Deflasked Ghost ( Dendrophylax lindenii)- seeking advice - Orchid Board

Alla · #1 02-14-2013, 10:00 AM

Hello,everyone. I deflasked a ghost orchid flask last night. So far so good and I intend to make all seedlings survive and I am seeking your advice. If you have any experience with these, please let me know if I should change/improve anything in my growth plan. I swear I read everything I could find on ghosties but anything helps.

Deflasking process:
1. Sterilized everything ( including my hands) with bleach/alcohol. Boiled spanish moss to kill all bacteria for about 10 minutes.
2. Took babies out of flask with tweezers and rinsed in room temperature distilled water.
3. Put it on a bed of wet ( cooled it off after boiling) spanish moss. No chemicals were used on babies thus far.
4. Put a 1 inch layer of distilled water in disinfected 5 gal fish tank, then put my plastic container with moss and babies into the tank, covered tank with disinfected acrylic cover
5. As of this morning, humidity on top of the tank is 85% so I assume at the bottom is close to a 100%. I misted babies lightly with RO water.

Here is plan going forward, please let me know if I can improve:
1. Misting daily with RO water , more often if humidity falls.
2. in 3 days, bleach the 5 gal tank again, boil another batch of spanish moss, soak it in very light solution of physan and orchid fertilizer, transfer babies to the new moss bed with sterilized tweezers.
3. In a next few weeks, continue daily misting, 1 misting per week w/fertilizer
4. After 2 months, transfer the container into my Exo Terra vivarium ( 85% humidity, t5 lights, I do have an area there under giant piece of wood with almost no air movement).
5. After about a year if they live ( knocks on wood), I plan to mount them - few on cork, few on wire net, few on hickory bark if I can find one and hope I can get few to grow and bloom.

I really appreciate everyone's help. These babies are becoming very dear to me and I am intended to give it all to make as many live as I can..

Pictures of deflasking enclosed . I know I may have overdid it with moss boiling/tank bleaching but I read that best deflasking success was due to proper medium sterilization..

Thank you!