# Paph flasks with fungus and bacteria or cold damage?



## Lint (Jul 22, 2012)

Hello,

I noticed lots of fungus in one of the flasks (Paph. thaianum) I brought back from Taiwan.

I was going to use the method where you leave all the plants together and pot them with the medium intact.

But since the medium is overgrown with fungus, I am not sure what is the best way anymore.

Any advice would be much appreciated!





The picture is not very good, but there is small colonies of fungus everywhere (even at the bottom of the flask).

Also, the plants in another flask don't look very good:





Is this bacterial rot? Or maybe cold damage? I forgot the flasks in the car and they may or may not have been exposed to temperatures around 15°C, possibly lower. The rest of the flasks are fine, though.


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## Roth (Jul 22, 2012)

First one is a fungus, coming from the cotton used to make the flask breath. With the pressure difference inside the flask, due to the temperature, or the transportation, or whatever, the fungus spores are sucked from the cotton inside the vent to the media. It is easy to identify, because the fungus is mostly at the surface of the media... It is a great classic, you must deflask now, as the seedlings can be contaminated by it later.

The second one is a flasking problem, either the media became sour, or the vent is plugged and the seedlings did not have enough air whilst having too much carbohydrates, you must deflask too right now, but the seedlings may well be stunted for a while or die.


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## Lint (Jul 22, 2012)

Are you sure it's not cold damage? I noticed all the damaged leaves are on one side of the flask, close to the glass.

As for the fungus flask:

So what do I do now? Remove the jelly completely or leave it and just spray some fungicide? I wanted to do the compot-potting so that the roots don't get damaged too much, but I am not sure if this is possible with the fungus on the medium.


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## gonewild (Jul 22, 2012)

The fungus on the medium should not be a problem.....it would grow there anyway once the media is exposed to the non sterile environment on the outside.


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## Stone (Jul 22, 2012)

I think you should deflask the infected flask wash well and soak in a mild non-systemic fugicide now.


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## Ozpaph (Jul 26, 2012)

The second one could be sunburn.
Deflask both.
Wash off most of the agar and soak in dilute fungicide for 15 mins.
Pot up.


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