Brown algae concern.

Michael Huntherz said:

I use bleach in my hydro systems. Plain household liquid bleach, about six drops per gallon of solution every three days. Works a charm. Don’t knock it until you have tried it. You can also make hundreds of gallons of your own liquid bleach using Pool Shock, but the scale of my garden is far too small to bother with that.

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Wow.
Me, too! Thanks for having the courage to post it, lol. (I guess it is hidden in here) It does work great. I have my system dialed in to 10ml of bleach every 3 days.
I also use battery acid in my system, holy shit you'd think I was harboring a fugitive when people talk about that though.

Big Perm said:

Wow.
Me, too! Thanks for having the courage to post it, lol. (I guess it is hidden in here) It does work great. I have my system dialed in to 10ml of bleach every 3 days.
I also use battery acid in my system, holy shit you'd think I was harboring a fugitive when people talk about that though.

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Haha, for sure, people have a lot to say but rarely do the work to test it for themselves. There is a load of groupthink out there. I was considering diluted sulfuric acid for pH down only moments ago.

Michael Huntherz said:

Haha, for sure, people have a lot to say but rarely do the work to test it for themselves. There is a load of groupthink out there. I was considering diluted sulfuric acid for pH down only moments ago.

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Do it!
I got a 5 gallon...box bag thing of it for $30. This was months ago. It already comes 1/3 diluted, I add 1 cup to a gallon of distilled water and call it good. I pour the gallon into a refill squeeze bottle and use it like normal. That ratio is perfect imo, because it isn't too strong when adjusting ph.
I could go check when I bought it, I think it was about 6 months ago. I have used 1 cup of the 5 gallons to date.

Michael Huntherz said:

Haha, for sure, people have a lot to say but rarely do the work to test it for themselves. There is a load of groupthink out there. I was considering diluted sulfuric acid for pH down only moments ago.

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I have always said comparing battery acid to commercial ph-down is the same thing as comparing powdered nutes to liquid nutes.

Big Perm said:

I have always said comparing battery acid to commercial ph-down is the same thing as comparing powdered nutes to liquid nutes.

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I can dig that. Totally.

Kipn said:

im kind of amazed your plants are still fine. i normally give a plant low hopes of surviving after they develop pathogens in the root zone. it might not of even been rot. although the photos did not look good at all.as i said id only use synthetic nutrients in dwc for many reasons. i would not expect them roots to ever turn white again and in all honestly i think they still have some sort of pathogen problems but they are working so and the plant looks happy. at this point all you can do is keep things clean and keep temps and ph in check

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Hey Kipn, you know the drama only began after I added those organics at the start... I look back now and think what a rookie I was... This has been a great learning experience and for sure, next batch will be totally sterile from the get go. I've been using Pythoff to keep anything nasty in check but what I think is really on my side is good Res Temps of around 18c. Since adding the tank which sits on a cool concrete floor...
Ive just taken some pics of the roots at present.
I'm sure we've all had our ups and downs but if we aren't smarted after every grow then something is wrong. I have a detailed journal including a mistakes page.. can't wait for the next round.

Blent said:

Hey Kipn, you know the drama only began after I added those organics at the start... I look back now and think what a rookie I was... This has been a great learning experience and for sure, next batch will be totally sterile from the get go. I've been using Pythoff to keep anything nasty in check but what I think is really on my side is good Res Temps of around 18c. Since adding the tank which sits on a cool concrete floor...
Ive just taken some pics of the roots at present.
I'm sure we've all had our ups and downs but if we aren't smarted after every grow then something is wrong. I have a detailed journal including a mistakes page.. can't wait for the next round.

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If they don't smell like a cellar, maybe the organics stained the roots some?

I

Big Perm said:

If they don't smell like a cellar, maybe the organics stained the roots some?

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They smell great and I have an excellent nose. I never thought anything was really wrong but if I had carried on with the bios then yep... They're a bit stained, everything is clear in the Res except my bloom nutes which are purple for some reason

Big Perm said:

Do it!
I got a 5 gallon...box bag thing of it for $30. This was months ago. It already comes 1/3 diluted, I add 1 cup to a gallon of distilled water and call it good. I pour the gallon into a refill squeeze bottle and use it like normal. That ratio is perfect imo, because it isn't too strong when adjusting ph.
I could go check when I bought it, I think it was about 6 months ago. I have used 1 cup of the 5 gallons to date.

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on another thread, i mentioned battery acid. another member replied that nitric acid and phosphoric acid were better choices since they are also macro nutes. arent' nitric and phosphoric much harder to source though? i thought those were 2 that you get funny looks when you ask to buy.

and with battery acid, you get added sulfur which most nutes don't have.

Another update. I've never had anything this frosty before. Some pistles are turning brown and falling to their sticky death, starting to fatten up a bit as the bud sites joing up. Feeding at 1200ppm which stays relatively constant even while losing about 3litres per day. I am however creeping down with pH more quickly than I have in the past.
Will post some pics in a week or so at higher magnification. These were from last week.

Looking good, Nutes are on the high side imo, but everyone's got an opinion and runs a lot of different setups. Looking at the early stuff it really just looks like those roots were stained early on and never lost that color. I run a sterile RDWC system with UC Roots every couple days and just adjust nute's about weekly. I have a R.O. filter that feeds my res on a float valve and a Bluelab Guardian I keep next to the tent and watch the stats. When the PH rises too high, its time for more nutes and rarely need to adjust PH other then adding nutes. I've only changed the system water out once and we are almost to harvest. System is spotless and numbers are on point.

Keep up the good work.

Those roots look good. You can tell they have substance and are holding themselves up. Color is by no means everything. You just don't want limp noodles. They should smell like a cut potato as well. Good work so far.

Just as a metric. My roots looked exactly the same as yours.

Badrice08 said:

Looking good, Nutes are on the high side imo, but everyone's got an opinion and runs a lot of different setups. Looking at the early stuff it really just looks like those roots were stained early on and never lost that color. I run a sterile RDWC system with UC Roots every couple days and just adjust nute's about weekly. I have a R.O. filter that feeds my res on a float valve and a Bluelab Guardian I keep next to the tent and watch the stats. When the PH rises too high, its time for more nutes and rarely need to adjust PH other then adding nutes. I've only changed the system water out once and we are almost to harvest. System is spotless and numbers are on point.

Keep up the good work.

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How do you find the float valve? I've heard roots can grow in and allow a small opening which can drain and overflow your tank... ? I invented a failsafe where my tank overflows back to Res, pump kicks in twice a day and siphons back out to below the drain holes. This makes sure no roots can clog the pipes..
Youre right, the nutes are a touch strong right now but she's doing well and it's pumping out trichomes like I've never seen before.

I have my float valve on the reservoir outside the tent and its at its lowest setting meaning the water level is as low as the float will allow with where it is located within the container. I have 2" pipes in the bottom with a pump pulling from the end of the system which dumps back into the res. So theres never enough water in the system to cause something to flood.

Great day today.
I have been monitoring the trichomes closely over the last week and in that week i have observed the transformation from clear to cloudy. Today i picked up a couple few amber heads in the mix.
So, I have made the decision to flush and put her into 48-72 hours of darkness. Maybe 72 because it would suit my schedule better. Humidity is around 55-65 at the moment so let me know if you think that will be an issue.
For the flush i completely removed all nutrient cleaned the tank out with some weak chlorine. I've just added straight water from the hose pipe (Keep in mind this is extremely pure at 11ppm).
... so i guess that's about it? let me know if i am missing anything here.
Will harvest and wet trim majority before dry and cure.
For my first ever RDWC and Hydro grow... rate me?!
Thank you to everyone who has helped me on the journey. Wont be doing this again for quite some time i think, going to start an indoor vegetable operation.
some pics for good feels...

Is there any point to pH flushing water? If there's nothing to uptake then why bother?