Introducing myself and my Vanda :)

[Daemos]

Good idea Ross. Ill have to look around. These bulbs don't seem to be too expensive. If nothing happens in the summer Ill give it a shot. Do these bulbs give enough UV light? you have them? if so did they work. How many for one plant? While writing I get more and more interrested I can propably also use this trick on my cacti when the weather goes wrong hmmmm.

As for the bugs. Try Deltamethrin. Spray three times a day and soak the whole plant till the stuff starts dripping for at least 3 days and remove every bug by hand (what I didn't do to get rid of them ) then use 3x the described dosage of imidacloprid in the water you give to them. Keep that up for at least a month. Start decreasing the dosage slowly. The flowers will malform and the plants will turn a bit yellow but after that they color back normal and start growing as if nothing happend and offcourse all the bugs are history! Also do not forget to wash of the remaining salt residue of the plants with demi-water. Noone agrees on this I know but the choice became simple to me when my plants started dying from the bugs.

According to my neighbour this vanda is imported from Asia. I believe him, real big bad spiders came out that do not live in the Netherlands for sure!

[Ross]

Originally Posted by Daemos

Good idea Ross. Ill have to look around. These bulbs don't seem to be too expensive. If nothing happens in the summer Ill give it a shot. Do these bulbs give enough UV light? you have them?

Yes I do. They work just fine. Here is my "upstairs" setup (I also run a wardian case under straight t5's "downstairs")

I have 3 bulbs here. One 105 watt in front and 2 55 watt bulbs at back of picture. I have lots of high light orchids as well as low light orchids. I think the high light guys just survive, but if you set a large wattage bulb close to your plant you should get close to 7000 lumens. Be sure to check for "full spectrum" to get the UV and other spectrums you need.