Question
Hi, I have 6 newly bought VFTs and the problem is i only have cocopeat and cocochunks available as planting medium. And so I chose the coco chunks (or cocochips others call them)as the medium of choice since it's more airy and loose. After two weeks the new leaves are small and green and the traps are barely 1/8 the size of the good traps when it arrived. Is there a problem with using coco chunks as planting medium? My VFTs are placed in full sunlight.

Answer
I would tend to prefer cocopeat (coir or coconut husk pith) over cocochunks (choped coconut husk), but I would mix the coir with either perlite or silica sand, as it is too water retentive for too long by itself, and may promote rot and even death of Venus Flytraps.

However, there is a big problem with cocopeat, coir, cocochunks and any coconut husk product, and that is the high level of mineral salts almost always present in processed coconut byproducts. These will first stunt the growth of, and then kill Venus Flytraps over a period of weeks or perhaps months.

Coir can be used, but it _must_ be almost completely desalinated first, by repeated soaking and rinsing, at least 10 times, with soaks of about 12 hours each. Alternatively, one could purchase or borrow a TDS meter (which measures "total dissolved solids") and soak and rinse until the drained water from the soaks measure consistently below 50 parts per million.

I use a desalinated coir medium myself for Venus Flytraps, with the following proportions by volume: 12 parts coir, 5 parts silica sand (mined or artificial sand composed almost entirely of silicon dioxide, _not_ river or beach sand, which typically contains many other types of rock, some of which are soluble).

In addition to these comments, you will receive a lot of help from a carnivorous plant forum such as the FlytrapCare.com Forum--

http://flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/

--or the CPUK Forum--

http://cpukforum.com/

Best wishes,
Steve