Surprised you find ladybugs are pasts since ladybugs are carnivorous & eat aphids & gnats. Anyways VFT grown from seedlings will only eat gnat or bug size gnats for a couple of years. On the third year they will be big enough to catch fruit flies but not ladybugs or houseflies. It will take up to 4 years for your plant to develop a decent size (1/2 an inch) trap able to capture a small fly. And one more thing, unless you buy a sundew or butterwort, carnivorous plants don't make good past control. They will capture enough to meet their needs. Good luck!

I think your is doing fine, it is normal for the catchers/leaves to grow flat towards the ground. When these are shoved in those tiny little boxes or tubes they tend to get very leggy, stretching for light....some will also developed black catchers from so much condensation in the containers and causing to much humidity. Your plant looks very nice! If you give it lots of light, you will notice the catchers will turn reddish, which is nice. If you put it in a terrarium, keep the top open, add pebbles in the bottom, so it won't sit in water. but to me your plant looks healthy!

The main reason people usually dont buy vfts from local nurseriesis most places dont know how to take care of them. they order them in bulk, and sell them on the shelf usully with the houseplants which is not the correct place. BASIC CARE SHEET 1. VFTS require a dormancy period 2. they must be watered with distilled, rain, or reverse osmosis water and be kept moist at all times. 3. they thrive best in full sun 4. humidity is'nt that important mine are growing outside and temps are getting in lower 50sF of course mine have been outside all year round. 5. vfts basic soil mix is 50peat:50perlite mix Sorry if you already knew this. since temps are getting low in your area you depending on the health of your plant you should get ready for dormancy. once the first frost hits your plant it should trigger this dormancy period and die back, bulb still intact, only if its healthy enough if you've had it inside you might want to skip dormancy this year just because im not sure if your plant will have enough time to acclimate to outdoor temp and be pushed into dormancy, but dont get the impression the plants will be able to skip dormancy every year the plant will only be healthiest if it experiences its dormancy period. To tell if your plant is healthy if it has witnessed 50F temps it should be slowing down growth and the main way to tell if your plant is healthy is to check its bulb and make sure its cream-white in color. im not exactly sure on how to go with your plant dormancy, hopefully a fellow forum member can help you with this, so to other members who read this. If the plant is healthy, should it be put outside to acclimate? hope this helps, id assume it would be but i dont know the health of the plant.

you would need Pure Sphagnum PEat for soil, with either half perlite or half sand. Use only Pure WAter, and sence you just purchased it im guessig its kind of weak for a VFT, so i dont know that you want it going dormant it could die. So use artificial light I dont know to much on that but some one ealse should and will fill you in, but basicaly a couple Cool flourecent light bulbs, and a timer works good, they like lots of light, probably bout 12 or more hours of light to get good coloration. But being inside it wont get great coloration. As for puttingit inside, dont just take of the Plastic dome, slowly take it off, prop up one side a lil bit for 2 days the other side for 2 days so on and so forth till you prop all sides off, then you leave that their for about 3 days then take it off, this is what has worked for me. You would want about a 6 inch Pot. And would probably want to have about 2 inches in standing water letting the water table change from time to time, and its ok to flood it once or twice not to often. Some one will fill you in more detailed if i missed any thing. Cheers n good luck