Restrepia, Scaphosepalum, Dryadella under 4 T8 fluorescent tubes

[fredg]

Hi everyone

I am a carnivorous plant grower who recently got quite fond of Pleurothallids, especially the genus Restrepia and Dryadella. I ordered R. brachypus, R. guttulata, S. ursinum and D. simula which will arrive shortly.

I plan on mounting all four on cork bark or on tree fern slabs with a little long fibered sphagnum at the contact point.

What I am wondering though is if they could handle being 8 inches under 4 X 32W T8 fluorescent tubes daylight (6500K). This is the light source I use for a terrarium containing a variety of highland carnivorous plants (mainly Nepenthes and Heliamphora, which require high light levels). About 1 inch of water sits at the bottom to keep the humidity high and no natural light enters, just the tubes. I want to place my orchids in this terrarium mainly for the humidity, since I'm afraid to grow them at room temperature and humidity. My other option would be a window oriented at 220 degree South-West which might be too much light for them?

In warmer temperatures I plan on using a cooler for the terrarium, which I am now working on. Still, my highland Nepenthes require a temperature drop of 10 degrees celsius at night and have fared well so far in my conditions without a cooler.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question as it is about artificial lighting and a terrarium but I wanted to have the opinions of those more informed about these plants especially!

Thanks for your help

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board! You show that you have good taste. And, this is a good forum to post your question. There are also forums on growing under lights and growing in terrariums.

I don't grow these, but from reading here, most don't tolerate high amounts of light. A few months back somebody was posting about high light trouble with a pleurothallid in a Heliamphora terrarium.

I expect the experts will be by to answer better. In the mean time, page through the threads in the above-mentioned forums.

[fredg]

Thanks a lot! Yes I will read threads here. I initially tried to gather information on light requirements for Dryadella on other sites, not forums, and this resulted in much confusion (ex: ''high light'', ''bright indirect light'', ''shade'', ...) I guess I should stick with this forum for the time being

[u bada]

The restrepia can handle higher light levels, their leaves will redden and will be near purple if too high and will be a good indicator. Dryadella can flower better with higher than deep shade so you're probably fine trying it out there. I'd probably worry most about the scaph but in my experience with fluors I hadn't burned any plant until around 6 inches under bulbs... I found and research had said light intensity greatly decreases with fluors (hyperbolically?) the further you go away from it... Heliamphoras are beautiful plants! Natural light can burn any of those plants even the heliamphora I would think, plus about fluors is less heat. If you don't have them I'd definitely add fans, helps plants with cases, especially with higher light. The heliamphora I used to have loved the air flow.

[fredg]

Great! I'll dig on here for Scapho light tolerance. I think you meant ''exponentially'' when talking about the lights? You are right, and the further you are from the middle of the tubes, the less intensity there is (although not as stark a difference as distance does).

A fan is a good idea, a 12V 40X40mm would be ideal I suppose and quite inexpensive. I just have to dig an old thread on another forum about the electrical work it requires to wire it to an AC adapter to be able to plug it into the wall.

Yes Heliamphoras are remarkable plants. I currently grow H. pulchella and H. nutans. Utricularia from the section Orchidioides also (U. humboldtii, U. longifolia, U. reniformis). U. quelchii and U. campbelliana are particularly pretty, a project I have in mind involves these plants and many pleurothallids in a Hygrolon moss wall.

Thanks for your advice! What are the pleurothallids you are familiar with?

[u bada]

Hi Fred,

fan stuff is pretty easy, just cut the wires on fan and adapter and match positive to positive and neg to neg and wrap up and should be good. It'll definitely help manage heat build up, humidity distribution and fungus/ bacteria.

I've grown a lot of pleurothallids in my lifetime, considering what little space i've always had anyway...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bada_bada/sets/171935

that was from my old collection, had to let go of them, and new collection is significantly smaller but more precise (to deal with high summer temps). Always grew them in varying sized aquariums, terrariums and glass vessels, all outfitted with lights fans, etc.

Wish I could get my hands on hygrolon or heliamphora here... probably too hot for heliamphora... my other fav is cephalotus, always needs cool. Nice you have helia. pulchella! what a beautiful plant! I have some utricularia myself, but the typical ones... my u. longifolia just died... think it didn't like the cold too much (and it wasn't that cold)...

I really need to get a hold of live sphag for one of my setups to grow at the bottom of it... for now java moss as been an interesting filler that would be worth trying for you...

[estación seca]

There is an active carnivorous plant community in southern California. Cephalotus is a winter-rainfall plant that thrives there. I know people there also grow Heliamphora.

[fredg]

Hey u bada

You really had a nice collection of Pleurothallids, but I understand sometimes things must get culled a little I am near this point myself as a matter of fact haha

You're right about the fan wiring, not much to it after reading a bit about that here and there. Setting up a cooling system for this summer will prove to be much more difficult no doubt.

Nice to hear from CP enthusiasts here! Estacion is right though, I'm pretty sure it is feasible to grow Helis in SoCal. I do not know for Ceph, I'm in Canada so temps get pretty cold up here and mine fares well but you might be ok growing it outside with mostly shade... evaporative cooling might be enough to do the rest. I remember seeing pictures of Darlingtonia californica plants, which grow along banks of streams of cool water in Oregon in nature, that someone grew out in the sun on his patio in big aluminum pans filled with live sphagnum and RO water which thrived all thanks to evaporative cooling! Can't recall in which State he was living though.

Hygrolon suppliers are present in Japan, G-B and France from what I gather from the EpiWeb website. Perhaps they're willing to ship over where you live? I don't understand why there are no dealers of these products in America yet...

Back to orchids now, I believe I'll just have to try it and see how they respond. I may have to keep a piece of shade cloth in case they can't handle it, shading a small part of the lights over them might very well be enough. Besides, my U. longifolia isn't too fond of the high light either, just now beginning to adapt.