Question
Hey i know it's not "necessary" to feed your VTFs, but would it hurt to feed it a triop? I was recently on youtube and I saw people feeding theirs triops and thought i might try it. If you don't know what a triop is, it is a fish-like crustacean and is very small. I think it is high in calcium, so it might make my plant rigid, right? I am just curious.

Answer
Hello Sean,

The problem with trying different kinds of prey is that you might run across something that is harmful to your Venus Flytrap. A tiny shrimp-like or daphnia-like crustacean probably would not harm your plant, but would not really provide any kind of supplement for it other than the nitrogen from broken down protein. Calcium is one thing that is actually harmful to Flytraps if it gets into their soil and thus far has not been absolutely proven to be used by Flytraps when they close their leaves when triggered. In any event, if Flytraps do use calcium, it would be absorbed through minute quantities in their environment and from what tiny amounts are found in insects. The plant would require very little calcium in any event, using only what it needs and allowing the rest to go to waste. I would stick with flies and spiders.

Christopher