I read somewhere that orchids grown in semi hydroponic rock situations do not get the sort of disease and rot that comes from sitting in wet bark or moss mediums. Also it is much easier to flush out salts and so on. Also if the medium is in a container that holds some water at the bottom (like the pots they sell at hydroponic places) there is slow wicking where the plants do not get too much water, and are watered all week long. So I started to look for a way that I could inexpensively put this theory to the test. Because of the cost of leca, and all that other "hydroponic stuff" which seems like a huge investment to me, I got a large bag of lava rock, and went looking for adequate containers. After discarding many ideas for contaners (too shallow, not see through enough) I went to the dollar store and found clear plastic tumblers for 2 for a dollar, and drilled holes about 1 inch from the bottom of the glass. I put in the lava rock with a tiny amount of Spag. Moss because I thought that it might be a good idea to have that additional "wicking" since the rock was lava and not leca.
This is what it looks like with 2 noid phals (there is a bit of condensation in the glasses, but this shows that there is good humidity in there):
You can see the level of water and holes drilled in the plastic. This is all the water that will be in there except for that held by the stones. This should have very good air movement as well as high humidity. We shall see. I will tell you in a month whether they are happy or not. In the mean time I will be looking for larger plastic tumblers to use when they get bigger.
What do you think of this?
---------- Post added at 03:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:48 PM ----------
Sorry, I just noticed there was a hydroponics forum.
Cheap Hydroponic Experiment
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