"New" orchid cabinet with drip wall.

This cabinet has a drip wall build of Hygrolon glued to Epiweb slabs. You can see the patch work of all the slabs and they are cut in size to fit nicely.
It has a false bottom and a water compartment with a pump for the drip wall.
When the front is off during the day the RH goes down to 70-75 % and during night I close the front and let the humidity go up to 95+%.
I have several computer fans for air circulation bult into the cabinet.

For light I have a 60x10 cm Ultra High Output LED Panel giving (110lm/W) with a good spectra, 6500K color temperature and a total of 3960 lumen.
The cabinet have been running like this for about 5-6 month WITHOUT any other light!

 

Tanks everyone.

Sorry need to correct a statement, looking in my files this cabinet has been running for about 4 month not 5-6.


Mikael, No, the moss is picked from my other plants, grinded in a kitchen mixer with water an sparesly watered over the slabs . And yes there is alot of space though it would be stupid to not build for the future when investing in a new growing cabinet...
As I did not now the condition I would end up with, I decided to go slow... And some day I may install some kind of cooling...

Marni, yes it is rolled Hygrolon in the pot. This is how I do it:

Step 1. glue hygrolon wicks on the bottom outside ant thread them through the hole.
Step 2 fill the bottom with pieces of hygrolon and some expanded clay pellets.
Step 3. Roll a strip of hygrolon around the roots. Balance the lenght so the diameter match the clay pot.
Step 4, plant the rolled hygrolon in the pot and form the layer to a nice cone.
Step 5. Not shown, pot the pot on a wet surface and the hygrolon will wick up water creating a nice moist compartment for the roots.

On the last picture you can see the pot standing on the wick.

 

Alexey.
The false bottom is covered in Hygrolon and is connected to the side panels. The drip wall is supporting the false bottom with enough water for the pots.

Tom-DE.
Why repot? the material does not degrade and the moss is easily trimmed by hand if needed.
If planted on small enough slabs or in small pots you just let them grow over the edge onto new pots or slabs and then you cut the two apart at a suitable time.
And if you would like to cut the material you do that with a very sharp nife or a regular pair of scissors. In my experience you disturb the root MUCH less by divide a slab of Epiweb (or a Hygrolon mount) then a plant in degraded bark substrate! The bark is needed to be taken away and that WILL disturb all the roots, with Epiweb (or Hygrolon) you do ONE cut and remount the pieces without disturbing the majority of the roots.

 

keiths,

I do not use treefern for several resons, but I do use hygrolon on mounts that is not in my drip wall orchid cabinet. It stays "perfectly" moist for a relative long time (much longer than cork for example). But it´s absolute killing feature is that it wick water! It dry up evenly and not only on the surface. It transport water from the mottom of the mounts and spread it evenly over the surface (or bulk).

And for treefern, it degrades pretty fast in a "worm" wet environment what I understand, Hygrolon is non degradeble that is the second feature i like about the material.

/Magnus