Restrepia elegans - watering

I bought a Restrepia elegans a couple of weeks ago and mounted in my terarium. I had read that they liked to have their feet wet so I placed in a spot that's allways moist and with a relatively good air circulation. Now however the roots are all soft and dead what did I do wrong? should I have let dry out a little bit between waterings?? or was the air circulation perhaps just not good enough?
I've mounted it in a dry spot now hoping it will develop new roots soon - humidity is around 80% there.
Any suggestions as to further things I could try to save this guy?

'root killer'-Christian

Christian,

There is a chance that if you killed all the roots, this species will do one of two things:

1. Tolerate the lack of roots and send out new ones. This doesn't happen very often.

2. Form new growths at the leaf node. I find this is quite common if a shoot or older piece of the rhizome either lacks roots is stressed.

On this high elevation Venezuelan species, it is better to underwater than overwater. Keep it in cooler temperatures with high humidity, but avoid keeping the plant sitting with roots constantly moist. Do you have any pictures of the plant?

-Pat

Thank you for your advice! I'll shoot one tomorrow - on my way to bed now, got an exam in entrepreneurship at 8.30 am