 3:53 am #
Hey Ryan,
One other question. About collecting rainwater, would that be the same as collecting snow or any sort of precipitation?
Or do solid forms carry dangerous chemicals for my VFT?
Ryan responded on 04 May 2008 at 2:53 am #
No, snow should be fine as long as it hasn’t been contaminated by something else.
Kyeisha responded on 09 Jun 2008 at 12:15 am #
if we cant give it tap water then what do we give the plant
Ryan responded on 28 Jun 2008 at 10:24 pm #
Hi Kyeisha,
Like I said in the post:
“Other options instead of using tap water are:
* distilled water
* rain water - collecting from your roof is usually quite easy
* bottled filtered drinking water - expensive!
* filtered tap water - make sure it’s a good filter though
“
Kenny responded on 04 Aug 2008 at 7:56 am #
I bought a VFT on ebay 2 weeks ago.I used boiled tap water(cooled) to water the plant.The VFT is surviving atm.
Can i use Polyfilter to filter my tapwater
Bebo responded on 11 Aug 2008 at 9:18 am #
Sorry for the messy message above.
Can i use the Brita Maxtra water filter.
http://www.brita.net/uk/cartridges_details.html?L=1&p_id=137&cat=
Ryan responded on 04 Sep 2008 at 3:15 am #
Hi Kenny,
Boiled tap water is pointless. It is identical to unboiled water except the bacteria are mostly dead.
I don’t know what Polyfilter is.
Ryan responded on 04 Sep 2008 at 3:17 am #
Hi Bebo,
That looks like a carbon filtration system so is probably okay.