Anyone have experience with a Maui orchidarium?
 

Hi all I was wondering if anyone has any experience with a maui orchidaruim from orchidarium.com I was looking to get one so that I could grow cool climate orchids since I live in Dallas where the temps can easily get in the 100's but before i shell out $750 on one I wanted to see what peoples experience were so if you have experience with it wether good or bad let me know

Thanks I advance

:bump:
hope someone can help you out - gl!

I do not have the Maui, but I do have the Grand Cayman. What kind of questions do you have. And when you say cool growing orchids, what temps are you specifically looking for? My Grand Cayman probably has more bulbs then the Maui, but it works great for the intermediate and warm growing orchids! There are a couple other members on here who have other models of the orchidariums but I don't think I have seen them on here and I also can't recall who they are. Have you tried searching on here for Maui Orchidariums?

I was reading on here about some people having the Maui some said that they were great and then there were some who said that they had problems with keeping the humidity up so i guess I was wondering if anyone had to problems with keeping the humidity up I also read on orchidarium.com that if you bought the model that had to light bulbs you could grow cool to intermediate grow orchids

Yes I had problems keeping the humidity up, but I bought a Mist King misting system and that fixed the problem! Also keep in mind my humidity is normally around 20% or less so I believe this was why I had problems. Also if you have two light bulbs perhaps they won't heat up as much as the model I have, but I wouldn't think the light would be that great for growing orchids that need strong lighting to bloom.

I have had a maui for a number of years now. i wouldnt be able to grow most of the pleurothallids i do with out it. The one thing i did notice is that my masdies and dracs were gettin pretty yellowed out from the light put out by the two bulbs. but i solved that with some shade cloth cut to fit. you could also try running with only one bulb as i am doing now without the shade cloth. i have never had a problem with humidity mine peaks out at about 89 to 90 percent after a misting or watering. and then will fall into the low 80 percents durring the day. At night it goes a little higher. temps are a bit harder to regulate but since i keep mine in a cool basement room it usually stays around a daytime temp of 75 in thr summer with night temps in mid 60s. Winter is my best time for pleuros. day temps of mid 60 ;ower 60s and noc temps of around 54. They love it.

I would have to say invest in the maui, but dont be suprised that you will soon be wishing you bought another one as well lol.
scott:twocents:

I don't know what kind of budget you have, but there is a lady that I think goes by the name of Karma who has a blog about building a cool growing orchid terrarium. It was really quite a good read and helped me to understand what would be involved for constructing (or buying already assembled) a terrarium for cool growing orchids. I opted not to do it after having read it.

I wish I could figure out the website again, but if you google "cool growing orchid terrarium" you should find her blog.

Here is the website: Orchid Karma :: An orchid blog

I just got a triple lamp Maui and for humidity control I drilled a hole in the back in the acrylic, for a piece of 1/2" PVC pipe to snuggly fit through, and then attached this fogger to the PVC (the fogger's hose fit perfectly over the tiny piece of PVC pipe). The fogger is controlled by this hygrometer controller. The controller also controls, via it's thermostat, two reptile heat mats set under the Orchidarium. The controller even allows a user set temperature drop at night via a light sensing diode on the controller's main panel that senses when the lights are out (I set mine for a 15F degree temp drop at night).

All of this has allowed my Maui to automatically hold VERY steady to my set parameters for intermediate and warm growers— 78-81F peak during the day, 63F-65F at night and 60%-70% relative humidity.

Now I just hope the three CF lamps are enough to get standard Catts to bloom...!