# They're coming.... my first flask.



## masaccio (Mar 1, 2021)

I am hard-headed, having been warned seriously against these as my first flask. One of Sam's tigrinum crosses. I would appreciate all the help I can get.


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## orchid527 (Mar 1, 2021)

John

I am growing several flasks of his tigrinums. Start them out in sphagnum and use dilute fertilizer in good quality water. I haven't lost a single plant. They just don't grow very fast. I tried a variety of media, but nothing else worked for me. I have them under lights and slightly warmed from beneath. If Sam shipped the flask to you and the leaves start turning yellow in the first few days, spray with systemic fungicide. They can get contaminated when he opens up the flask and it grows while the plants are in transit, especially this time of year. I have some photos, if you are interested. Mike


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## DrLeslieEe (Mar 1, 2021)

orchid527 said:


> John
> 
> I am growing several flasks of his tigrinums. Start them out in sphagnum and use dilute fertilizer in good quality water. I haven't lost a single plant. They just don't grow very fast. I tried a variety of media, but nothing else worked for me. I have them under lights and slightly warmed from beneath. If Sam shipped the flask to you and the leaves start turning yellow in the first few days, spray with systemic fungicide. They can get contaminated when he opens up the flask and it grows while the plants are in transit, especially this time of year. I have some photos, if you are interested. Mike


Congrats to Masa for getting this tigrinum flask! A first! 

And Mike, please post your experience here please so we can all learn for this difficult species. Thanks!


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## orchid527 (Mar 1, 2021)

John

Here is a quick photo of my plants. The four compots on the top are 8 months out of flask. The rest are 3 months out of flask. I realize they have quite a ways to go, but this stage is where the losses can be greatest. Mike


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## masaccio (Mar 1, 2021)

orchid527 said:


> John
> 
> Here is a quick photo of my plants. The four compots on the top are 8 months out of flask. The rest are 3 months out of flask. I realize they have quite a ways to go, but this stage is where the losses can be greatest. Mike
> View attachment 25873



Very beautiful, Mike. I wanted to ask you - Phred has mentioned specifically not trying to disentangle small plantlets until they gain some size. I thought I would rinse off as much of the agar as possible and then place the mass onto damp sphagnum in covered compot for the time being and just let them be for awhile. Yea or Nay? Thanks!


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## masaccio (Mar 1, 2021)

DrLeslieEe said:


> Congrats to Masa for getting this tigrinum flask! A first!
> 
> And Mike, please post your experience here please so we can all learn for this difficult species. Thanks!


Thanks, Doc. I'm pretty excited. Excited as in nervous, that is.


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## orchid527 (Mar 1, 2021)

masaccio said:


> Very beautiful, Mike. I wanted to ask you - Phred has mentioned specifically not trying to disentangle small plantlets until they gain some size. I thought I would rinse off as much of the agar as possible and then place the mass onto damp sphagnum in covered compot for the time being and just let them be for awhile. Yea or Nay? Thanks!


I don't think tangled roots will be a problem. Sam's plants will have healthy roots, but they won't be extensive. Gently wash the medium off and the seedlings will come apart easily. You won't do doing any harm. One flask will produce four 4 inch compots with 6-7 plants per pot. It will be hard to have more than this in one pot. Wet the moss and gently work it around the roots. Holding this plug of moss and plant, add another plant to the outside and cover it with moss. It is cumbersome, but by the time you get to 6-7 plants, they are ready to go into the 4 inch pot. Don't forget to put foam peanuts in the bottom. I put my compots into ziploc bags with a small opening and I increase the size of the opening over a 2-3 week period until the plants are acclimated to the home's lower humidity. You have to check them every day and be prepare to spray them at first sign of fungal infection. About a month into the process, they will be hardened and show signs of new growth. Mike


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## Phred (Mar 1, 2021)

masaccio said:


> Very beautiful, Mike. I wanted to ask you - Phred has mentioned specifically not trying to disentangle small plantlets until they gain some size. I thought I would rinse off as much of the agar as possible and then place the mass onto damp sphagnum in covered compot for the time being and just let them be for awhile. Yea or Nay? Thanks!


If they separate easily separate them. If you have to mess with them it's better to leave them alone. Mike's compots look great but if each one represents a flask then the smaller number would separate more easily. The plants in the flask photo in your post look like they might separate easily.


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## masaccio (Mar 1, 2021)

Phred said:


> If they separate easily separate them. If you have to mess with them it's better to leave them alone. Mike's compots look great but if each one represents a flask then the smaller number would separate more easily. The plants in the flask photo in your post look like they might separate easily.





orchid527 said:


> I don't think tangled roots will be a problem. Sam's plants will have healthy roots, but they won't be extensive. Gently wash the medium off and the seedlings will come apart easily. You won't do doing any harm. One flask will produce four 4 inch compots with 6-7 plants per pot. It will be hard to have more than this in one pot. Wet the moss and gently work it around the roots. Holding this plug of moss and plant, add another plant to the outside and cover it with moss. It is cumbersome, but by the time you get to 6-7 plants, they are ready to go into the 4 inch pot. Don't forget to put foam peanuts in the bottom. I put my compots into ziploc bags with a small opening and I increase the size of the opening over a 2-3 week period until the plants are acclimated to the home's lower humidity. You have to check them every day and be prepare to spray them at first sign of fungal infection. About a month into the process, they will be hardened and show signs of new growth. Mike



I got it. Thanks to both of you. A little common sense, then. At least I'm accustomed to working with sphagnum. Thanks for the reminder about peanuts, I may have skipped this. I've wondered about using peanuts with paphiopedilums at all. They're completely non-absorbant so it seems they would create too much air in the bottom of a pot where root tips are going. But obviously you're using them successfully, so there it is.


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## masaccio (Mar 1, 2021)

This is the setup I find myself with. Four covered 4x4 compots with perforated bottoms and a good supply of sphagnum. All placed on a half-sheet baking pan (humidity tray) which I can heat from the bottom during the day with a heating pad as long as the back doesn't go out. I'd want to put a layer of river rocks and a little water in the baking pan for the compots to rest on), and would want to remove the compot tops at night to aid hardening. A newbie effort, but anything actually wrong? Thank you, fellow paph lovers.


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## orchid527 (Mar 2, 2021)

Should work fine. I assume you will turn off heat at night when the tops are off. Is there any way to set the tops on slightly askew so that they just partially ventilated at night? That would be a good transition to being fully open at night. I don't know about you, but my house humidity can be as low as 35%, even with a humidifier on the furnace. A drop from 100% to 35% is a harsh transition and I suspect you will see unnecessary damage to leaves in just a few days. I don't have much confidence in pebble trays. The moisture disperses to quickly. I do like the idea of individual chambers, so that spread of any fungal infection is limited. Also, your timing is really pretty good. With spring just around the corner, you will be getting better results than if you started this at the beginning of winter. Mike


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

orchid527 said:


> Should work fine. I assume you will turn off heat at night when the tops are off. Is there any way to set the tops on slightly askew so that they just partially ventilated at night? That would be a good transition to being fully open at night. I don't know about you, but my house humidity can be as low as 35%, even with a humidifier on the furnace. A drop from 100% to 35% is a harsh transition and I suspect you will see unnecessary damage to leaves in just a few days. I don't have much confidence in pebble trays. The moisture disperses to quickly. I do like the idea of individual chambers, so that spread of any fungal infection is limited. Also, your timing is really pretty good. With spring just around the corner, you will be getting better results than if you started this at the beginning of winter. Mike


Thanks, Mike. Good idea about leaving the tops just slightly askew - far more sensible. I have a space humidifier in the room that can run all night. I agree about pebble trays not really working to provide humidity. I'm mostly using it as a drip tray and to lift the bottoms of the compots off the flat surface of the pan for air flow. Also, in lieu of a seedling heat mat I have a heating pad for humans that I can put under the pan for a little extra warmth. Depending on the temperature of the pad, I might not want the bottoms of the compots to be resting directly on the bottom of the pan. And come to think of it, in that setup with the heating pad under the pan, a little water in the pan might heat up enough to provide some humidity after all, as well as being an extra buffer against overheating. I'm probably overthinking this....  Thanks for your help!


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## richgarrison (Mar 2, 2021)

You're likely past this point now, but the thing that Holger Perner figured out about inococur helping significantly reduce tigrinum loses was something that sam also swore by... seemed like a good hack to consider...


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## KateL (Mar 2, 2021)

richgarrison said:


> You're likely past this point now, but the thing that Holger Perner figured out about inococur helping significantly reduce tigrinum loses was something that sam also swore by... seemed like a good hack to consider...


Rich, is that a particular product? When I googled I got a company name, which had been bought out/changed. Do you use it with other flasklings or just tigrinums?


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

richgarrison said:


> You're likely past this point now, but the thing that Holger Perner figured out about inococur helping significantly reduce tigrinum loses was something that sam also swore by... seemed like a good hack to consider...



I'd never heard of it. Thanks for mentioning it. I googled it and apparently, Ray carried it. I went to his website just now and there's something that sounds very similar - Quantum Total Plant Probiotic.


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

KateL said:


> Rich, is that a particular product? When I googled I got a company name, which had been bought out/changed. Do you use it with other flasklings or just tigrinums?


Try Googling Incocur Garden Solution.


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

I want to try these. They're 6-1/2 x 9 x 2-1/2. Adjustable air vent on the top. 


orchid527 said:


> John
> 
> Here is a quick photo of my plants. The four compots on the top are 8 months out of flask. The rest are 3 months out of flask. I realize they have quite a ways to go, but this stage is where the losses can be greatest. Mike
> View attachment 25873


Hey Mike. I'm wondering why is it this stage when losses are greatest?


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

Mike, I also have these, with an adjustable air vent at the top. They're 6-1/2 x 9 x 2-1/2. So, I can do the 4" compots, and then put each compot inside one of these contraptions with the air vent. Sounds like a plan.


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## cnycharles (Mar 2, 2021)

Inocucor isn’t available in the us anymore unfortunately. Putting any heat pad directly in contact underneath compote would be a great way to kill them  . But something in between that can soak up some heat and release slowly and if possible some kind of thermostat would be good. Could even have a water reservoir directly underneath with an aquarium heater


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## orchid527 (Mar 2, 2021)

John

None of these little tigrinums have extensive roots and they grow slowly. So if the roots wither, then the plants lose leaves faster than they can grow them. If you put them into bark right out of the flask, they will wither. Sam commented to me that he was seeing excessive losses after the plants were deflasked. It looks like they need to reach a healthy size before they can go into anything other than moss, but growing them in moss is too tedious to do on his scale. I have been sharing photos of my growing experiments with him. Mike


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## orchidmouse (Mar 2, 2021)

Fantastic information. Thanks to all! BTW Incocur out of business. Ask Ray about his stuff.


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## orchid527 (Mar 2, 2021)

Regarding the heat beneath the seedlings, cnycharles is correct, don't get carried away. My seedlings are in trays on a shelf with a light fixture attached to the shelf. The heat from the ballast warms the plants, but it is certainly not 15-20 degrees warmer. Each ballast warms the plants on the shelf above it. The phrags seedlings go on the bottom shelf which has no ballast. Works well since they seem to like it a little cooler. Mike


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

orchid527 said:


> John
> 
> None of these little tigrinums have extensive roots and they grow slowly. So if the roots wither, then the plants lose leaves faster than they can grow them. If you put them into bark right out of the flask, they will wither. Sam commented to me that he was seeing excessive losses after the plants were deflasked. It looks like they need to reach a healthy size before they can go into anything other than moss, but growing them in moss is too tedious to do on his scale. I have been sharing photos of my growing experiments with him. Mike


Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate the support. The pictures and your description of your process are invaluable. I like sphagnum a lot. Some of my mature paphs are in it. Using it for small seedlings perfect sense to me.


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

cnycharles said:


> Inocucor isn’t available in the us anymore unfortunately. Putting any heat pad directly in contact underneath compote would be a great way to kill them  . But something in between that can soak up some heat and release slowly and if possible some kind of thermostat would be good. Could even have a water reservoir directly underneath with an aquarium heater


Thanks! Yes, I'm resting the compots in an aluminum sheet pan, mainly to act as a drip tray. Adding the heating pad may or may not be necessary but if so, I think the pan would be an effective buffer. Delivery tomorrow. Sam recommends maybe waiting a day or two before deflasking and putting the flask in some gentle natural light, but keeping an eye out for mold.


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## masaccio (Mar 2, 2021)

I feel sure I'm going to make a mess out of the actual compotting. This is not my strong point. When sphagnum is used too loose, it's stays sodden and when it's too tight there's not much air space. And trying to be careful of these fragile little roots while getting the level and density just right, I'm not confident.


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## richgarrison (Mar 3, 2021)

masaccio said:


> I feel sure I'm going to make a mess out of the actual compotting. This is not my strong point. When sphagnum is used too loose, it's stays sodden and when it's too tight there's not much air space. And trying to be careful of these fragile little roots while getting the level and density just right, I'm not confident.


just go for it!!! it's only money  and you can always buy more and try again. 

i know that sounds trite... but a lot of the time we stress over the losses like they are people we are killing... they are just plants... and you've already spent the money... just do the best you can and chalk it all up to a learning experience.


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## masaccio (Mar 3, 2021)

Yes, but I also think of them as plants that somebody else might have had. But we all have to start somewhere.


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## orchid527 (Mar 3, 2021)

Just keep in mind that some will die, and it is a good thing. The weak and the defective need to be weeded out. In my opinion, it is a waste of time trying to encourage the runts to hang on. No one has that much extra space. When you move them into fresh moss in 5-6 months, be aggressive culling the seedlings. Poor roots or yellow leaves, throw them away. Mike


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## masaccio (Mar 3, 2021)

orchid527 said:


> Just keep in mind that some will die, and it is a good thing. The weak and the defective need to be weeded out. In my opinion, it is a waste of time trying to encourage the runts to hang on. No one has that much extra space. When you move them into fresh moss in 5-6 months, be aggressive culling the seedlings. Poor roots or yellow leaves, throw them away. Mike


Great advice, Mike.


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## masaccio (Mar 3, 2021)

They've arrived. The flask feels cool. Not worried about that but there is a lot of condensation on the walls. Should I vent the flask to allow this to reduce a little? Thanks. I'm cracking it slightly in a reasonably humid room.


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## orchid527 (Mar 3, 2021)

There is no need to vent the flask. The humidity inside will always be 100%. Sam typically opens the flask and puts in peanuts to protect from mechanical damage during shipment. If so, you need to pot these out in the next day or two, since the flask is no longer sterile. Remove any brown leaves, and if there were a lot of them, spray with fungicide. Just keep an eye on the new compots and you will be fine. Mike


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## masaccio (Mar 3, 2021)

orchid527 said:


> There is no need to vent the flask. The humidity inside will always be 100%. Sam typically opens the flask and puts in peanuts to protect from mechanical damage during shipment. If so, you need to pot these out in the next day or two, since the flask is no longer sterile. Remove any brown leaves, and if there were a lot of them, spray with fungicide. Just keep an eye on the new compots and you will be fine. Mike


Well, I didn't like the idea of a soggy environment in a non-sterile container. I feel better about this. The vent is closed, but there are drainage holes in the bottom that would let in some fresh humid air, in addition to the air that was inside the mini-greenhouse. I'm just thinking "balance". I'll Youtube how to actually get the plant/agar mass out of the flask. At this point, no idea.  Duh. You're being very generous, Mike. Thank you.


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## orchid527 (Mar 3, 2021)

John

I can tell you what works for me. I fill a container with slightly warmer than room temperature water and set it next to the sink. I run a thin stream of very slightly warm water from the faucet. I hold the flask inverted over the palm of my hand and tap the bottom with the other hand. The puck slides out easily. I then place it under the stream and gently break apart the agar. These roots will be healthy, but generally short and will come apart easily. I rinse the individual plants in the stream of water and toss them into the container. When the last plant is in the container, I pour off the water and give the plants a rinse or two and spread them out on clean newspaper. I carefully remove any brown leaves (it is very easy to pull the plant apart, if you use too much force) and toss protocorms without roots. From here on it is just wrap and bundle with the moss.

I am getting the impression the tigrinum roots do not penetrate well into agar. My gut feeling is that they do not like the salt concentration and if so, they probably would not like a bunch of salt in the moss either. I have been fertilizing at about 1/3 my normal rate for these seedlings. 

Mike


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## masaccio (Mar 8, 2021)

All done. What a pain. Literally. I've developed a muscle spasm that feel like somebody is sticking me with a stiletto. Not all the time, just during delicate tasks, like deflasking and compotting tiny plants. They came apart easily. The agar puck broke apart in a bowl of warm water. There weren't many roots, really. I rinsed as much off as I could and gave them all a swish in Physan. Then the real work began. I couldn't master Mike's technique of building the multiple plugs in my hand. so they were all separately plugged and placed. I think I have 34. You can't see in the photo, but the bottoms have a layer of peanuts.
Thanks to everybody who participated in this with me. I did most of them on Saturday and one more on Sunday. They still look nice, perky even. The heating pad didn't work out - too warm even on low and a pan in-between. Seedling heat pad arriving day after tomorrow. An odd bit of good luck, I had the perfect square saucer that holds the 4 compots perfectly. Due to the stiletto effect, I had do wait and do the last one on Sunday. I'd sorted them by size, and those guys were mostly runts, one or two decent sized ones though so I figured if I had to start another compot I might as well stick 'em all in. 
Special thanks to Bob in Albany for sending the great compots!!


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## masaccio (Jan 10, 2022)

Update10 months later: Tigrinum compotting: Tigrinum x sib (Black Tiger x Fat Boy). I started with a flask of over 30 plants and clumsily planted into 4 5x5 compots. I feel better that someone said in an earlier post to be merciless in culling. I now have one compot with five plants. Hey, I'm okay with that. The remaining ones are looking good-to-very-good and are slowly putting on size. I'd like to replace the sphagnum they're in. Thought about pre-filling an identical compot with sphagnum, then taking the medium in one piece from the existing compot. Pulling away each plant in a separate plug and inserting the plug into the new compot. On the other hand, maybe it would be better to just leave them be for the time being.


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## Ozpaph (Jan 10, 2022)

they do look good. why keep in sphag?


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## masaccio (Jan 10, 2022)

Ozpaph said:


> they do look good. why keep in sphag?


Thanks. I guess because they seem happy in sphagnum. Not sure it's a good idea to move them to a different medium when they're still quite small. I don't know what kind of a root system they have at this point. Disturbing them at all is probably just my OCD kicking in. I'm interested in any suggestions you might have, though.


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## cnycharles (Jan 10, 2022)

Where did you find the clear compots/domes? Some have been trying to find some


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## masaccio (Jan 10, 2022)

cnycharles said:


> Where did you find the clear compots/domes? Some have been trying to find some


I've been looking through some stuff, and did some quick web searches trying to find where I ordered these from. Thing is, I ordered two or three different styles. So it's a little confusing to remember what came from where. I have a stack of packing slips that I throw everything into. If I find the one for the compots with domes I'll post it. Thanks.


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## orchid527 (Jan 11, 2022)

masaccio said:


> Thanks. I guess because they seem happy in sphagnum. Not sure it's a good idea to move them to a different medium when they're still quite small. I don't know what kind of a root system they have at this point. Disturbing them at all is probably just my OCD kicking in. I'm interested in any suggestions you might have, though.


Your plants look fine. Don't be afraid to look at the roots and replace the moss. The roots won't have root hairs at this stage. Please keep in mind that growing orchids from flask will require a lot of experience before you get consistently good results. You are going to spend a lot of money and a lot of plants are going to die. Also, you picked a species known to be difficult, so feel good about your results. I've had many flasks where I killed all of the plants.

I am going to post a photo my tigrinum, but keep in mind that I've been growing from flask for more than 40 years. These are the ones in the previous photos identified as 3 months out of flask.


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## BrucherT (Jan 11, 2022)

orchid527 said:


> Your plants look fine. Don't be afraid to look at the roots and replace the moss. The roots won't have root hairs at this stage. Please keep in mind that growing orchids from flask will require a lot of experience before you get consistently good results. You are going to spend a lot of money and a lot of plants are going to die. Also, you picked a species known to be difficult, so feel good about your results. I've had many flasks where I killed all of the plants.
> 
> I am going to post a photo my tigrinum, but keep in mind that I've been growing from flask for more than 40 years. These are the ones in the previous photos identified as 3 months out of flask.
> View attachment 31643
> View attachment 31644


Whatever these are, they look incredible and I congratulate you. But they just don’t look like tigrinum seedlings! I’m not saying they’re not but if they are, wow.


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## orchid527 (Jan 11, 2022)

BrucherT said:


> Whatever these are, they look incredible and I congratulate you. But they just don’t look like tigrinum seedlings! I’m not saying they’re not but if they are, wow.


They are from Sam and they look just like the little ones in his greenhouse. They are OIS0128 and OIS0185. I have been tracking them with photos since they were deflasked. No chance of misidentification on my end. Mike


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## richgarrison (Jan 11, 2022)

masaccio said:


> I've been looking through some stuff, and did some quick web searches trying to find where I ordered these from. ...



If any of those orders were for the mesh bottom trays, i'd be interested in the source... don't care about the tops... just 4" or 5" mesh bottom trays 1.5 - 2.5 " deep... (thanx for considering even looking... i know these research tasks can be time consuming when there is a lot of stuff to look through)


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## masaccio (Jan 11, 2022)

Those are gorgeous, so fat and happy. What kind of light are they getting?


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## masaccio (Jan 11, 2022)

richgarrison said:


> If any of those orders were for the mesh bottom trays, i'd be interested in the source... don't care about the tops... just 4" or 5" mesh bottom trays 1.5 - 2.5 " deep... (thanx for considering even looking... i know these research tasks can be time consuming when there is a lot of stuff to look through)


I looked exhaustively on-line for them. No soap. It turns out that the ones you're interested in were privately obtained, and as far as I know, are no longer available. However, I have an inquiry in about them for you.


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## orchid527 (Jan 11, 2022)

masaccio said:


> Those are gorgeous, so fat and happy. What kind of light are they getting?


GE EcoLux 5000K t8 at 15 inches, 75 degrees during day and 70 degrees at night. I use small amounts of Better Grow Orchid Fertilizer in about 5:1 RO/tap. The TDS of final solution is 150ppm. I never let them completely dry out. Mike


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## masaccio (Jan 11, 2022)

orchid527 said:


> GE EcoLux 5000K t8 at 15 inches, 75 degrees during day and 70 degrees at night. I use small amounts of Better Grow Orchid Fertilizer in about 5:1 RO/tap. The TDS of final solution is 150ppm. I never let them completely dry out. Mike


Thanks so much for the encouraging words, Mike. And the info. Awesome results for you! They almost look like succulents !


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## krisk (Jan 12, 2022)

As above, don’t use sphagnum, you can do it but seriously it’s too hard to water and not turn them into a rotting mess. I tried a lot of mixes as I couldn’t initially get roots to grow. Turns out they like a very aerated mix. The solution for me was simple, just use a larger bark, sift out the fines to avoid the sludge at the bottom of the pot and use a little moss on top of the pot to stabilise the moisture. I grow all my plants outside in the shade house. No fancy enclosures, heating, cooling or fans etc. Just chuck them outside. Winter is down to 2°C and summer up to 45°C. It’s a dry climate here, so low humidity particularly in summer. 10% is not uncommon in the hottest part of the day.


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## Ozpaph (Jan 12, 2022)

Ill try that!


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