Small rust color fungus on dying Phal

[rochalil]

Hello! First time in this wonderful board.
I've been searching everywhere for a solution, so far not a clear answer.
I got this beautiful mini phal from my mother and decided to repot it because it was trapped in cork.
Cut off some dead roots but overall healthy. Repotted with airy medium (mixture of sphagnum moss and coconut) in a slotted transparent plastic pot.
I keep watering every time the medium looks dry by dunking the pot for 15 min in water and then letting it completely drain.
Fast forward 2 months later and I keep seeing dead roots and tiny red fungus, at this point I have cut off almost all roots, they all rotted!
I have no idea if my Phal is going to survive, I thought I did everything right.
Can someone help a beginner?

[Ray]

I can think of two potential reasons this has happened:

1) When it "looks dry", the center of the potting medium might still be quite wet, so they roots have suffocated.

2) Changing the potting medium may be the culprit. When roots grow, they "tailor" the cellular structure to function optimally in that environment. Once they have grown, they cannot change, so changing the medium immediately makes the existing roots "sub-optimal", and they will start to fail. The greater the difference between old and new conditions, the faster that happens.

Yes, the plant is salvageable. This is how I'd go about doing so:

1. Immerse the entire plant for a couple of hours in tepid water containing 1 tablespoon/gallon Kelpak.
2. Pot it up in whatever potting medium you prefer (the one you described might be fine), and water it in with that Kelpak solution.
3. Invert a plastic bag over the plant and pot, leaving it unsealed, to trap humidity.
4. Keep it very warm and shady.
5. The next two times it needs to be watered, use the Kelpak solution.

In a 6-8 weeks, it ought to recover new roots, the bag can be romeved, and away you go!

[tmoney]

first, howdy!

second, when you say, "the medium looks dry", what sort of duration are you talking about? a week, 2 days? we water with the same method in a somewhat similar sounding medium. we water once a week. if there is rot my brain goes straight to too wet too long too cold.

and reading rays comment, that's exactly what i was thinking. perhaps the top is looking dry by the rest is still damp. not growing with coco husk i can't give you much direct info on that. from what i've read it can absorb water pretty well. perhaps it was just packed in too tightly when you repotted??

not to be a kelpak fanboi, but yeah, i'm a kelpak fanboi and if you can get your hands on some of that stuff it does work miracles for helping plants start new roots. follow rays method

good luck! and be patient! once you pot it up leave it till it dies or 2 years! hahahahah

[Dimples]

I’d also add that dunking/soaking moss and coconut is probably resulting in very wet conditions in the pot. Some forms of coconut hold significant amounts of water and moss definitely does. If you watered too soon as Ray suggested, and the medium stayed soggy, that’s a recipe for dead roots.

A foolproof way to make sure your pots aren’t waterlogged, regardless of what medium you use, is to set it on a dry towel after it has finished draining. The towel pulls out any “extra” water (water that couldn’t exit by gravity but isn’t held tightly in/on the substrate) and leaves the pot evenly damp and airy. This works best for small collections or for specific plants that need some extra TLC. I do it with my phals in bark so they don’t drip when I’m putting them back.

[estación seca]

What have been your ambient temperatures and humidity? How much light is it getting?

Do you mean coconut fiber or chips?

Read a few pages into a thread here. From the left yellow menu choose Forums then Beginners. Near the top is a sticky thread The Phal. abuse stops here.

[rochalil]

Thanks everyone for your valuable advice!
The conclusion here is I'm definitely overwatering this poor plant.
My medium is Coconut Fiber and Sphagnum Moss
Humidity here is 81% and I'm not sure it's too bright where I keep it. It's mostly in shade.
As for temperature, the highest being 22°, lowest 15° last time I read the weather app.
I like that towel technique! I'll have to try it next time I water it with the Kelpak method!
I'll look into buying it soon.

Thanks again everyone for your quick response and your interest in saving this poor phal! I hope I can show some updates soon.

[estación seca]

Are you growing it inside or outside? I was asking the temperatures in your growing area.

Phals won't make it through most southern California winters outdoors. It's too cold. 15 C will kill most wet Phals. and 2C will kill the rest. The people able to keep Phals alive in homes in cool temperatures have learned to keep them very dry most of the time, watering just enough to prevent dessication.

If those are your indoor temperatures consider getting a heat mat. Most Phals are much happier at hot temperatures.

[rochalil]

I keep it indoors. It's been pretty cold these past few days. I can imagine temperature might be killing it aside from the overwatering.
I'm going to move it to a brighter area to see if it likes it.
I can also see wrinkling and drooping leaves, is this because of the overwatering too?

Thanks again for the help!

[Ray]

Originally Posted by rochalil

I keep it indoors. It's been pretty cold these past few days. I can imagine temperature might be killing it aside from the overwatering.
I'm going to move it to a brighter area to see if it likes it.
I can also see wrinkling and drooping leaves, is this because of the overwatering too?

Thanks again for the help!

Lack of viable roots = inability to take up sufficient water.

One thing to learn quickly, if you want to be a successful orchid grower, is that this is more a case of “under-airing” than “over-watering”.

Unlike terrestrial plants, which do the vast majority of their gas exchange through their leaves, epiphytic orchids do much of that through their roots. Wet potting media, per se, is not an issue, but potting media that are so full of water that if stifles air flow around the roots is, as it suffocates them, and they die.