Miltonia with wilting flowers, squishy pseudo bulb, and black marks near base

[Nicolasdperez]

Hello,

Recently I received an orchid. However, when the flowers were about to open up, they began to wilt. I repotted into bark with an aerated pot and treated it with hydrogen peroxide, but there still shows no sign of improvement. What should I do?

[Fishkeeper]

Any pics?

What was the old media like? Starting to break down, or did it seem OK?

[estación seca]

What are your temperatures? Light? Humidity? How were you watering it, and how often?

[Nicolasdperez]

The old medium consisted of old low quality moss directly around the orchid and then low grade bark throughout the rest of the pot. Today, I took another look at the roots and saw that they were rotting. I treated them further than last time and placed them higher up in the pot than they originally were. Is this just a symptom of root rot? The root rot was throughout all the bulbs yet only one really seemed squishy and had the marks on it. It was that same bulb that had the wilting flowers, however it is still pushing out a 2nd spike.

[Nicolasdperez]

My temperatures range from 65 degrees to 75 degrees fahrenheit. I have been giving the orchid bright indirect light. I am not sure what my exact humidity levels are but I do have 3 humidifiers running most of the day and I put the miltonia near one at the end of the day. I was watering it, but only once the first 1-2 inches of the medium had gone dry.

---------- Post added at 01:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:54 PM ----------

Also, I forgot to mention, on the sick pseudobulb there were two spikes. The first one opened halfway but began to wilt and the other is still in the process of forming. Yesterday, I cut off the wilting spike and noticed that the base of the spike looked brown, crunchy, and just unhealthy in general.

[estación seca]

The damage may have happened before you got it. What you're doing sounds reasonable, except the hydrogen peroxide. It kills roots.

From the top maroon menu search on Miltoniopsis, the current name for this plant.

[Nicolasdperez]

Do you think it is just the root rot or is it some other disease that I should treat? Ok, I used a very low percentage of hydrogen peroxide diluted with water to fight off any possible infection; this has never set back any plants of mine in the past.

[estación seca]

Miltoniopsis roots are very susceptible to problems after:

• Drying out, even one time;
• Suffocating from too little air;
• Excessive temperatures; and,
• Being damaged by high amounts of dissolved minerals.

The plants go downhill very fast when conditions aren't right. They are considered somewhat difficult to grow by many people. I have far-from-ideal conditions for them. I keep trying to grow small, inexpensive ones, but I certainly haven't mastered them.

Low concentrations of hydrogen peroxide don't do anything. Root problems are almost always (99% plus) caused by cultural conditions first, not infections. I still think there's a good chance the problems were caused by the environment before you bought it.

[Nicolasdperez]

Ok, makes sense to me. Thank you so much for all of your help; it is greatly appreciated. Take care.

[Nicolasdperez]

Hello!

Since the last time I visited this post, I have learned that the orchid is actually a miltoniopsis. I have given it bright indirect light with high humidity and always let the medium get slightly dry before watering. However, the health of my orchid has overall continued to decline.

the brown spot on the top of one of the pseudobulbs has continued to spread and the spike has turned yellow while the buds wilt. The damage can be seen in this two pictures:





The other pseudobulb one the other miltoniopsis in the same pot is doing just fine and beginning to shoot out a health flower. It has none of this yellow spots on the pseudobulb. This one can be seen here:




This yellow/orange rot seems to be very similar to what seems to have destroyed one of my grandma's other miltoniopsis which I am currently trying to save. This plant had 4 spikes three weeks ago, however it began to rapidly decline losing all of its spikes and leaves. I repotted it as I did the first one and skipped the hydrogen peroxide treatment, but it still continues to get worse. This plant can be seen here:





Is this rot? Should I remove the infected pseudobulbs? Or is it a sign of root rot (none of them seem that severely infected when I repotted them)?