Brown Algae, who's dealt with it?

So I recently invested in a CAP ebb and grow knockoff after hearing rave reviews on its ease of use, little maintenance, yada yada yada... Well, just like the CAP, my buckets happen to leave an inch or so of water stagnant in the bottom when they drain. I tried raising them an inch which helps somewhat but the roots eventually grow into the anerobic solution. This is where my troubles start. I woke this morning to test my PH and found a much murkier res than I left last evening. My plants looked plenty healthy so I decided to peek on my roots and find them light brown and slimed. After a afternoon of reading and some deducing I have concluded that I am in the first stages of a brown algae bloom. Who here has dealt with this? I am gonna try and use some physan 20 for a 24 hour period and hope for the best, provided I can find some in the morning. Looks like I'm also gonna have to put a air stone in each freaking bucket to stop this, any other ideas?

p.s. For those curious, my basic info: I am using The Lucas Formula with RO water and H202, PH drift is 5.8-6.5 avg. PH steadily rises until I knock it down. 61F reservoir temp on a chiller. (Which is why I ruled out Pythium in the beginning.) I can answer more questions as needed.

Thanks for any help.

I have dealt with algae, and have had great luck running SM90 in my system. I'm not familiar with your sytem, is it possible you have light leaks somewhere?

OK, update...

I have Physan 20'ed my entire grow room and installed a UV sterilizer in my reservoir.




I added 1ml/10G Physan 20 to my reservoir and circulated for 24 hours, I manually cleaned and removed dead roots and then flushed with H202 & RO water for 3 days.


First signs of infection (Day 1 or 2)


Infection advanced stages (Day 7 or

I then dumped and am now running half strength Lucas formula and H202. My plants did show some minor stress from the cleaning but are in good overall health. My roots are slime-free for the time being and my res is clear once again. B) I hope this holds out. :S :woohoo:


Before treatment


Just 2ml and FIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ......


Freshly mixed batch of Lucas

How much was that sterilizer ?

Around $50 at Petco. I made it a week and the slime is back. Not nearly as bad though. I did another Physan treatment and I an preparing to battle this crud with beneficial bacteria at this point. I'm sure the sterilizer is keeping all the other creepy crawlies at bay but so far, ineffective against brown algae.

Green Revolution said:

Around $50 at Petco. I made it a week and the slime is back. Not nearly as bad though. I did another Physan treatment and I an preparing to battle this crud with beneficial bacteria at this point. I'm sure the sterilizer is keeping all the other creepy crawlies at bay but so far, ineffective against brown algae.

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How is that working out? I have the brown slime algae, and have started battling it with Beneficial bacteria. wondering hows it going over out your way.

the algea is from light hitting your water

i tried physan 20 all it did was make a soapy mess. I ended up usinf bleach to kill it, 1 tsp per gal per day till it was gone.

I just posted this in the DWC thread, I innoculated my res with beneficial bacteria at 5 pm this passed sunday oct 3
in 72 hours time there is no sign of any more algae, and my girls have grown more in the last three days, than in the last three weeks.

None of the other stuff youre doing is going to work.
look up the brown slime algae thread in the dwc forum, Heisenberg has a recipe
you breed the bennies for 48 hours and then innoculate your res.

View attachment 1198178these roots belong to a plant that was germed and put under the light on sept 6th, so she is still very much a baby, I got the brown slime about a week after I put her under the light, and they have not grown an inch until now.

squarepush3r said:

the algea is from light hitting your water

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This is not blue-green algae, this is actually a type of cyanobacteria. It can eat by photosynthesis or by chemical conversion. In other words, it can live in the dark.

Physan 20 actually works very well to kill this slime. The problem is, if you don't sterilize every little thing, it comes right back in a matter of hours. If you do sterilize everything, it still comes back in a few days. UV lights are okay for pretreatment of the water, but after you add nutes the UV light can cause some elements of the solution to fall out and become unavailable, leading to deficiencies.

The way to cure yourself is to sterilize as best you can, and then inoculate with beneficial microbes.

Heisenberg said:

This is not blue-green algae, this is actually a type of cyanobacteria. It can eat by photosynthesis or by chemical conversion. In other words, it can live in the dark.

Physan 20 actually works very well to kill this slime. The problem is, if you don't sterilize every little thing, it comes right back in a matter of hours. If you do sterilize everything, it still comes back in a few days. UV lights are okay for pretreatment of the water, but after you add nutes the UV light can cause some elements of the solution to fall out and become unavailable, leading to deficiencies.

The way to cure yourself is to sterilize as best you can, and then inoculate with beneficial microbes.

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He's got it. The Physan 20 will kill the slime and then ....

If you go to icmag.com there is a very long and good thread on the slime. The thread goes through the trials and tribulations of the cyanobacteria.

In the end - he uses the "beneficial TEA" which works. Took him a couple of years of exhaustive reasearch for him to get there.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=55259

Good Read, Good Luck

For what it's worth - My experiece is that you can save your money and effort on Physan and sterilization. I added the bene bacteria to infected, slimed roots and it overwhelmed the algae almost immediately. I haven't seen the slime again after adding and in two weeks I have solid new growth on all plants. Plus, if you continue to run bennies you'll never use that bottle of Physan again.

Just my 2 cents.. weigh it with others who've had more experience.

jestermite said:

For what it's worth - My experiece is that you can save your money and effort on Physan and sterilization. I added the bene bacteria to infected, slimed roots and it overwhelmed the algae almost immediately. I haven't seen the slime again after adding and in two weeks I have solid new growth on all plants. Plus, if you continue to run bennies you'll never use that bottle of Physan again.

Just my 2 cents.. weigh it with others who've had more experience.

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Give this guy a Rep+

Then get the recipe for his Microbe Tea

thx golddog. i found this on thc farmer forum...

One thing that recently came to light you guys, is that the brown algae spores a.k.a. snot slime spores are caught from TAP WATER. So when I see you guys sanitize then flush with TAP! Oh Boy. And to make it worse, supposedly the spores MAKE IT THROUGH RO systems. Therefore, to be safe safe safe and START with truly clean water, try a UV sterilizer after your RO.They aren't too much money, even around a $79 one will do 1/2gallon a minute.

good i guess if you're still trying to go the sterilization route.