Shift from S/H to full water culture after (FWC), advice needed.

[empiref]

Hello all,

I hope you and your orchids are doing well.

I started growing orchids around 7 years ago, and quickly got introduced to the S/H medium using hydroton.

I have 11 cymbidiums and 10 phalaenopsis growing in S/H. the cyms are growing really well and some of them have 18 to 20 spikes on them.

This year we had a very cold winter, and I noticed that some of my phals are not doing well (all of them date more than 3 years in S/H), I unpotted them all and noticed that on average I have 60% root loss, and some up to 75% root loss and two had 100% root loss.

Don't know if the evaporative cooling caused this or because the hydroton isn't allowing enough oxygen to reach the roots, the pots were big and housed two phals each.

I never had any luck growing in bark; so after some reading and googling, I saw a lot of people growing their phals in full water culture (FWC) - {only 1/4th of the root mass sits in plain water}; so I decided to move all my phals in FWC in order to save them.

My questions are the following:

1- do I keep fertilizing the same way I did when I grew them in S/H? because some people on youtube are say that they soak the orchids in a fertilized mixture for about 15 minutes and then move them back to fresh water after that.
Water Culture

2- has anyone experimented with phals in FWC on this forum and has any advice to give?

3- Isn't full water culture same as S/H but without the Leca, thereby allowing more air to reach the roots

4- for the rootless phals should I use less water in the jars once the roots start forming, meaning the longer the roots, the less the ater?

Thank you all in advance.