I finally got root rot

[churchhaze]

I bet you're thinking it's because I wasn't using the right teas, or sterilizing agents, right? Or maybe my water was too warm?

Huh... think again. I had half an air pump fail, and just noticed it. 1 DWC tote in veg has been bubbleless for an unknown amount of time. I took it apart, and it was like a magnetic bellows. The plungers on the bellows on the broken side were not pumping air correctly despite the mechanics being fine. I was able to manually pump the plungers on the working side with my fingers on the nozzles, and when you let go of the nozzles, you hear a pfft. not on the broken side.

It was an Ecoair4 in case anybody's wondering.

Root rot comes from dead tissue. Dead tissue rots. Roots without oxygen will become dead tissue. Root rot does not come from lack of teas, and you can't sterilize dead roots. They're dead.

 

[Aeroknow]

Hey wait a minute here
Are you bragging or complaining?

 

[churchhaze]

Hey wait a minute here
Are you bragging or complaining?

Root rot comes from the roots.

 

[blackforest]

Most root rot is caused by pythium which can't live in an oxygenated environment from what I understand. h2o2 to sterilize would be my bet. Do you not use any beneficial's or sterilizing regiment on a regular basis? You are almost guaranteed to get pythium if you are not using a sterilizing agent or using beneficial bacteria to out compete the pythium food source.

 

[Mr.Goodtimes]

^^what he said

 

[churchhaze]

Nope. Most root rot is caused by the grower fucking up and not providing the correct environment for their plants to live. You can't sterilize something back to life. The roots are dead. The only thing that will stop them from rotting is miraculously bringing them back to life, or mummifying them.

I don't use sterilizing agents or beneficials, and I've never had root rot until this air pump failed. Roots need oxygen to live. No oxygen? They die!! Dead roots? Rotten dead roots!

If you touch staff, will you get a staff infection? It's unhealthy skin that causes skin infections, not bacteria. Poor immune system leads to infection. Death leads to rotting, not the other way around. When was the last time your flesh started rotting off because you touched the wrong bacteria? You put your hand in the wrong water and it rots away? Give me a break! The skin on healthy hands is extremely resistant to bacterial infection.

 

[churchhaze]

You people who think that the plant has root rot because I didn't use beneficials or sterilizing chemicals are hilarious. The air pump was clearly the culprit. why even speculate beyond that if the air pump was broken? Of course that was the cause of the root rot.. lol.

Eat yogurt and hold your breath for a week... the beneficial bacteria will keep you from dying and rotting away as a corpse. H2O2 will stop your corpse from rotting.

 

[smokeyjoejoe]

yep I had the same problem a few years ago with pump failure, they go rotten due to them been stud in stagnate water for a certain amount of time that's what made me buy a back up pump just incase

 

[deadgro]

I agree with church on user error. I've never used anything in my rez or dwc buckets besides water and nutes- if your temps are in check, your room is kept clean and pest free, and you've got plenty of aeration, additives aren't needed.

More air the better, I'm using a 90lpm pump on 10 5gal dwc buckets, so 9lpm per bucket. Nice and bubbly.

 

[jijiandfarmgang]

ecoair sucks

- Jiji

 

[SnaFuu]

CHURCH

Now think about this. Some of those floating dead tissues get lodged in either your water pump (rdwc), perferated hoses (rdwc again), stones, bucket lids, net pots, media etc etc or where ever the little fuckers MUST be hiding because once your pump failed and you got it, you could NEVER GET RID OF IT. Imagine that! Just think about it. I hope this doesn't happen to you, i really do. But it's what's happend to me... And heisenburg.. And lots of other competent people...

But you insist on beakin' us.

Been a year since we've had it out about this topic so i'll back off now and wish you luck. Just had to get that off my chest.

 

[blackforest]

You people who think that the plant has root rot because I didn't use beneficials or sterilizing chemicals are hilarious. The air pump was clearly the culprit. why even speculate beyond that if the air pump was broken? Of course that was the cause of the root rot.. lol.

Eat yogurt and hold your breath for a week... the beneficial bacteria will keep you from dying and rotting away as a corpse. H2O2 will stop your corpse from rotting.

Was there any sort of smell, or color change to the roots? When you say 'root rot' that is typically synonymous with an infection vs. just dying due to no oxygen. Perhaps it was not technically 'root rot' but simply dead roots. If something is 'rotting' it's typically decomposing with the aid of bacteria. Pythium cannot grow in an oxygen rich environment, when your pump died, the pythium proliferated imo.

 

[churchhaze]

Was there any sort of smell, or color change to the roots? When you say 'root rot' that is typically synonymous with an infection vs. just dying due to no oxygen. Perhaps it was not technically 'root rot' but simply dead roots. If something is 'rotting' it's typically decomposing with the aid of bacteria. Pythium cannot grow in an oxygen rich environment, when your pump died, the pythium proliferated imo.

Typically, people don't get root infections if their rots aren't already unhealthy or dead. It's very hard for healthy roots in the right environment to become infected, the same way healthy skin is resistant to infection.

Getting a cut on your hand is what cause infections, not bacteria touching your skin. It's the weak spots that tend to become infected. It's the same with roots. Firm hard white roots are highly resistant to bacterial infection.

 

[churchhaze]

CHURCH

Now think about this. Some of those floating dead tissues get lodged in either your water pump (rdwc), perferated hoses (rdwc again), stones, bucket lids, net pots, media etc etc or where ever the little fuckers MUST be hiding because once your pump failed and you got it, you could NEVER GET RID OF IT. Imagine that! Just think about it. I hope this doesn't happen to you, i really do. But it's what's happend to me... And heisenburg.. And lots of other competent people...

But you insist on beakin' us.

Been a year since we've had it out about this topic so i'll back off now and wish you luck. Just had to get that off my chest.

I don't have a water pump. I took the air pump apart and inspected it thoroughly, so the hypotheticals are pretty pointless. The problem was the plungers weren't plunging. There was an air leak in the plunging mechanism. Case closed. There was nothing lodged inside of it... and my water is usually crystal clear when drain it. It was starchy this time for obvious reasons. See my thread on how root rot comes from the roots. (you already know about it... roots dump their starch into the water when they're not firm. Bacteria feed on this starch. Roots make their own "slime", starch, and it becomes infected when it's not contained in the roots)

No tea or bleach is going to keep roots from dying and subsequently rotting away. Only pushing off death will prevent rotting.

 

[churchhaze]

Roots aren't like teeth.

 

[churchhaze]

And no offense to Heisenberg, I'm sure he's a great grower and a very smart person... but if he was getting root slime constantly, why would you all think he's jesus for fixing it? A lot of people never have root rot issues to begin with. Some people think that's luck, but i'm convinced that the people who don't get root rot avoid it simply by know what they're doing.

People tend to change multiple variables at once... but the bottom line is that new DWC growers are inexperienced and end up killing their plants by doing it wrong. They notice the roots are rotting and infected... so they blame their own failure on "root rot". The next attempt, they do everything they can to avoid this "root rot". This includes teas, sterilizing chemicals, chillers, as well as actually learning to grow weed hydroponically and getting the essentials. Instead of attributing success to the basics (nitrate salts, calcium, oxygen), they attribute it to the BS (teas, organics, sterilization, chillers, and add 'silica' to the BS list... ugh). At least chillers have some merit to the idea because it allows the water to hold more oxygen, but your plants aren't going to die if they go above 75 degrees.

 

[churchhaze]

I'm still waiting for one of my healthy plants to suddenly contract a bacterial infection for no reason. Been waiting for over a decade now...

 

[blackforest]

Typically, people don't get root infections if their rots aren't already unhealthy or dead. It's very hard for healthy roots in the right environment to become infected, the same way healthy skin is resistant to infection.

Getting a cut on your hand is what cause infections, not bacteria touching your skin. It's the weak spots that tend to become infected. It's the same with roots. Firm hard white roots are highly resistant to bacterial infection.

@churchhaze
I hear you, and to be technical, pythium is a fungus type organism, so it's kinda a different ball game. I guess the only true way to know would be to look under a microscope and see if you can find any spores. Anything other than that is really just guessing. The only example I have is personal experience with my last rdwc grow. I had my system running through a chiller, but the water temps were around 71, and I had small air stones and a sorta weak air pump. When I first detected it, you could smell it, and the roots looked tinted brown a bit. I ended up treating it with h2o2 to combat the majority of the issue, lowered the chiller to 65, then after the h2o2 evaporated, I added hydroguard (bacillus bacteria) which essentially out competes pythium's food source. This solved the problem, and I believe the issue first came about due to low DO, and small air stones & air pump.

I read your posts above and I was hoping you could elaborate on a couple of your 'tips'.
In this post, what exactly do you mean by 'doing it wrong' (italicized) "... but the bottom line is that new DWC growers are inexperienced and end up killing their plants by doing it wrong."
DWC is pretty simple, I don't know what you could really do wrong.

Also, in this post I was hoping you could tell me what the 'essentials' are... specifically. "as well as actually learning to grow weed hydroponically and getting the essentials."

I just don't understand how these tips are going to help prevent me from getting "root rot".
If your air pump quit, I guess eventually your plant would use all the available DO within the reservoir and die, but I still believe actual 'root rot' is caused by a pythium infection.
I'm not debating you or saying you are wrong, this is simply my own scientific analysis. Please feel free to collaborate.

 

[WeedFreak78]

I'm starting to notice a brown tinge to my roots..I'm thinking it's nute staining( AN connoisseur PH perfect with B-52) because it only seems to be on the roots that are in the water..everything above water level is nice and white...but keeping a close eye on it..it still smells fine. My water gets right up to about 70-71 by lights off then drops to low 60's before lights on. I'm running (4) 5 gal dwc's. As the plants get bigger and I'm raising my lights, the res temps keep going down. Another 6-8" of growth and I can get my lights up enough to keep my res below 68..I'm running a 6 bulb T5 for veg. I also wrapped my buckets in reflextix insulation, and lined the top of the bucket with it and then some white poly, which dropped my water temps an avg of 2 degs. This is my first go at hydro..so i'm a little on edge about everything..

 

[churchhaze]

In this post, what exactly do you mean by 'doing it wrong' (italicized) "... but the bottom line is that new DWC growers are inexperienced and end up killing their plants by doing it wrong."
DWC is pretty simple, I don't know what you could really do wrong.

Also, in this post I was hoping you could tell me what the 'essentials' are... specifically. "as well as actually learning to grow weed hydroponically and getting the essentials."

The most common ways I see people 'doing it [dwc] wrong':

1) Using organics (including teas and molasses)
2) Using urea based synthetics like Jack's classic or miracle grow
3) Listening to advice to keep EC under 1.0. Not only will this cause deficiency, it makes your reservoir overly hypotonic. Being in an overly hypotonic solution may cause the root tissue to become mushy. Think about what happens to your skin when you keep it in a fresh water pool for a few hours.
4) Not enough oxygen..

the essentials:
1) A proper balanced hydroponic formula based on calcium nitrate and potassium nitrate to source N rather than urea. EC should be between 1.0-1.4 at all times.
2) water
3) oxygen

bullshit:
silica, teas, anything with a rhino on it.