• 3 Posts
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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: February 14th, 2025

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  • How deep do you want to go? A person with an intense desire to understand everything and use the best data to take sensible decisions will like The Rational Reminder podcast and it’s wide content. Recently it discussed a paper challenging the use of bonds in a portfolio and proposing 100% stock in a 1/3 domestic market - 2/3 international market split as the optimal portfolio in most situations. Don’t take my word for it, understand the underlying logic and if it’s right for you yourself. Bonus for the nerds: how is the current chaos supporting or contradicting the efficient market theory?

    If you want a more condensed explanation: don’t invest money you will need within the next decade and focus on low cost (low MER) index etf. Some all in one etf exist or you can choose 2-4 etf and rebalance them yourself. You don’t have enough talent and ressources to do single stocks: most professionals gets results below the market average.






  • My philosophy is to only consider fertilizer when there is active growth and it comes second to water balance: root surface vs foliage surface vs temperature-light x deficit in air humidity. Like Russian dolls i don’t look into the next lower priority step if i am not satisfied with a high priority step : medium-high indirect light and water balance. N.B. Light is also a factor in water balance: the plant open stomata on the leaves to absorb CO2 under high light and doing so can dehydrate a bit more. Keep your conditions stables and the plant will adapt, wont be the most beautiful orchid but it should adapt if the roots aren’t rotting too much. I successfully kept cattleya, oncidium and phalenopsis in such conditions of years before i moved to terrariums.

    I am surprised that the leaf showing a touch of yellow isn’t the bottom one.


  • Are the clay pebbles new for this plant? I often understood that the older roots from before semi hydroponic will die in those conditions and new roots will grow and be adapted to those same conditions. I used a similar setup with no fertilizer at all and got orchids to flower for a few years, the growth was just a bit smaller every years. They need way less fertilizer than you think : because they grow as epiphytes in the wild without access to soil. Intermittent very low level of fertilizer might be better especially if the leaves are showing sign of a mismatch between root surface and leaves exposed surface (to drying that can be helped with higher air humidity)




  • No heating at all for the terrarium, a few watts for two fans (silent low power fans like those inside computers) a few watts for the light. Probably a very low total electricity consumption and in my case with the room needing heating 50-60 % of the year, from cheap hydroelectric electricity, very little is lost. The room temperature is 21 to 25 depending on the Sunlight and plants have stable condition and high humidity.



  • Water once every two-three weeks then nothing more to do but enjoy the view. It’s expensive to set up but then light and water are automated on a simple timer. Underneath is a clean water bucket, a Mistking pump and a bucket to collect excess water. Then a simple aquarium timer control the light and ventilation. I should clean the glass once a month but usually do it less often.