Transfered all orchids to semi-hydroponics

[Ely]

I hope they like their new medium; cause I'm not changing it again !

I was online trying to find a suitable source for a LECA type medium only to have some bad luck. To my dismay First Ray's was offline, so that was not a possibility... Sorry Ray... maybe I'll buy an RO system later .

I continued my google searches finding few sources with the goods I so desperately seeked. Many were ebay sellers with only a few pounds of media. Darn! I'll need more than that...

The next website was a nice find; although at first glance I thought I would never find the media amongst their massive list of goodies. Alas! There it was! Hydroton! Not the same as PrimeAgra, but it looked like it would do the trick.

After reading through some reviews I decided to buy some and give it a shot; after all, the orchids needed new media.

I looked at the price and decided to buy one 50 liter bag of hydroton. Now I needed some pots. Yes! 5.5" pots for $1.50 each. Pricey, but sturdy and reliable. I put 30 in the shopping cart. After looking at the ammount of media one would hold (supposedly .75 gallons) I did the math at discovered I would only be able to fill 17 pots with the media! Oops... Better get another bag.

So in the end I had two 50 liter bags of hydroton, 30 5.5" baskets, 8oz. neem oil, 8oz. Orchid Pro, and 8oz. K-L-N. The total, with shipping, was a little under $170. Four days later it arrived, and I got to work.

I poured one bag of hydroton into the bath tub and rinsed it off four or five times. I then filled the tub up with fresh water and some K-L-N and let it sit about 24 hours. Wow! Time slows way down when you want something done! It was about then I realized I might have a little too much media...

After unpotting, cleaning, trimming roots, pulling off leaves, repotting, and sweating like a pig in Death Valley, it was done. YAY!

So now I have twenty three orchids (some died, one was infected with black rot, so I cut off the saveable portions and made about eight new ones out of it.) two amaryillises, one bonsai, and a chunk of aloe-vera in hyrdoponic media.

By the way, I have about 10 gallons of hydroton left from the first bag, and the whole second bag, left over... . I'll order more pots... !

So far it seems good, but it's only been one day! I treated all the orchids with fungicide spray and neem oil/soap spray about six times so far. Oops... Too much maybe, but they look healthy... I also flushed them off about three times with distilled water (no RO system yet...) and got the media soaked some more. They have a radiator style heater next to them that I move into different spots. I also have the humidifier and fogger working together. The humidity is about 50% and the temperature is about 78 degrees.

Not bad, huh?