@bluemax It's about time, right? It's amazing how much things have changed since the beginning of this thread, especially in terms of lighting. There have been so many innovations in low cost LED lighting. And there has been a substantial amount of research about what many plants need from fully artificial lighting.
And that's great to hear; how are you growing it?
I'm growing all of my Orchidioides in a 20 gallon high aquarium under two 24" full spectrum 26W LED aquarium lights (the plants are about 12" below the lights). These plants end up receiving a DLI (daily light integral [basically a measure of how many usable photons the plants receive per day]) of between 6 to 7 moles per day. I basically took
pyro's tutorial and calculated the approximate DLI of his setup with this
handy calculator (along with many best guesses) and then calculated what I'd need for a more modern LED setup. Because these are aquarium lights instead of grow lights the amount of red light is a bit low; I may end up supplementing the lighting with additional red LEDs if I'm having difficulty getting any flowers. Everybody keeps saying these plants need a lot of light in this thread; I probably could have just taken the advice and come to the exact same conclusion... But I'm the type of person who likes to double check things with numbers.
The lights are on a 13/11 photoperiod in the summer and 11/13 in the winter. I tried to find a photoperiod that was close to the natural habitats of these plants - more or less. The old section Iperua grow a bit farther from the equator while the old section Orchidioides grow a bit closer, I split the difference.
All of the plants that I'm growing in the old section Orchidioides (including alpina, praetermissa, and quelchii), a humboltdii x alpina hybrid, and humboltdii are in a 4" round net pot with a 1:1 mix of live long fibered sphagnum and pumice. I have not heard of anyone else trying out this mix but it should provide the right balance of moisture, drainage, and air (as there are some complaints about pure live LFS remaining too wet). Pyro
mentioned a similar mix which is largely inorganic media for plants from the old section Orchidioides (at least I'm pretty sure that APS is the same thing as turface); I adjusted it to what I had on hand. Live LFS and perlite was mentioned
here for the humboltdii - so I applied it to that plant as well as the hybrid (switching out the perlite for pumice).
@Jeremiah Harris shipped me the quelchii that I'm growing with some additional draining material at the bottom so that the plant wouldn't get wet feet when standing in a tray (I think it was perlite but I don't remember); I borrowed that trick and put a 1/2" layer of pumice to the bottom of these pots to further increase drainage. Reniformis and nephrophylla are in a normal pot in 2:1:1 peat, sand, pumice (suggested
here, I couldn't find anything more specific). Nelumbifolia is in a net pot in 1:1:1 live LFS, peat, and pumice (adjusted to what I had on hand from
this experiment).
The terrarium is currently in my living room with temperatures topping out at 80F during the day and dropping down to 68F at night. The humidity is really inconsistent, between 40% and 95%. The build that I'm working on should get the temperature into my target range, max of 80F during the day down to 60F just before the lights come on. It should also keep the humidity at a 65% during the day and 95% at night. But, we'll see if my calculations are correct; It works in theory. In order to find the target temperature and humidity numbers for these plants I picked an average elevation for the plants that I'm growing (1500 meters) and found some
temperature data for a spot in Venezuela (where many plants from the old section Orchidioides grow) at the same elevation. The climate in Rio de Janeiro (where a lot of the plants from the old section Iperua grow) at the same elevation is very similar so I figured it was fine. At least it will be good for most but not perfect. Nephrophylla doesn't normally grow at that elevation and it's at the edge of the elevation ranges of both alpina and quelchii. But, such is life. I guess I'll just need to set up some more terrariums at some point in the future.
Anyway, I'm still in the process of setting up this terrarium so it's too early to tell if it's going to be a good environment for these plants. We'll see if that's the case; I'll keep the thread updated. It's also extremely important to my fiance that this terrarium "doesn't look like a science experiment" - we'll see if that's the case as well.