Hi, jj. I would leave the keiki as is, and there are several reasons why, but the biggie and #1 is this: Separated , it is a little thing, and in my experience little orchids are a pain in the humph. You have to keep a constant eye on them because they are tiny and delicate and in tiny pots that dry out quickly. Any mistake-- too dry for a day or so, or too wet, or too anything, and the little guys can just die on you. So I would leave it on the mother, and let it get nourishment from her, and have a lot less trouble. It will keep growing, looking better all the time, and if the mother recovers you'll have a terrific big plant with two crowns, capable of putting up multi-spikes and looking glorious. About the ugliness of the way the two are growing: I'm not sure what the problem is aesthetically, with the mother leaning one way and the keiki leaning the other. A sunburned plant is plain ugly no matter which way it's growing. There's no cure for it, except new leaves appearing. As the keiki gets bigger, the plant will look better. If the mother recovers, they should look just fine together like that. The sunburned mother is going to look ugly until she gets new leaves growing. If the crown was destroyed, the only way she can recover is thru keikis. However, if the crown is still there, she can still put out new leaves and recover her looks. Hope this helps some.

Check the link below. It looks like you will need more than just water and fertilizer to clone oncidiums. Here is a link that might be useful: Oncidium Clonal Propagation

Hi! ^ ^ I think it could be of use to someone if I type out my experience. Perhaps a collection of experiences will lead to some form of conclusion of the hypothesis about lighting etc. It began when one of my two orchids had a nasty little pussy cat tip over it's pot. The orchid's spike severed completely off. Since my orchids both bloom at the same time I cut the spike off the other orchid. Of both the spikes, the yellow had 2 blooms (1 bud spike was 6 inches long). The purple had 8 buds (one bloom spike was 10 inches long) which is the one the cat had tipped over. I will also note that I put the purple stem immediately into water since I had heard the plant crash. I have had both spikes into a clear glass vase (about 1-1.5 cup of water) in a pitch black game room except light from the teli and monitors. To be more specific the vase is in the shadow of the "light". The temp is always around 78 degrees fahrenheit. I enjoyed the blooms for a couple of weeks and the large bloomed ones finally started to look fatigued so I pinched those off (about 4-5). The rest dropped off by themselves. I totally forgot about these stems/spikes. Here is where it gets interesting, about 2-3 month later I was dusting and cleaning up the "mess" at the sink when I noticed the yellow spike was still green at the end, the purple was brown so I cut it under water to a healthy green looking point. I had decided regardless of the various postings on the intraweb saying that a spike couldn't grow roots I would still let these two try. It now has been 5 months, the yellow has a small root growing at the end, the purple is still green. They are in the pitch black room, I change the water sporadically from every 4 days to 3 weeks with tepid from faucet. Basically when I remember the poor babies but more so at the beginning than now (which changes now I see a little root). I will also mention I was using the cities icky chlorinated fluoride injected tap water, I will now change to bottled water and watch the results.

I would let them grow together. You get a nice big plant with lots of blooms that way. Also, separated keikis are tender and slow to establish sometimes. Does it happen often? Depends on the ancestry-- doritis put out basal keikis like crazy. can form big clumps. I have had a doritis keiki just a few months old form another keiki. I think it's phal schilleriana that also can form keikis from the roots. So, depending on the ancestry, it would be not be uncommon.