There are allot of posts on this topic but I wanted to share my experience with S/H or water culture or whatever you want to call it.
First off, its only been two weeks. I honestly didn't know what I was doing to start with, but my orchids are doing so much better. Both are growing nicely, new roots are growing the one that was almost dead and both are growing little nodes. I don't know if they are finally flower spikes or weird roots. I followed all intructions for these little guys before and I don't know what I did wrong but they were dehydrated and unhappy floppy leaved guys and the almost dead one had bad root rot but that has stopped now. Both have new leaves and look better than when I bought them.
Trial 1.
I tried putting them in water beads first. That did not work at all. The bad one got worse and the other hated it as well. They both grew mold but did not get enough water, it was like they were always wet but couldn't drink anything. Not a good idea on my part.
Trial 2.
At first I just stuck them in separate glass containers with water then after a day I cut all dead roots and all with bad rot.
I change the water daily and rince any mold off the roots. Only the one that had root root molds. I wash the containers really well with soap every few days
They did not like the 2 days wet one day dry, so they stay wet. I also mist all my plants every couple days. And will ferilize once a week with deluted fertilizer but I have not started yet I wanted to see how they would react to S/H first.
So far they really like this, but its also very hot and dry here, I will adjust how I think is necessary according to the season.
Sorry I am all over the place, thanks for reading hope this was information you needed or wanted.