Newbie under lights help?
Well, not a newbie grower but this is my first experiment into growing 100% under lights. As some have probably surmised from some of my other posts, this is my attempt at controlling my separation anxiety from my serious orchid collection which spends the summers on auto-pilot in the Florida Keys. I brought a couple mature plants home with me to try and bloom out that I've never seen before and have now picked up a few seedlings to tend that I'll take south with me in the fall where they will take up permanent residency. Getting very few new plants this winter due to COVID made the investment a very easy sell and allows me to keep adding plants over the summer.
I have a 4' shelving set-up in the basement (ground floor utility room) of our condo. I have 4' long humidity trays under the plants and noticed this morning I have green algae growing in the water in the trays. Double edge sword, right? The set-up is working and photosynthesis is happening but I really could do without the algae.
It's only been set up for 2 weeks so that algae growth happened pretty quickly and I hadn't even done any fertilizer at that point. So, I took everything apart and dumped the water and cleaned the tray this morning AFTER I had fertilized the plants.
So, my question is, I assume the algae growth is common and a positive thing but is there something that can be added to the humidity tray water to inhibit algae growth or is it just a simple case of pulling it all apart and giving it a good cleaning every couple weeks?
BTW- Plants are on racks above the water not in it. Temp runs right around 82 with 60% humidity on the rack.
Fire away, I'm all ears.
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