I see why many of the members don't bother buying/saving the box store phals now. The ones that I purchased months ago have shown little, if any growth. Actually, only one of them has done really well.

I resurrected a 16 gallon aquarium from my basement and figured I'd try a little experiment. I have three box store phals that lost most of their roots due to rot.

2 of them have shown no new root growth, no new leaves. The 3rd and smallest one has grown a tiny new green root tip, has opened a new flower bud and is about to open another.

My curious mind wants to see if this aquarium can help along these orchids. I set the tank up on Sunday. I used a layer of gravel at the bottom and 8 quarts of reptile bark (my thinking was for looks and because of the humidity factor). The aquarium hood is broken so I borrowed my brother's larger one in the meantime until my replacement comes in next Wednesday.

For the past four days, I've turned the light on around 7am and turned it off before bedtime. The tank remains around 80 degrees (the hood has openings from where the filter used to be) and I've been misting the glass and bark to keep the humidity up. I'm curious how humid the tank actually is.

Today, I watered all of my orchids a few days early as I'll be away camping this weekend. I wasn't expecting to see anything new on these particular ones, but guess what? I did!

Here's a picture of the tank with the three orchids in there and a shot of the new growth.

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Now, I know orchids are slow growers so is it really possible for it to have grown that in four days? I'm pretty sure I couldn't have missed that... I stare at my orchids a lot - lol...you know, cuz they are pretty and all, hahaha