Melinda,

Congratulations on the flower spike!

Once you have the beginnings of a spike on a Phal, you should mainly
continue doing what you have been doing -- the temperature difference
between night and day that you refer to is useful to induce spiking, but
once the spike is started it is not necessary to continue the temperature
difference.

Continue watering the orchid when needed, continue fertilizing it when you
get a chance (but there is no need to fertilize more now that it is in spike
than when it was not), and be sure to continue giving it sufficient light.
Try to not reorient the orchid too much, since its spike will grow toward
the light, and reorienting it could cause a spike that looks strange with
flowers that are pointing in all kinds of directions. I once had one flower
spike that looked like it did a U-turn and continued in the opposite
direction because of a change of the direction where the light was coming
from -- it looked funny.

Try not to change the environment that the orchid is in too much at this
point, since it seems to like the current environment, and hence is spiking.
You may want to consider what is different about this time, why the orchid
is spiking now? has something changed in its environment that may have
contributed to spiking? Have you moved the location of this plant recently?
Has the light or the temperature changed? If you can figure this out, you
should be able to reproduce this result next year.

Do not put a fruit bowl close to the orchid when it is in bud, since that
may lead to bud blast (the ethylene gas given off by ripening fruit could
cause buds to fall off without flowering).

It is safe for you to breathe on it. :-) In fact you may even consider
staking the spike -- attaching it to a stake, for example a bamboo stake. It
is best to start staking the spike once it is several inches long -- do not
start when it is really small because then it is more fragile. Staking can
help support the flower spike, making it less likely to break, and improving
the aesthetic appeal of the flowering spike.

The fleshy green (or white) glossy tendrils are roots. If they are outside
of the potting medium then they are called aerial roots. Phalaenopsis grow
on trees in nature, and their roots are exposed to the air. These roots are
especially suited to getting moisture out of the humidity in the air. Do not
trim these roots, unless they are completely dry or unless they are
rotting -- as long as they are fleshy then they are a sign of a healthy
Phal. The stringy (or wiry?) things that you saw when you repotted were most
likely the cores of roots that had lost their fleshy cover -- these are
roots that are less healthy than the fleshy ones. You want your orchid to
have as many fleshy roots as possible, but wiry ones are ok as well as long
as these are not the only ones the Phal has. Rotting roots are bad and need
to be trimmed during repotting.

Feel free to ask additional questions. This newsgroup is indeed a
newbie-friendly place. :-)

Good luck with your flower spike!

Joanna