Cleaning RDWC with H202 before transplant - how long / how much?

B

booort

Active Member
How long do you typically run H202 (29%) in a basic RDWC to clean out the buckets between grows? 24 hours?

How much H202 per gallon of water? 10ml per gallon is what someone told me, just want to confirm.

For what it's worth, my setup is 6 of the 5 gallon buckets connected to a 12 gallon ice chest. Using a pair of ~400gph water pumps to push the water through 1/2" tubing to the buckets. Connected together with 3/4" poly.

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Thanks in advance.
 
I simply wipe the inside of my buckets.

The only reason I can think of to run a H2O2 solution between crops is to sanitize them, which IMO is a waste of time. A 5ml solution using 30% should need very little time to attack and oxidize anything bad. Like 15 seconds, unless you are attempting to dissolve slime or something.

If I want to sanitize a container, I fill it with a solution of iodophor, an iodine based sanitizer used in the dairy industry and beer home brewers. 5 or 6 bucks buys a bottle that will make thousands of gallons.

Hope that helps.
 
10ml per gal. is good.

The rate for sanitizing plants is 2ml/L. Which is like 8ml/gal. So you're a little bit over, but you're using it as a cleaner and don't have to worry about roots.

What you should do is use bleach next time and get one of those garden sprayers and spray each bucket down from the top and around with a generous dose of bleach diluted to 10% and let gravity pull it down over all the walls. You could use like a water bottle sprayer, but that would be quick bursts or a big mist, nothing long drawn out like pressurizing sprayers.
 
firsttimeARE said:
10ml per gal. is good.

The rate for sanitizing plants is 2ml/L. Which is like 8ml/gal. So you're a little bit over, but you're using it as a cleaner and don't have to worry about roots.

What you should do is use bleach next time and get one of those garden sprayers and spray each bucket down from the top and around with a generous dose of bleach diluted to 10% and let gravity pull it down over all the walls. You could use like a water bottle sprayer, but that would be quick bursts or a big mist, nothing long drawn out like pressurizing sprayers.
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Thanks, I sprayed diluted bleach/water on everything the first clean between grows, waited an hour, rinsed thoroughly with decent pressure garden hose. I then heard conflicting information (of course) that bleach lingers, especially in any scratches in the plastic buckets/res. Was advised not to use bleach, to run h202 instead.

Wound up using 10ml/gal, and ran it for 24 hours (overkill probably) - before I read your post firsttimeARE.
 
booort said:
Thanks, I sprayed diluted bleach/water on everything the first clean between grows, waited an hour, rinsed thoroughly with decent pressure garden hose. I then heard conflicting information (of course) that bleach lingers, especially in any scratches in the plastic buckets/res. Was advised not to use bleach, to run h202 instead.

Wound up using 10ml/gal, and ran it for 24 hours (overkill probably) - before I read your post firsttimeARE.
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Bleach lingers? No it breaks down into water and salt. So fear not. Bleach is a lot cheaper than h2o2. And you can get it anywhere. High strength h2o2 can only be bought in certain places.
 
firsttimeARE said:
Bleach lingers? No it breaks down into water and salt. So fear not. Bleach is a lot cheaper than h2o2. And you can get it anywhere. High strength h2o2 can only be bought in certain places.
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Thanks, I'll add this issue to my list of things that I've read conflicting opinions. I noticed no ill effects using the bleach cleaning after the the first grow. For what it's worth, "bleach lingers in the scratches in plastic" came from a hydro shop guy. Probably trying to sell me the h2o2 I'd guess.
 
What's the point of sanitizing them at all? Just clean any scum out of it.

It's not a sealed system. As soon as you drain it, the fresh air just carries new 'buggies' right back into it.

As a home brewer, I'm all too familiar with fighting bacteria. It's a battle you can't win in this case. All you have to do is exhale over your drained/sanitized buckets and you'll have a dormant colony ready and waiting for a food source.
 
BossHoggins said:
What's the point of sanitizing them at all? Just clean any scum out of it.

It's not a sealed system. As soon as you drain it, the fresh air just carries new 'buggies' right back into it.

As a home brewer, I'm all too familiar with fighting bacteria. It's a battle you can't win in this case. All you have to do is exhale over your drained/sanitized buckets and you'll have a dormant colony ready and waiting for a food source.
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I like this thinking, it means less work. I've been wondering lately what's the minimum cleaning I can get away with. My buckets sure look nasty though after they go a few weeks at the end without a res change. I just assumed it was necessary to use some cleaner like bleach or h2o2 once they were removed for good.

So then what's the thinking on cleaning the airstones? I read somewhere to boil them? I read to throw them away and buy new ones every harvest ($5 a pop, run 2 per bucket at least). Hydro shop guys obviously say to buy new ones and replace all the air tubing as well. I just soaked them in a strong h2o2 solution for 30 minutes or so. No idea if this was the correct method. But if you are saying there is so much bacteria anyways regardless of how you clean it, does this apply to the airstones as well?
 
I give my buckets a quick swish of bleach.. rinse and away we go... and a tiny bit of bleach will not hurt anything.. i have used it to clean roots in the past without any issues (before finding out about southern AG..)
 
booort said:
I like this thinking, it means less work. I've been wondering lately what's the minimum cleaning I can get away with. My buckets sure look nasty though after they go a few weeks at the end without a res change. I just assumed it was necessary to use some cleaner like bleach or h2o2 once they were removed for good.

So then what's the thinking on cleaning the airstones? I read somewhere to boil them? I read to throw them away and buy new ones every harvest ($5 a pop, run 2 per bucket at least). Hydro shop guys obviously say to buy new ones and replace all the air tubing as well. I just soaked them in a strong h2o2 solution for 30 minutes or so. No idea if this was the correct method. But if you are saying there is so much bacteria anyways regardless of how you clean it, does this apply to the airstones as well?
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Sounds like you went the right route with cleaning rather than throwing away. Unless some crazy biofilm has permeated the stone and has no prayer of being removed, tossing them is obviously a last resort.

I guess the question remains if H2O2 is the most economical way of cleaning, but for most of us home growers we can afford to not do things that mass production economics requires.
 
booort said:
So then what's the thinking on cleaning the airstones? I read somewhere to boil them? I read to throw them away and buy new ones every harvest ($5 a pop, run 2 per bucket at least). Hydro shop guys obviously say to buy new ones and replace all the air tubing as well. I just soaked them in a strong h2o2 solution for 30 minutes or so. No idea if this was the correct method. But if you are saying there is so much bacteria anyways regardless of how you clean it, does this apply to the airstones as well?
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I just run my stones in the peroxide solution circulating in my system while cleaning it. I pull them all out and drop them into 1 site. They look good as new after the soak. I left some sitting in some water for a while once and they were absolutely disgusting, same h2o2 soak for a couple days cleaned them right up.
I usually run 2-3 day cleaning cycles. It cleans all my pipes out well and leaves all the gunk settled into the bottom of the sites for easy vacuuming out.


DarthVaper84 said:
I guess the question remains if H2O2 is the most economical way of cleaning, but for most of us home growers we can afford to not do things that mass production economics requires.
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Its not, but imo it takes less work for me than bleach would. I fill the system add h2o2, run for 2-3 days, drain and shop vac all the settled shit out, from here I feel comfortable filling it where as with bleach id be rinsing it further and maybe wiping buckets down.
If I run h2o2 right after im finished with the system, instead of waiting until the next time I need it to clean it, I dont have to any other wiping down or cleaning. I use iso to wipe down sites if the gunk sits and needs to be wiped off.
Bleach leaves bleach smell. If you can smell it, its still there somewhere. H2O2 and ISO alcohol dont leave any odor after a much shorter period than bleach. I take these precautions because I use beneficial bacteria and dont want to kill them.
If youre sterilizing with h2o2 or any type of chlorine, it doesnt really matter much.
 
I don’t mean to hijack this thread (but here I go anyway), but I just ordered some Hydroguard (decided to go the bacteria route), and was curious what you use as a concentration in the res. I guess this is sorta on topic since it’s the opposite of the sterile route.
 
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