Ideal Indoor Growing Case for Vandaceous species?

[Ocelaris]

My wife and I are considering making a new growth chamber for our/my orchids... I supply the green thumb, she supplies the wood working. Specifically I'd like to make one for Vandas. I've always had problems growing them, and recently some success now that I have the conditions and lighting correct, but they are too tall for my current area. So I was hoping for some ideas

I am imagining a dresser drawer type cabinet, something about 4 feet wide, 2 feet deep, and about 4 feet tall, just for the plants. Is that enough space? I only have smaller varieties at the moment, ascocendas really, would that be enough room for full fledged Vandas? Really is 2 feet wide enough? The 4 foot rule would be ideal for wood working reasons, as material often comes in 4 foot lengths, but I'm not opposed to making it larger, but this is an apartment after all. I plan on making the plants at eye level, and a cabinet below for storage of fertilizer, RO water etc...

The chamber would have a small sprinkler system to water the roots 2-3 times a day. runoff would go back down to the chamber below... Humidity would be provided by the humidity bucket which already serves my other little grow areas.

Lighting would be provided by compact florescents above... daylight, 2x96watt I think ahsupply.com has some good kits.

Just wondering for those of you with good success, what kind of conditions you have? I have 2 books coming, but just wondering for those apartment growers like myself if you've ever dreamed of creating a grow case like a display case? Thanks, Bill

[b_vanfossen]

WOW- that seems like alot of work. It sounds good. You could make it out of 6 foot plywood (maybe?) because Alot of my Vandas are huge. You should have 8 foot ceilings.

I guess i take living in s. FL for granted!!

Brian

[Ocelaris]

It's an old brownstone, so height isn't an issue, 9-10 foot ceilings. But I'm hoping to constrain the plants to a 5 foot height, from the tallest a spike may be, to the bottom of the roots. I'm probably going to have to "pot" the roots in some fashion, or keep them in a smaller space than they would normally grow. Right now I'm doing the "vase" method, with plastic pots, filling and draining each day which is a lot of work, but it does work, so I'm inclined to make a further effort to minimize the daily tasks, although I do enjoy getting my hands dirty every day.

Also the goal is to provide more than single waterings, mainly when I'm not home, so the plants can use the nutrients throughout the day, instead of just at night before bed time.

I'm leaning towards a low pressure pump system and sprayers, similar to the aeroponic setups, with a repeat cycle timer to turn it on and off every few hours for a few minutes. The key is getting the sprayers in and not making it look terribly ugly with all the hoses running everywhere. Also important is getting the water to drain back into the sump and not grow algae on the sides.

Since it's an apartment setup, I want to keep it as light as possible, so straight plywood or MDF etc... is going to be too heavy, just the structure will probably make it very heavy, so I'm considering thin acrylic for the main walls, even corrugated acrylic, like the double wall insulation they use for green houses might not be bad... It's an ongoing enterprise, I'll keep updating as I get ideas or get started. Hopefully get to do some wood working at thanksgiving when we're back at my parent's house which has a table saw.