Root disease, otherwise known as pithium, is a fungus that is present everywhere. Pithium is a fungi with a viral tail, so it has unique qualities in that it can stay inside of plant material. And whenever the plant gets weak, it can come out, breathe, and reinfect the plant material. This is most common in recirculating water gardens. The only way that we typically experience root disease in a drained away scardan is if we are over watering. Otherwise, we do not have problems with pithium in drained away scardas. So in general, we are fighting pithium when we are in a recirculating water garden. So reservoir temperature is very important in controlling pithium. It shouldn't be above 65 degrees. We definitely do not want to drown our plants or we need to expose them to adequate amounts of air in the root zone so that they have their own resistance to this disease. Now how can we tell if we are dealing with root disease? One of the immediate ways to pay attention to this matter is to record water consumption. If we chart how much water our plants are drinking, we can start to see that our plants are drinking more and more water as they move into the peak flowering cycle. This is what we want to see. The more water our plants are drinking, the more food they're eating, the healthier they are, the bigger the yield we're going to get. If we notice that water consumption is slowing down, food consumption is slowing down, then we know our root zone is starting to become compromised and we have to take steps to get this under control. In general, we would use a root disease preventive to stop us from getting to the point where we are experiencing losses in yield. However, if we have not been using a root disease control and we start to notice a reduction in water consumption and nutrient consumption, we have to take this matter very seriously and begin some series of rapid nutrient solution changes to remove the decaying root matter from the root zone. This is the substrate that the disease breeds on so we get it out of the system and generate new root growth so we can get back on track towards achieving a maximum yield.