Joel,
My main pieces of advice are:
- seedlings don't need much light for the first few months of their lives, so a bright location without any direct light is OK.
- As very small seedlings are difficult to transplant when very small, for very rare species I remove any seed as soon as it germinates and put it in its own pot. This removes the risk of cross-contamination, as one mouldy or rotting seedling can quickly spread it to others.
- Even though it requires constant triming, live sphagnum is a great medium for seedlings in individual pots due it its anti-fungal properties. I actually managed to save a bunch of aristo seedlings which had been badly rot-infected by transplanting them into live sphagnum - 4 months later ones I thought were surely going to die are bouncing back. Dried sphagnum is best for trays of seedlings, as trimming live sphagnum from multiple seedlings is a nightmare.
- keep humidity high, but not too high. 100% humidity is a sure fire way to kill seedlings. They grow more quickly and are much healthier when humidity is a bit lower. If you don't have a greenhouse, the best container you can use are those ones they pack strawberries and cherry tomatoes in (well they do here in Australia). They are plastic punnest with lids with holes in them. They keep humidity high but not too high, but the holes allow some air movement. You could also punch some holes into plastic food containers with a hole punch for the same result. But the punnets have thinner and clearer plastic, and let in more light.
It's really not that difficult. I've learnt a fair bit through trial and error, and am lucky enough to have plenty of seed sent to me from friends in Indonesia and Malaysia to keep me going. I've got most highland species from seed growing as a deeper gene pool than all the tissue cultured stuff.
Hamish