# Am I killing my paphs?



## orchideya (Feb 8, 2012)

I got big bunch of paph species (mostly parvisepalums) last spring without much research. When re-potting them - I used as a reference the article from AnTec Labs about benefits of chc.

Therefore all my paphs are now growing in straight medium sized chc. Smaller ones in green square plastic pots, larger - in clay.
Reading through this forum I found several statements like "stay away of chc".
So, do you think I should re-pot mine asap?
They don't look that bad, grow new healthy roots, couple are spiking.

As alternative now I have sphagnum moss or Shulz orchid mix that I use for larger phals(looks like mix of bark, perlite, charcoal and probably dirt).

Is there any other good mix for paphs that is available in Canada?

Thanks a lot.


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## paphreek (Feb 8, 2012)

When I grew my Paphs in the house, I was very successful using CHC mixes similar to the ones described in the Antec site. It seems as though every person's experience is different. I would observe and make your own decision on whether it is good for your conditions. I did find that Brachy's and Parvi's did better if I let them dry out a bit more than the other Paphs. When I did water, though, I watered copiously, hydrating the entire mix. I think this helped to flush out excess salts as well. If I had had the time, I would have flushed one day with pure R/O water and a little Epsom salts, and then come back and watered the next day with a dilute fertilizer solution (75 -100 ppm of N).


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

I've had mixed luck with CHC based on the species group.

Multiflorals did the best (as longs as they were under potted) and barbata types did the worst.

Since I've been cutting back the potassium in my fertilizer use, I'm getting better results going back to CHC in some cases. However, I've switched most of my collection over to moss lined baskets and generally getting my best results in those.

In hind site, I think the biggest problem with CHC is that it sequesters potassium easily to toxic levels. So you need to repot frequently or reduce the K and increase Ca/Mg availability.


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## orchideya (Feb 8, 2012)

I read somewhere that paphs don't like ferts too much , so I never used any fertilizers (newb with no clue) on my paphs, only water them with rain (or melted snow) water.
I don't mind repotting often. 
What fertilizer would you suggest for parvisepalums?
Rick, what media do you use with moss lined baskets? Are they vanda baskets?
Thanks a lot


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

I would suggest reviewing some of the threads on the K-lite fertilizer.

Also look up a thread (using the search function) I started called "Mark this date for basket culture".

There are lots of other threads on similar methods. Look up all the threads started by Bjorn too.

This point would come out in these threads, but I wouldn't use straight CHC and rain water without some source of calcium and magnesium ammendment to the potting mix.


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## orchideya (Feb 8, 2012)

Would crushed oyster shells from birds department of petsmart be good to supplement my chc with calcium? If yes, how much to add?
Thanks a lot.


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

I've used it, but not any more.

These days when I use a CHC mix it would consist of:

2-3 parts CHC
1 part charcoal
1 part sponge rock

and top dress a 2" pot with tsp of washed building sand and 1/4 tsp of "Cichlid Sand".

This is the closest I can come to a measured recipe. Otherwise I do it all by "Italian cooking methods"

The Cichlid sand is a product by Caribsea and is an aquarium gravel (sold in petsmart). I think it is superior to use than oyster shell.


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## orchideya (Feb 8, 2012)

Great! Thank you so much for the recipe.
Do you add epsom salts to help with magnesium? I heard that you could occasionally add it to water during watering, never did it yet though.


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

I quit using pure RO water about a year or so ago.

I blend in about 10% of my well water with RO.

That gives it about 10 or more ppm of Ca and a few ppm of Mg. Alkalinity is still 20ppm or less.

On sunny days, I add a "smidge" of additional Mag sulfate to my irrigation water to boost up the Mg a little more.

I like to keep the Mg less than the total Ca concentration.

Some folks have had a few random Phrag problems when Mg exceeded the Ca concentration. So I advise keeping the Ca:Mg ratio at >1:1.


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## ehanes7612 (Feb 8, 2012)

the ONLY drawback to CHC is if you have chc in the bottom of the pot..(the bottom third should be styrofoam or some inert well drainage material)..of course you have to water more often with CHC ...i grow everything in straight CHC and everything does fine..but if you keep repotting you will set your plants back....and of course what Rick says with fertilizer


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## Paphman910 (Feb 8, 2012)

paphreek said:


> When I grew my Paphs in the house, I was very successful using CHC mixes similar to the ones described in the Antec site. It seems as though every person's experience is different. I would observe and make your own decision on whether it is good for your conditions. I did find that Brachy's and Parvi's did better if I let them dry out a bit more than the other Paphs. When I did water, though, I watered copiously, hydrating the entire mix. I think this helped to flush out excess salts as well. If I had had the time, I would have flushed one day with pure R/O water and a little Epsom salts, and then come back and watered the next day with a dilute fertilizer solution (75 -100 ppm of N).



I growing in CHC, sphagnum moss, perlite, charcoal mix under 400 Metal Halide lights. THe mix drys up over 3-4 days( in the middle of the week) and water so I just use plain water. On weekends I water the medium with plain water and then fertilize it after watering.

I use quarter teaspoon of fertilizer per milk jug alternating with 25-10-10, 20-20-20, 10-52-10, calcium nitrate and Epson Salt each week.

Paphman910


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

Paphman910 said:


> I growing in CHC, sphagnum moss, perlite, charcoal mix under 400 Metal Halide lights. THe mix drys up over 3-4 days( in the middle of the week) and water so I just use plain water. On weekends I water the medium with plain water and then fertilize it after watering.
> 
> I use quarter teaspoon of fertilizer per milk jug alternating with 25-10-10, 20-20-20, 10-52-10, calcium nitrate and Epson Salt each week.
> 
> Paphman910



Paphman

Are you growing roths again?


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## Paphman910 (Feb 8, 2012)

Rick said:


> Paphman
> 
> Are you growing roths again?



Yes! But concentration on Paph stonei at the moment!

Paphman910


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

Paphman910 said:


> Yes! But concentration on Paph stonei at the moment!
> 
> Paphman910



How dark (green) are your roths right now?

Yes you have multiple clones of stonei, and I remember sending you a pic of mine to try ID some plants based on leaf length/width ratio.

I have sheaths on 2 different plants right now, and my most beat-up (and oldest) stonei (JudyXDiplomat) is starting to really take off now. So by the end of summer, I doubt if it will seem to be "compact" any more.


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## Paphman910 (Feb 8, 2012)

Rick said:


> How dark (green) are your roths right now?
> 
> Yes you have multiple clones of stonei, and I remember sending you a pic of mine to try ID some plants based on leaf length/width ratio.
> 
> I have sheaths on 2 different plants right now, and my most beat-up (and oldest) stonei (JudyXDiplomat) is starting to really take off now. So by the end of summer, I doubt if it will seem to be "compact" any more.



My roth are light greenish yellow and starting to take off by producing a new leaf while having another leaf in it.

My big stonei has a flower shealth that is about 4 inches long but no flower spike yet! I think it will be fall before it flowers! It has two mature growth along with 4 new growths on it! The mature growth have leaf with width of 7 cm across. It's leafspan is about 32 inches across and such a monster!

I appreciate the photos you sent me and I suspect the 2 stonei that I got last year is not really a stonei but some sort of lowii hybrid. I won't know until it flowers! It looks more like the Paph lowii seedling that I got from Orchids Limited.


Paphman910


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## Rick (Feb 8, 2012)

Paphman910 said:


> My big stonei has a flower shealth that is about 4 inches long but no flower spike yet! I think it will be fall before it flowers! It has two mature growth along with 4 new growths on it!
> Paphman910



The normal blooming time for stonei is spring, but I've seen sheaths year round. Sometimes they produce a sheath in summer and hold it all year to bloom the following spring. Sometimes they spike without producing a sheath at all. Once they decide to get after it, the spike and bloom is very fast (almost as fast as a philipinennse)


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## eggshells (Feb 8, 2012)

I have 2 Roths. One dark green and one light green. The wider leaves have dark green and the narrow one is light green. Both is grown under mh and same cultural parameters.

Orchideya. I grow mine in simple mix of fine bark, perlite and charcoal. Topped with oyster shell on the paphs that grows in limestone.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Feb 8, 2012)

In general, I have found that parvi's (except for delanatii) tolerate CHC better than most other paphs. Still, I'd suggest switching over to Orchiata bark.


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## orchideya (Feb 9, 2012)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> In general, I have found that parvi's (except for delanatii) tolerate CHC better than most other paphs. Still, I'd suggest switching over to Orchiata bark.



I saw the name Orchiata on different forums before.
Where one could find it? Our stores have just chc, sphagnum and Shultz orchid mix. Importing from US will probably be too expensive due to shipping and customs.
Is there a source of Orchiata in Canada? 
Thanks a lot


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## eggshells (Feb 9, 2012)

There was another thread about orchiata. Basically they are not allowed in Canada. Rexius is one that I know off and the one that I'm using. And willgro product. I don't like Shultz. They Are quite big chunks and my pots dries fast especially in winter.


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## Rick (Feb 9, 2012)

Paphman910 said:


> I use quarter teaspoon of fertilizer per milk jug alternating with 25-10-10, 20-20-20, 10-52-10, calcium nitrate and Epson Salt each week.
> 
> Paphman910



BTW is that a qallon or 1/2 gallon milk jug?


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## Paphman910 (Feb 9, 2012)

Rick said:


> BTW is that a qallon or 1/2 gallon milk jug?



3.78 L jugs!


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## Rick (Feb 9, 2012)

Paphman910 said:


> 3.78 L jugs!




You metric man oke:oke:oke:


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## Justin (Feb 9, 2012)

That's great you're growing roths again Paphman! Looking forward to seeing that stonei in bloom too!

Getting back to the original question, in my experience CHC is great especially for a quick boost to root growth. The main concern is just with initial salt content, which can be helped by soaking with mag etc. Your plants/roots would have shown signs of trouble with that by now. The other concern i have heard is with chlorosis and long-term health of the plants, but i have no evidence one way or the other on that. As for advantages, it can hold water slightly longer than bark in between waterings. You also hear that CHC last longer before you need to repot, but I never found it to last particularly longer than bark...

I used CHC for several years before switching back to bark and grew some awesome roots on paphs.


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## orchideya (Feb 9, 2012)

Thank you everybody for your advices.
I buy chc in bricks from Lee Valley and soak it for several hours constantly changing water until it is not brown anymore. Hope it helps to wash out the salts.
Justin, you are right about roots in chc. I have totally rotted all roots on several paphs at the beginning because of my lack of knowledge, I thought they were going to die, but being in chc they grew new ones very fast. 
Paph delenatii recovers after root loss:


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Feb 9, 2012)

I have found the CHC salt issues to be an over-rated problem. I follow the Antec guidelines...3 soaks, middle one with CaNO3 and MgSO4. I have never found salt burn a problem, and it is true that paphs show an initial positive response to CHC...in fact, if you are willing to repot every 6 months, go right ahead and stay with it. They would do very well under those circumstances. Aside from paphs, and phrags (and pleurothallids) which hate it even more, CHC is still my medium of choice. Best thing for epiphytes...my Catts, Oncids, Dends, Cyms, and Vandas all love it. If you can't get Orchiata, and are stuck with Rexius, be careful. it breaks down pretty quickly, and a bad batch literally killed off my very best paphs a few years ago, even though my phrags loved it. Can you get Sequoia brand? That's much better.


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## SlipperFan (Feb 9, 2012)

Interesting how different people have different luck with different media. My Phrags seem quite happy in a mix of CHC/Diatomite/Sponge Roc. Been using it for 4 or 5 years.


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## ehanes7612 (Feb 9, 2012)

SlipperFan said:


> Interesting how different people have different luck with different media. My Phrags seem quite happy in a mix of CHC/Diatomite/Sponge Roc. Been using it for 4 or 5 years.



i really think root growth has more to do with drainage than type of media..i have had good success with one third bottom styrofaom peanuts and the top two thirds CHC (with oyster shell for some ) and allowing mix to completely break down (about 2.5 to 3 years, after setting back some plants from repotting every year i just let the plants sit..they seem to like it)...i also fertilize very sparingly (which i learned the hard way with my roth seedlings)..but they are recovering now with a low K diet...i only wet the CHC , my source doesnt seem to have any issues with salts


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## Rick (Feb 9, 2012)

Well wait and see how the knew K-lite feed works with your CHC.

Remember that CaNO3, and MgSO4 are just 4 of the primary major cations and anions that make up 99% of the "salts" that we expose our plants too. Of the other 4, Na, K, HCO3, and Cl, K ends up as the most common, and most influential.

So in the case were you "condition" the CHC to drive out the "salts", you set up an ion exchange system, so each time you fertilize,the CHC gives back the Ca and Mg, and sucks the K back up (we always use sodium free water, so K is all it gets to take). It doesn't take too long with 100+ ppm doses of K in our fertilizer to kick out all the Ca/Mg that was used to condition the CHC in the first place, and before long your CHC is even worse than when it got washed with sea water in Mexico!


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## orchideya (Feb 10, 2012)

There will be show in Montreal in March, I will try to make it there and see if there will be any supplies for sale. Here in stores we only have Shultz mix. I will look for Sequoia brand or maybe there will be some pre-mixed substrat for paphs. If not - I will stay with chc and repot often.
I have one and only phrag - Phragmipedium pearcei and it grows fine in Shultz bark mix, although I need to water it quite often to keep it moist. The top part dries out especially fast.
I don't fetilize because I still didn't choose the ferts for my paphs, we don't have much choice here and I am afraid to do more harm with the wrong stuff.
Would 20-20-20 general purpose fert be OK? I get it from the earlier post that 1/4 tsp for 4L would be the concentration, right?


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## SlipperFan (Feb 10, 2012)

Rick said:


> Well wait and see how the knew K-lite feed works with your CHC.
> 
> Remember that CaNO3, and MgSO4 are just 4 of the primary major cations and anions that make up 99% of the "salts" that we expose our plants too. Of the other 4, Na, K, HCO3, and Cl, K ends up as the most common, and most influential.
> 
> So in the case were you "condition" the CHC to drive out the "salts", you set up an ion exchange system, so each time you fertilize,the CHC gives back the Ca and Mg, and sucks the K back up (we always use sodium free water, so K is all it gets to take). It doesn't take too long with 100+ ppm doses of K in our fertilizer to kick out all the Ca/Mg that was used to condition the CHC in the first place, and before long your CHC is even worse than when it got washed with sea water in Mexico!



My CHC does not come from Mexico.


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## Justin (Feb 10, 2012)

orchideya said:


> Would 20-20-20 general purpose fert be OK? I get it from the earlier post that 1/4 tsp for 4L would be the concentration, right?



Yes that is correct. 

You are going to need to fertilize your paphs. If you are using rainwater, suggest mixing in tapwater when you fertilize. Just go easy and alternate with pure water and you will be fine.


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## Rick (Feb 10, 2012)

SlipperFan said:


> My CHC does not come from Mexico.



Actually mine comes from Roberts, which I think is Sri Lanka in origin.

If it wasn't for the freshwater washes of this source it would be ocean salty like the Mexican stuff.

But since coconut is essentially a coastal product, it normally is full of salt when raw.


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## SlipperFan (Feb 11, 2012)

Mine is from Sri Lanka. I get it though the Kinsman Company in compressed brick form. I still rinse it 3 x, but I truly have not had any problems with it.


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