Spike question

[Daemos]

Propably getting paranoia but I just need to know. The spike is getting a red tinge like the leaves. What is the best tactic to apply.

1.) Have faith in mother nature's ability to fix everything and leave it as it is.
2.) Protect the spike from too much sunlight (artificial light) by coverage with for example a small piece of white paper.

How fast do spikes blast from too much sunlight. The plant seems to like the amount of sunlight but the spike (I hate it when they do that ) grows towards the light. How much can that thing take.

Temps have gone up finally so its growing superfast expect soon

[justatypn]

The red tinge on the leaves is merely an orchid statement saying I am happy but a bit more sunlight and will show you how unhappy I can be. As for the spike, it sounds like it will be ok, but if your in fear of the lighting, take it down a notch, will not hurt to protect the little guy. As for the spike going toward the brightest light, that is the nature of the beast, but as the spike grows longer and longer closer to the light, "there's your sign"

What type of orchid are you concerned about? Being paranoid when growing orchids is a good thing, makes us more observant.

[Daemos]

Its a vanda blue magic aka. Sansai blue. Thai variant.

[Ross]

Like Cheryl, we need to know the type of orchid. Some have spikes that are naturally reddish.

[Ocelaris]

Is it hot? Close to the lamp? As long as it's not any hotter than the rest of the plant, and it's not much closer to the lamp than the rest of the plant, shouldn't be any problem... it's not any more susceptible to too much lighting than any of the leaves. However heat can dry it out and discourage growth. Once it does bloom though, the petals are obviously much thinner, and can lose much more moisture than the rest of the leaves which can open and close stomata to reduce moisture loss...

My general rule, if temps are ok, and the leaves are ok, flowers will be ok. If the top leaves are folding in from losing too much moisture (partially from too much light or heat), then I would move the plant away from the artificial light source a tad. If the top leaves are fully open, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Daemos]

Thank you all for the usefull responses.

Prior to these advises I have done the following:

I have moved the lightsource up about 20 cm straight above the plant to encourage 2 things.

1) The flower spike will (I hope so) grow upwards making the overall picture look better.
2) The flowers will not be able to get too close to te lamp.

Propably the plant will receive much less light then it is used to get. Lets just hope it won't do something stupid like dying, blasting spikes, dropping roots etc etc.

[Neverend]

Looks good, as long as the plant gets enough light, it should continue to bloom. I've never heard of Vanda buds blasting due to a small decrease in light.

[Daemos]

In fact a friend of mine works at the plant auction and he told me that vanda's are stored in dark cooling rooms for sometimes more then 3 weeks in order to preserve the flower buds so that when it arrives at the customer the flowers haven't opened yet. Guess its very hard to blast vanda flower buds