Let's make sure I don't kill all of my orchids!

[inle]

Hello!!!

Basic backstory, here........

Awhile back, I bought a phal as a gift for my boyfriend's office. He kind of neglected it. He didn't meant to, but he's more of a cactus/aloe vera/tropical foliage kinda guy. I later replaced it with lucky bamboo in the shape of hearts, and took the little phal home. I fed it and lit it and watered it accordingly and it seemed to do very well, and is still happy and alive today. It even sent up a second flower spike and all is well in Phalaenopsis Land.

So my birthday was this month, and I decided that I wanted to start collecting orchids. I mentioned it in passing to various friends- all of whom know me as a vegetable gardener and occasional purveyor of lucky bamboo houseplants- and I figured that I'd get oh...one or two orchids, probably pink or white phals, whatevs, right? Probably someone went to a grocery store, saw 'em, picked one up.....yeah, not.

I got ten.
And not just phals, though I got a few of those, too.


Instead, I got 5 phals, 2 dendrobiums, a green lady slipper, an oncidium, and a miltassia. Did I know what the latter two were? No, I had someone kindly ID them for me.

So this is what I did:
thankfully, all of them came in a clear pot inside of a decorative pot, making the roots easy to observe.

So I pulled out the clear pots and checked on the roots. to be honest, some of them were soooo tightly packed in moss I gently loosened it up to help with watering. I don't want my beautiful, sudden, accidental orchid collection to die. I will be so infinitely depressed if this happens.

All of the roots were green/whitish and firm/plump, not brown or mushy.

I have them set up in various places in the house. To be frank, I'm trying to figure out the ideal lighting situation. I have some by my African violets by some plant lamps. The room is very bright and with the supplemental light the violets do really well, so I am hoping the same will happen with this orchid situation....?

I keep the fans on low to get some air circulation going, nothing extreme, but I have pet house rabbits and I like to keep it going for them as well.

I set up some terra cotta pot bottoms with some glass beads in them, with water, to help with humidity. I have to fill them up every couple of days.

Some questions:
what brand of food do I buy? Which is the best? I don't have a problem ordering from online sources if it's 239847293874x better than the stuff at Lowe's.....I just gave my phal before some of the stuff from there.

How long will it take an orchid to develop symptoms of improper lighting?

Do each of these orchids prefer individual lighting situations? I'd imagine so, wouldn't they?

One person bought me a mister to go with it.....so how exactly does one mist their orchids? Leaves, flowers, everything....?

and finally, some of the gorgeous pics of my orchids.

https://skydrive.live.com/#cid=4EA9B...9853AF030D!723

okay maybe not so gorgeous because they were all taken on my cell phone. One was literally delivered to me by a friend while I was shopping at Lowe's....hence the one in the shopping cart......

The first one is my first white/purple phal. It's the smallest of the bunch.