Is lava rock in semi-hydro is good option...
 

Hello there,

I have a question regarding lava rock as semi-hydro media, wondering if it is a good option or what are the pros and cons of using lava rock in S/H setup.

Recently I started repotting my orchids in S/H using lava rock as they are available at home and I saw Ninga orchid mention that she is using lava rock in some of her S/H setup. I never thought before to go for S/H but now I feel that's the way as Ray mentioned in one of his posts that how he invented the S/H method.

I have around 60 orchids and now it's been getting hard for me to water every day each and every orchid. I have installed a misting system but the problem with that is if I run it every day the seedlings that are in sphagnum moss get very soggy and if I don't run it every day then other orchids in bark or lava rock suffer from dehydration, so I decided to try S/H setup. I did start with my Phals, first, my rescue phal and she is doing good now putting new roots so I repotted almost all of the phals in S/H and some of my Cats as well, but when I went through some discussions here and found out most of the orchid hobbyist using LECA as a S/H media. I should have checked here before starting Lava as S/H media but still would like to get some info if need to reconsider S/H media.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

If you go to the Free Information section of Ray's Web site firstrays.com you can read about pros and cons of various S/H media. In short, lava rock doesn't wick water as well as does LECA.

Thank you.

I will check Ray's website.