Lighting Concerns and Other Greenhouse Questions

[GinaStarSeed]

Hello. I have built a greenhouse for my orchids for the winter and I have some questions about the lighting. Some of them have yellow splotchy leaves. Light green foliage with some yellow -green splochiness .. like all over the whole leave. Concerned this is because of too much light. They were like this before when I had them under fluorescents. Now I have switched all the bulbs to LeD. So each shelf is 72"x24" and each shelf has 8-54W LED tubes so each shelf has a total of 432W of light. You can see how far away they are in the photos attached. The greenhouse has 4 12"x16" screens on the sides. And a clear shower curtain that hangs down over the front. It is up in the photo. The leaves were looking leathery because humidity was around steady 35-40%. I got a humidifier and it ranges now from 50% low to 80% high. The leaves are doing better. I have a 6" little fan running on low at all times , 24 hours a day. I have good root growth on almost all of them and absolutely stunning root and plant row the in quite a few. I attached a photo of one of my Gammas and a Cattleya. Anything the expects can suggest for me to tweak or change to help them be as happy as they can be; to address any of these issues:

-leathery, limpy leaves
-splotchy light green and yellow-green leaves(none of the photos will really show it??)
-algae growth in a few pots
-anything additional to help with humidity

The photos are turned sideways for some reason.

Thanks!!

[Leafmite]

-leathery, limpy leaves
-anything additional to help with humidity

I agree that this is likely caused by a humidity issue. I grow under fluorescent lighting and the lights are hot and humidity was an issue. Now I grow other plants with my orchids and that has solved the problem. The more leaves that transpire, the more humidity. For good measure, I just added an oil diffuser.

-splotchy light green and yellow-green leaves(none of the photos will really show it??)

I do not have experience enough with LED's to say whether the continued uneven coloring is due to lighting or if it is caused by something else. Some other things that cause this are fungus issues, nutritional imbalances and temperatures. If your switch to LED's is very recent, you might want to wait a little longer and see if this resolves itself.

-algae growth in a few pots

Algae growth is usually caused by an excess in nitrogen combined with good lighting and constant moisture. Some ways to get rid of it are periodically flushing the pots to rid the medium of excess nutrients, letting the medium approach dryness before watering and perhaps buying a chemical that will get rid of the algae without harming your plants.

[katrina]

I've never heard of a 54 watt led tube. Usually the replacement leds are less wattage then the old t5 ho tubes. What tubes did you buy?

[Leafmite]

They are probably something like this:

Axis LED 54W Equivalent 4 ft. T5HO 24-Watt Cool White LED Tube Light Bulb (24-Pack) - - Amazon.com


These have very few reviews on Amazon and the other vendor sites listing them and the reviews are mixed. The reviews are very mixed but it could be that people are installing them in the wrong ballasts and not due to quality control. If these are good, this might be a great option in the future to save energy.

[estación seca]

You have multiple kinds of orchids. The Catasetum relatives (1st photo, broad pleated thin leaves) are getting ready to go dormant. You should expect them to drop their leaves.

In general leathery leaves is lack of water, not so much too much light.