Deflasked Ghost ( Dendrophylax lindenii)- seeking advice

[jaxorchidman]

Not to burst your bubble, but most of these will not survive. They are very hard to cultivate in captivity. The setup you have made though seems about right. Just remember you don't want to leave them wet 24-7 and you just want to barely let them dry out. Good luck. They look really healthy and big for just de-flasked.

[Alla]

Originally Posted by jaxorchidman

Not to burst your bubble, but most of these will not survive.

I am keeping my fingers crossed :P I am quite persistent like that. I unflassked them Wed night and today is Sat and there is no mold and they look green and healthy so fingers crossed. I didnt mist them yesterday or today either as they seem to be quite moist.. Ah well, one can keep trying, right lol Thank you for wishing me luck!

Also, bleached outer tank again, transferred babies to a new sterile plastic container, moss is boiled, cooled and soaked in a very light physan + "Superthrive", plastic container now not covered, just the outer fish tank is covered.. Pic attached.. I think they look slightly bigger but I am not being objective lol

[Alla]

Update on ghosties: getting close to 2 weeks out of flask now and all is well, fingers crossed. I got some live spanish moss from Amazon ( soaked in light physan solution) so I reconstructed my ghostie home today:

1. Built a false bottom out of eggcrate. 1 inch of RO water at the bottom of the tank.
2. Bought some galvanized net wire and built 2 mounts, 4 little ghosties are now mounted, live spanish moss wrapped around for extra humidity.
3. Sterilized everything again, dunked each ghostie in light physan solution for a few seconds. Large clumps of seedlings easily separated today. In fact, I had so many seedlings I decided to plant few on a giant cork piece I have in my Exo Terra vivarium. Probably will not make it but I am OK with it at this point.
4. Misted seedlings with weak Superthrive again ( weekly).

Pics are attached I will keep documenting. if successful, this might be helpful for someone else one day.

Alla

[isurus79]

Wow, that looks great!

[Gage]

It looks like a great setup! I hope you get a BAZILLION viable plants out of that lot!

[Alla]

Originally Posted by Gage

I hope you get a BAZILLION viable plants out of that lot!

Me too! I read that main killers are rot and mold so I've been fighting them both with bleaching everything once a week ( except plants) and physan. Also seems that I got a very healthy flask ( on Ebay).

[professor plant]

The problem I have had is keeping the moisture level adequate, the humidity close to 90%, the air movement restricted and not have mold build up.

Mold was not a severe problem, but reoccuring. I used physan on the mount, which was always where the mold occured/ rather than the roots. The mount itself may have been the primary issue. The next time I will use a sterilized inorganic media for mounting. Maybe even a piece of glass.

I spoke to Thomes Miranda about the issues I had and he said ha had the same issues at first. He also said the only way that he could overcome this was by growing them in an open top terrariums with no supplemental lights added to what the tank was already getting in the room. This lowered the humidty, allowed enough air exchange to prevent mold, but not have a breeze disturbing the plant.

Good luck. Many try. Few succeed, but the ones that do keep the rest eager to give it another go.

[Alla]

Professor, thank you! I had lost may be 2-3 very tiny seedlings thus far and I am experimenting with mounts: I have some mounted on cork in the intermediate vivarium, few mounted on treated fir ( yah I know, not very suitable but noone seemed to try it so why not, I decided to give few a go), few on a smaller pieces of cork, few on galvanized wire and few on top of clay balls ( all sterilized in physan).

The regimen that works the best for me is I spray them in the evening (RO waster from fish shop) and close the top of the terrarium for the night leaving 1-2 tiny cracks, humidity gets to 85%ish. Then in the morning I spray them again but leave the top mostly off, humidity drops around 60 and by the evening they are dry but no crispy and I spray them again. Once a week I add weak superthrive. Here is a pic of my setup from yesterday. Tiny brown spots is leftover agar from a month ago- i cant seem to get it off completely and afraid to scratch the roots:/

I will be getting cedar mounts this month as well. I spoke to Andy's Orchids and they said they grew ghosties on cedar with success. All trial and error.

Oh a I do have artificial light mounted above the shelf, weak one though, 2 t5 bulbs ( colormax and 6.7K lamp) and it is next to the window with evening sun ( thats all I got), lightly tinted and has a sheer curtain for a diffused shade. Also, spanish moss helps a lot with humidity without too much humidity but I noticed it doesnt like superthrive or fertilizers.

Fingers crossed.

[professor plant]

The ghosts look good. Hopefully you can find that perfect balance between limited air movement without mold buildup.

Your seedlings for being straight out of flask are bigger than some I have paid $18 for.

[Alla]

I paid a $100 for the flask, everything in a flask was super healthy and flask didnt shake when it came in a mail.
Same lady is selling few more flasks on Ebay ( ID- elvis.813), she seems very nice too, we shoot few emails back and forth.. Here's one of the flasks similar to what I got-http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dendrophylax-lindenii-orchid-flask30-robust-seedling-formations-The-ghost-orchid-/221192813410?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33801e 7b62

She said its about 30 seedlings per my flask but I counted close to 50 plus some really tiny ones..