Put something in the humidity tray?
 

Are you supposed to put anything inside of a humidity tray to increase the surface area for evaporation? I got one recently and I just put water in it.

I have the plastic ones and I never do. I just put water in, and just wipe it out once a week.

A lot of people put a layer of river rocks in the bottom along with the water. Some of the S/H people here I believe use other stuff too. Perhaps one or two of them will weigh in.

However, there's also a bit of debate as to how much a humidity tray actually accomplishes, especially if it's not in the bottom of some kind of enclosed case.

BTW, Welcome! :waving The OB is a wonderful place!

Welcome, Bkim!

I use just water in my trays with a tiny bit of algaecide added to slow down the growth of algae on the sides of the trays. I used to put in pebbles but found that, when the algae developed, they were so horrible to clean! :)

Ok thanks for the info. The cleaning deal definitely makes sense. A humidity tray is the best i can do for my orchids at this moment as an enclosure is currently out of the question.

I put a grate on top of my tray then I put some moss on top of grate and around my pots. Not sure how well it actually works, its pretty dry here. I was going on the thought that I would simulate a forest environment. It has not caused any problems.
TC

I add physan-20 mixed stonger as described for sterilizing things to keep the algae and other molds and fungi down. This does not need to be added each time you refill because I suspect it doesn't break down too much.
I have humidity meters and there is a significant difference at the orchid level whether there is water in the tray or not.
I have the kind of trays that have built on grating.
Nick

Yeah, I use humidity trays also. And I actually really enjoy the river rocks from an aesthetic standpoint. But I also have a humidifier which does most of the work. A simple humidifier can really help a lot, even just to raise the RH level to around 50%.

Great, article, Ray. Thanks for linking to it in this thread!