Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Had a big healthy parlsey plant in the growth bed and within a few days dead. The whole crown was just mush and it stank. Removed surrounding growth medium, washed and sterilised. However I hope the fungus doesnt hang around..below link says it all really

http://gardener.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Pars ... _crown_rot

Can I ask what growing medium you used?

I wouldn't worry about phytophra, it's always around, usually gets seedlings. Need to make sure there is good airflow around the plant. I have one parsley with exactly the same problem and its growing amongst taller wombok etc, I have others growing in full sun and they're fine.

sounds like bad news for me !! my grow beds are going to be inside !! what will I do? Is it going to be a bad experience riddled with death before I've even begun?!!

No definitely not,every system is different,every ones knowledge when start the same,if you grew things in dirt before you already had a head start,if like me your first time at growing was with Aquponics we have to start from scratch, I spend hours searching through this forum,the Internet and any other knowledge source to try to get the best results. I am making mistakes,but with the wealth of information available I can put it right.
Everything has been done before,the mistakes have been made before,we learn by our mistakes and others,I relish the challenge on a daily basis, I will get it right.

Medium is a mix of clay pebbles and quincan (15 to 20mm) .

I think I allow the flood to rise to high (just below surface). Might drop it about 10mm and see how it goes second time around.

The fungus is still active. My broadleaf parsley just melted. It was the healthiest and best plant I had in the system. Been in it from day one.

Has anything in the system changed recently?

One thing that concerns me is that I may have introduced it from some hydro lettuce from the markets. The lettuce has transplanted into the growth bed after sitting in the fridge for a while. It revived and has been doing well but it was a couple of weeks after this transplant that the rot started. Coincidence or bad luck - I dont know.

It will be interesting to see how long the fungus will remain the in bed. Ill wait a few weeks and plant a test parsley in and see what happens.

I am new to aquaponics and also to growing stuff. My grow bed has a constant supply of water from the sump tank and I have to direct water to each plant using narrow plastic tubing. I was finding it annoying until I read an article explaining the very problem that you are experiencing. I am now wondering if I will escape this problem seeing that my grow bed doesn't flood at all. I was such a noob that I puched a hole on the left side near the base. Then thinking only of drainage, I fitted the overflow spout from the fittings of a kitchen sink. The water drains out beautifully but if I wanted to flood it as well as draining it, I would have to go back so many stages to replace the grow bed with a new one. It would take me a while because my system is set up on a storage unit from B&Q. The shelves have oval holes in them and the set up is really versatile. I left out a shelf. I fitted grow lights on the top shelf. Then the missing shelf gave me height between the lights and the grow bed which is on the next shelf. The shelf underneath that one has the fish tank and the very bottom shelf has the sump tank. In the beginning, I kept asking myself: what on earth is the sump thank for? !!! Now, I think it's absolutely vital !!! I hope your problem with the nasty fungus will be sorted quickly and that your system is up and running again very soon. Good Luck

Here's a few ideas (some you've probably already tried or thought of)

Make certain water doesn't get in the crown. Try setting the parsley up higher when you plant. Could also let the bed go fallow for awhile - you won't get rid of the fungus but you'll probably reduce it's numbers. Along those same lines you can put something in the beds that's resistant, like some onion varieties.

Cheers

Thanks Scotty I had some plants lined up that I was going to plant into my grow bed. My system was taking too long to set up and I was impatient. I bought a heated propagator and planted some seeds for the first time in my life !! But now that my system is set up it seems I don't need the propagator after all. There's a YouTube video which tells that seeds can be planted directly into an aquaponics system. So I sprinkled some seeds in there and found that they actually sprout faster than when using the heated propagator. My first seedlings had popped up and they are lettuce !!! I've decided to add only seeds to my system as a rule due to the transfer of fungus as mentioned in the problem above. Also, by adding in your advice, maybe I will have a fungus free experience !!

Thank you

SYA - Hang on to that propagator, you'll need it for the Spring when the water is too cool to get very good germination or fast germination in the AP (unless you're heating the water or the climates warmer than I think it is there). Helps to start them on the heat mat like this certain times of the year. You'll also get an early start on warm weather plants like peppers, tomatoes, and Basil.