House Cleaning in Ross's Orchidarium

[Ross]

After a month or more of looking at the green slime growing in the bottom of the tank and the old dead blossoms on the screen, I finally got the energy to clean the orchidarium. First I had to string up ropes to hold all the mounts and try to avoid bumping them with my head (I am 6'7")!

Now this isn't as easy as it might seem at first. The tank walls had warped, so removing the shelves was a chore (had to push and prod things to get the shelves out.) Just sucking up all the algae that had developed proved to be a real task. And I was hoping all along that I could prevent new algal growth for a few weeks. The algae in the drippage at the bottom had grown to the point it was using all the water from the misting system. The tank was slowly drying out!

Finally I got all that goo out of there and used my Novus 1 Acrylic Cleaner to clean off all the interior surfaces as well as the outside. Several passes, just to be sure. It turns out the hardest part of the whole task was cleaning out the squares of the grid material with a toothbrush and cleaner. That took the longest time. I just know it (the algae) will be back, but the tank should be good for a few months and now I know what it takes to clean it up. I feel sorry for the folks with "planted in place" plants like frog tanks. I guess you just live with the algae?

Below is the final result



Not sure where that booger at the left came from. It wasn't there when I put the screen back in. So something fell off somebody.

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials