You got the perfect way to grow them, why go back to the outdated bark? Put them in bigger pots or divide them and carry on.

Nick

How do I switch from bark to s/h? (semi-hydro) I've totally given up on milts and oncs and any hybrids with them in the parentage because they desiccate in my care. Two of my catts are really sad looking things..OK, my phals do look fine. But if s/h can handle the whole spectrum of orchid growing than it sounds a lot better than trying to gauge a bark medium to an orchid.

Is it truly just a matter of once they are in the s/h pellets that you check water reserves? Any soaking, flushing...etc required? As indicated in another post, any plastic container will do if you put holes an inch from the bottom. When you do it without the special pots, are you filling the plastic container with water to the holes instead?

Claire, Ray of First Ray's is very generous at answering questions about s/h. Why not ask him?

from my experience the roots stick to the leca pebbles. S/H is just so much easier imho.

mehitabel, my 1st account got banned a few years ago for mentioning that person and his website/store. gardenweb is a great community of people but the rules are just a bit extreme.

Hm, I guess I could keep them in s/h, but my budget is dictating that I can't buy more rocks. Also dumping them into a bigger pot isn't a viable option.

I'm just wondering, other than baking off the old roots in the oven, how I can reuse the rocks I have and getting rid of old growth. Under traditional circumstances, I could just saw off the old parts, roots & all, and re-establish the newer growth in new bark, but I'm at a loss with how that works with s/h. =T

Why go back to bark??

I have started repotting the "chids I have had in s/h for 3-4 years as they do eventually have a sludge at the bottom from the algae that will grow in the translucent pots in good light. This seems to eventually have the same effect as decaying bark media suffocating the roots (just takes a little longer).

I shake most of the old prime agra off the roots but do not pull off ones that are firmly attached---just spray gently with the hose over a collander to catch the loose rocks.

Don't see why you couldn't keep the same size pot if you were willing to hack off some of the old growth. Be sure to spray the places that you cut with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide and treat with cinnamon to help prevent rot. Also be sure not to water for a few days after the repotting to try to avoid rot.
I do the repotting in rotation with some new prime agra to start the first few pots. Those get the new media as the old media from those pots is being soaked in bleach and water in a 1/5 ratio for a day, and then rinsed several times with fresh water, and then soaked in epsom salts at a couple T. per gallon for a day. Then a couple of fresh water rinses for another day. (Something about the epsom salts releasing the built up minerals/salts in the prime agra, I read somewhere. (Most likely at the aforementioned very good site or one of his comments somewhere.) seems there is a tub of one or two of theese stages always sitting there.

PLEASE jump in and give any suggestions or corrections to my methods here!

Houston, yes I got a "warning" years ago about the same thing, but the site has since been sold, and I guess he isn't banned any more.

jvc, several years ago, when I was using s/h, Ray advised me that he re-used leca after a 24-hour soak in physan 20. If you want to hear what he suggests about that, contact him directly.

I just came from First Ray's site. Wow! everything you ever wanted to know about s/h. It's a great site and I'm excited about getting started moving some of my more unhappy orchids over to s/h.

I had about 1/3 of my plants in S/H for awhile, but the only ones that really seemed to thive in it were the phals. I just had one large phal remaining that was in the same S/H for last three years -- in which it also hasn't bloomed,although plenty of light. I removed it to have a look --- Cut off many mushy roots, but still had lots of healthy fat roots as well. Decided to pot in a standard commercial phal mix and mixed in a few lava rocks. So far so good -- hopefully, I won't rue the decision.