Phalaenopsis in water culture

[smartie2000]

Looking good there. thanks for sharing!

[rmack5]

I have been toying around with the idea of making something like this. What do you all think?

[Ray]

Bad idea - the plumbing connections are perfect for sharing plant pathogens!

[Sun rm.N.E.]

I have been growing orchids in water culture for more than five years after reading about the method in the old Vengers website mostly to provide intensive care to near-dead orchids or to clean up systemic infection.
My experience has been similar to their report that Phals will grow in this way but most likely prefer other methods long-term (S/H for me) Same goes for Neo falcata, Catts with heavy walkeriana heritage, Brassavola,Oncid hybrids with heavy onostum, flexuosum and other fibrous or climbing rhizomed types in their heritage that developed better roots after I transfered them into "Ray's Rocks" whether S/H or just plain lecca watered by the trial error method.
On the other hand, certain orchids actually grew and bloomed very much faster this way such as Sharry Baby( I have had 4 foot very fat spikes on one of mine in a vase and they lasted much longer), Hawaera, Leptotes bicolor, Rodriguezia venusta, even some Laelocattleas, Richard Mueller Hybrids, and some Potina as you see in the picture. I have more water culture successes in my gallery.
However, S/H requires much less attention such as not having to keep all the roots covered with solution in water culture most of the time which may require almost daily attention.

[OrchidInEveryWindow]

Sun room;
Nice blooms you have there! Do you have any pics of the containers, so we can see the roots and algae?

Great to hear about the Shary Baby doing better in W/C! I have a couple that I switched soon after their last bloom.
I give my orchids daily attention anyway, so keeping them topped up isn't a problem. But I usually skip a day or two with the larger vases, because the water level doesn't go down that fast.

[Sun rm.N.E.]

More root pictures on my gallery. I think if you look carefully on my previous post you can see thick green algae on most of them.
About the algae. I believe there is an optimal level of algae for the benefit of orchids. If they provide oxygen during the day the might use up too much at night and they hog nutrition. I often get algae soup as well as the accumulation of dead algae that mucks up everything. Simple biology. They just grow too fast if in high light which mine get in the Summer and I supplement with artificial light in the Winter. I also believe that if the top algae layer is too thick it causes the new growth to grow downward to seek light source below instead of upward. So I flush with tap water to keep it healthy and lean. I also amputate dead roots full of dead algae, remove rotting sheets and treat for root or rhizome rot. Long term water culture is an entirely different experience from just a few months.
Most of the bacteria and fungi that cause rot also thrive in the juncture between water and air since they seem to require wet and dry cycles to reproduce so I keep an eye on these parts and treat for infection when it arises.

[OrchidInEveryWindow]

Sun room;

You're a valuable resource. I've only been at W/C a month or so, so your years of experience are a great source of knowledge.

Can you stay on this thread and share some of your tips and tricks?

I grovel at your feet!

[Sun rm.N.E.]

Thanks for the complement. I am just beginning to be able to consider some of the essentials, spend much less time and my success rate has improved.

First, we are providing an nutrient rich culture medium at cosy temperatures for all kinds of microbes that came with the plant as well as for our orchids. Similar issues involve every human orifice. For example our ear canals, when healthy, are colonized by friendly bacteria and all kinds of other funky microbes that we don't even understand yet. "swimmer ears" is simply a nasty infection by pathogens that take over when our protector microbes have been killed off in the pool. So I think it is important what diseases your plant carries. In my experience 2 vendors stand out in providing me healthy plants H&R seedlings and J&L.

I cut off all rotten roots and amputate diseased or senile(obviously non-working root) and parts of otherwise healthy roots that are diseased. All old roots will die anyway which then have to be removed. If I am pressed for time I just cut off all roots especially on robust catts and did not notice a difference except that it is much less work. The goal is to keep rot producing organisms to a minimum so that the plant has an even chance to fight them. I now rate plants for resistance to rot which seem to vary greatly with different plants and probably also influenced by whether they are virussed or not. Just like someone with AIDS succumbs to all kinds of infection others can fight. Many of my novelty oncidium hybrids that did poorly actually showed signs of virus on new growth eventually.

If there are two or more healthy robust pseudobulbs to supply the new growth now I remove the senile backbulbs with black rot on rhizomes immediately. If I feel forced to keep the sick ones I surgically remove the rotted parts with a razor blade or scalpel and treat with Gentian Violet 1% If there is no sign of deep rot I just clean with drugstore hydrogen peroxide full strength and hope for the best. I alway keep a freshly-poured cup of peroxide with cotton swabs handy. However, lately, I have stayed away from buying such sick plants unless I just feel like experimenting with new treatments.

Once in the culture medium I try to keep all roots covered with solution and tie the plant on something like plastic spoons and forks to slant if necessary. A little bit of Oncid pseudobulbs and all catt rhizomes are always submerged. If I don't see healthy algae growth soon but instead I see brown deposit on the container I treat for infection again and repeat this until it is eliminated or I give up on the plant. Sometimes this is easy because I ended up with 2-3 sections that were no longer attached functionally to the original little pseudobulbs.

I posted more root pictures in my gallery.

[Tindomul]

Wow, very interesting. Is it possible to start the algae culture in a vase before introducing the plant?

[Dorothy]

Leave water in a sunny or bright area, cover the top and algae should grow ..