Quote Originally Posted by cucubirds View Post
I feel like it is time to de-flask now coz your babies are actively growing & I saw some yellowing leaves at bottom parts.

I'm afraid if keep them in flask for too long, the bottom part may start to rot eventually.

If you decide to de-flask, I recommend sphagnum moss(with some Styrofoam peanuts as drainage in bottoms) as growing medium for young seedlings since it can provide high humidity to seedlings.

You can either plant them individually in thumb pot or in community pot. Wash carefully & soak with some fungicide solution to keep them away from fungus & rot problems.

The most important aspect is humidity. As you can see in flask, seedlings are grown up in almost 100% humidity environment. If sudden environment changes such as too dry place & direct sunlight will cause them stress. Keeping them together will also increase humidity.

Phal violacea is warm loving species, so providing warm & high humidity place with some bright , indirect sunlight will accelerate their growth. Don't use fertilizer until you see some progress on new leaves & roots development.

Oh I'm so long winded. I must stop here
Oh, my goodness, THANK YOU!!!
That answered a lot of my questions, actually. If the verdict came back as "deflask now" I was next going to ask if I should use a fungicide or if they're too delicate... then I was going to ask what type of media to use... etc. I have a greenhouse IN my house that I will put them in. They'll be very happy in there as it's sort of like a tropical jungle in the middle of my home. Indirect sun, lots of heat and very high humidity. I have species Phal seedlings in there and plants that are struggling for whatever reason, and they all thrive. So my happy Phal family will be all going into the greenhouse together.

I'm going to attempt compots because I've heard the survival rate is higher if they're with their siblings.

I was also going to ask about fertilizer or nutrient supplements, but you answered the fertilizer question. The only other question I would have would be about whether there's some sugar-based solution I should be augmenting their watering with, since they've been on a high-sugar diet in the flask.

I've been also wondering if I should water with tap water (city water) or rain water... I usually water everything with tap water and they're all happy, but I know that the seedlings are particularly delicate, and I do have a rain barrel full of rain water just waiting to be used for something. I don't really know the chemical makeup of the rain water, (that sounds rather silly to me, actually... there's probably some chemistry major out there laughing at me right now...), but I do have stats on our tap water that I get from the city, so I've always gone with the tap water because I know it's okay for the orchids.

So... okay.... on to deflasking. I will hopefully post some pics soon! I need to prep an area to do this in that's relatively sterile... I've already got sterile gloves...

The only questions I still have would be:
1. Rain water or tap water?
2. Supplement of some sort? Seaweed perhaps to encourage root growth?
3. What type of sphag (the "high-quality" "deluxe" tightly-packed stuff or the looser stuff that comes in bags?) I usually use the loose stuff for anything in sphag because the tight stuff ends up holding moisture way too long and I can never get the roots free from the sphag when it's time to repot... I've also had problems with root rot with that stuff... but since these orchids are so tiny, perhaps the extra moisture would help them. I'm just worried that it would be too tight for the baby roots to grow down into. The looser stuff is much more open and would allow the roots some space to "breathe." I welcome any opinions on which type of sphag to go with. I already purchased a "block" of the "deluxe" stuff to use, but I'm not 100% sure that's the best choice.

Thank you!!!! I really appreciate the help! I'll get those babies out of the flask and into some compots asap... and I'd love any answers anyone can give to the questions above!

YAY!! MY FIRST DEFLASKING!! WAHOO!!! (I'm a tad excited... LOL)