Water storing crystals and carnivorous plants

July 14, 2014
I only recently heard about water storing crystals and couldn’t find much information on them. I had hoped I could grow my carnivorous plants indoors with out a terrarium using the crystals.

I planted a new batch of carnivores in nothing but crystals, with in 24 hours the plants had mostly dried out. I am not sure if this is due to the lack of a terrarium, the crystals or both?

I took most of the crystals, put them at the bottom of a terrarium, put a thin layer of moss on top and replanted the plants. We’ll see how that works out.

Looking at the photos, you’ll see the healthy batch of carnivorous plants right after I placed them in the crystals, and the same plants dried out quite a bit just after I transplanted them into the aquarium.



July 15, 2014
Some one on a forum claimed the water crystals super heated some container plants she had, every one told her that wasn’t possible. The two terrariums with the water crystals became significantly hotter than the other ones today. I took pity on the plants, rescued them before they cooked. They are currently outside in a mix of crystals, peat moss and sphagnum moss. I wouldn’t use the crystals in a terrarium that receives a great deal of sunlight.



Sept 6, 2014
I have a bunch of flytrap and nepenthes seeds germinating, some on peat moss, some on water crystals. As soon as I see some progress I’ll post back here on how they do. * These failed to grow while the ones in moss or peat moss thrived under the same conditions.


* The house humidity ranges from a high of 45% late at night to a low of 41% in the late afternoon. The temperature is about 79’F this time of year. The plants are in a south west facing window and I’m in Houston so they are receiving a long, high intensity amount of sunlight each day.

* The crystals typically last 3-5 years but are broken down by heat and light, and carnivorous plants love both. So they may not be practical for carnivore plants.


Super-absorbent water crystals