Root rot- when to start nutes again?

[FeelinSpacey]

Hi all,

Instead of going with h2o2 for dealing with rot, I've decided on going with straight hydroguard to breed the good bacteria. I changed my res yesterday and put nothing but hydroguard in at 3ml per gal (I have 5 gallons of water).
My question is when do I re-introduce nutes into the system and do I go full strength or is it smarter to start at quarter strength and build up every few days?

My plant is still young and I understand it could be detrimental to do a res change on a young plant because they have not fully developed their own protection around the roots until about 4-5 weeks. In my case that's what happened and I got root rot even though my temps were 70-71.

My plant is really looking bad with deficiencies due to lack of uptake on nutes but I need to make sure the rot doesn't come back otherwise I will be at square 1 again.

I now have all my water temps in he mid 60s and the air temps have been consistent at 75-79.

All help is appreciated!

 

[OldMedUser]

Are you getting any new root growth yet?

I've done DWC for years and had rot twice that I successfully beat back with peroxide. Lost a couple plants in a tub with 16 plants and a couple more grew stunted but gave more room to others that did great.

Nutes won't make the rot worse so I'd be going with 1/4 strength at least to start feeding your plant or even foliar feed with 1/10 strength every day for a couple days to see if that perks it up. Take a measurement of the plant so you can better tell if it's responding.

I always go by ppm for feeding DWC and I'd have it around 300, (Hanna .5 scale), then if it shows growth bump it up to around 500 in a bit. If you can keep the temps in the mid 60s you should be fine.

Good Luck!

 

[FeelinSpacey]

Thanks for the input. I am still seeing new growth on the plant but after about a day or 2 the plant starts to show some deficiency by browning of the leaf tips which eventually spreads.

As for the roots, they still appear a bit brown but they aren't really slimy. I am noticing they are getting a bit longer and there are definitely white roots in there. I am not 100% sure if they are new roots or just old roots that are looking more white from no nutes. It's only been 24 hours so hopefully by tomorrow it will show some serious signs of recovery.

I'll post an update tomorrow and I'll see what makes sense at that point. Thanks again!

 

[FeelinSpacey]

I added nutes last night at a 1/4 strength. I checked on the plant this morning and it looks like there isn't any rot (yet) they just look brown from staining and there was no smell. I'll post another updates after getting home from work this wevening. Hopefully the res temps stay low.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

For future refference. Give them a round of peroxide and then give them your beneficial bacteria after about 12hr. You can do both, it's just any peroxide added after beneficial bacteria will most likely kill that as well. I finally got my buddy to try peroxide who has been DWC for years and it's like the holy grail to him. The only thing is you don't want to rely on peroxide and not fix the true problem.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

And if you feel like your losing footing on it at all, go with the peroxide. You can always reintroduce your hydroguard.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

If it's the 3% it's pretty safe to use...... but for me in my 5gal buckets 3tsp seems to do the trick.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

You also could of burned the roots from over nutrient causing them to die?

 

[JohnDoeTho]

If you were having a bacteria problem anything white is probably new.

Edit: as to your main question, I never stopped nutrient when fighting it. So I'd assume it would be safe to add a proper amount of nutrient rather quickly.

 

[OldMedUser]

If you're going to use peroxide you should be using food grade and not the 3% from the drug store. It has preservatives and stabilizers in it to keep the peroxide from breaking down. OK for emergency use but not for steady application.

When I used to use it I used the 35% food grade at 0.5ml/L or 2ml/cc per USG twice a week as a preventative but the couple times I did get rot I upped the dose to 2ml/L - 8ml/usg and poured some of it down thru the net pots, wait a half hour and pour some RO water thru to flush it out. Worked both times. 35% is 11.67X as strong as 3% so do the math to dose with 3%.

I've never used bennies in DWC tho I'd like some for pot grown plants. I made a DIY chiller out of a water cooler and can keep temps down to 65F so just nutes is fine.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

Yea I have a temperature controlled chiller waiting to be implemented next round. I'm still on my first go 3rd week into flower. Ran into rot earlier on. Pretty healthy right now, so hopefully I'll get to say I beat it.

Edit: I use orca for bennies. But that wasn't enough a couple times. Had to use peroxide get it under control and reimplement the orca.

 

[OldMedUser]

I'd drop the bennies once you got your chiller going. If you're going to do hydro stick to hydro stuff and leave the bennies for the dirt farming.

AN just came out with some certified organic nutes, big bud and a few other things so I'm going to give those a try once I can get my hands on some. See how it performs against their regular 3-part ones I'm using now with BB, Rhino Skin and some other brand CalMag. I tried the Bud Ignitor with one of 5 identical clones and saw no difference whatsoever so I won't be using it again but want to try the Bud Factor X as people I know and trust say it with the Big Bud will really kick ass.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

My local shop is raving about canna so I'm gonna give that a try next round. Right now I'm just using general hydroponics A + B and picked up a canna PK booster. Canna has a seperate A+B for veg and flower which I like.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

I'm not into all the fancy stuff. Seems like gimmicks to me. And yes I would like to drop the orca when I can control bucket temps.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

I guess the gimmick I'm trying and falling for since it was included in my LED setup and that's some added UVB tubes.

 

[JohnDoeTho]

I already have visible crystal developing and it's pretty early so that's a good thing I guess.

 

[FeelinSpacey]

Thank your for all the feedback. My next step would be to blast it with peroxide if this does not recover today. I haven't opened the tent yet as the lights don't turn on for 2 more hours but I don't smell anything funky around the tent which is a good thing so far.

 

[FeelinSpacey]

UPDATE

No smell! Plant has gotten taller and I see new growth coming in. Roots are still growing. They are definitely stained brown and had a little gunk build up from nutes but it didn't feel slimy at all and it rinsed right off. The leaves look horrible, bad calmag deficiencies. I hope this straightens out over the next week. Any feedback on how to proceed from here?

 

[OldMedUser]

She'll take some time to recover but should pretty quick. When I'm dealing with a sick plant I keep the ppm lower and also the light levels until I'm sure she's on the mend.

Things change fast with hydro so in a few days she should either be thriving or dead but I'm betting on the former.

Wouldn't hurt to pour a little peroxide through the pots. Mix that 3% 4:1 with water and pour a bit around the top. Wouldn't be enough to kill off the good ones but can help take care of any bad ones still in the pots. I like to just pour the top up water thru to flush any salt buildup out once in a while.

Hope it goes well!

 

[FeelinSpacey]

Thanks for all your help. I'm hoping I see some big improvement in the next 2 days. I'm going to up the nutes a bit too just because of the deficiencies. If anything takes a turn south I'll let you know.