Ender's 4,000w Hydro 12-site (6x White Russian, 5x G13xHaze, 1x PurpleWreck) + CO2!

Upinthemguts - No i cannot put airstones in the buckets because they are ebb and flow buckets (in other words they are filled with hydroton and have no space for putting an airstone lol.

Anyway, sorry I havent been updating lately, ive really been struggling to get these stupid plants growing normal.. Someone at the growshop made the suggestion that perhaps i was suffocating my roots by not exhausting my CO2 when the lights turn off, but i dont think thats the problem. However i recently took 5 clones of the White Russian and planted 3 of them tonight (replacing 3 of the plants that werent looking well) and sure enough i think they had root rot.. Im not sure how they got it, but unless the nutes stained the roots, they had root rot..

I really have NO idea how they got it, and i have NO idea how to fix it, because i think once its there, its there for good, right? But luckily most of the plants are doing ok, and only some of them were showing bad symptoms.. However now im having to restart fresh from clone on a few more of them. So i have a few big ones, a few middle height, and a handful of small ones now. I'll take pictures soon. Im just very frustrated with everything.

Root rot is very hard to get ride of. They best way (if possible) is to cut the roots that have if off and try to save the plant. besides that Im not sure what else u can do. sorry bro.

I dont know if they stink because i cant access the roots, because its buried in hydroton. But some of the roots looked like they might have root rot when i dug it up to replace it with the clone. Im just not sure how i got it in the first place.. Why or how could i have gotten root rot? I only flood my system every 5 hours, for 15 minutes at a time.. So im not sure why they got root rot. But i recently added h202 to my reservoir, so maybe that will help. Ive also heard good things about using Dutch Master "ZONE".. Although im not sure if that will help at this point.

Do you use anything else besides clay pellets for your medium? Is there any coco or rockwool in those buckets?

Ender where is your air pump getting air from hopefully not the grow room itself if so ur pumping co2enriched air into ur Rez put ur pump outside the room if it's not. get some roots excel Drop the temps in ur Rez to the low 60's h202 helps but kills off the benificials bacteria I've beat root rot in dwc this way but not with a setup like yours try to get some stones into the buckets might do little damage getting them in but if u have root rot gonna need to do it then maybe just run it like dwc buckets leave them full and bubbling how warm do u think the root zone is getting when there is no water in the buckets? Hope it's not the rot

FriendlyCaregiver - No, I am only using hydroton. Although the plants are inside of 3" rockwool cubes, which i place inside of the hydroton in the buckets.

Trouble27 - My airpump is getting air from OUTSIDE the room, so no worries! Also, i actually AM using (or WAS using) roots excel! its a great product, although very spendy, but didnt seem to help my problem.. My res temperature is at 65 right now, which should be good. I recently refilled my res with nothing but 700ppm of base nutes, and H202 to see if that would help. Although the H202 might have helped before, its not helping now, because i think my problem is already too far advanced. Pretty sure i have root rot unfortunately. Although im not sure why or how i got it. My res is a good temperature, and very well-aerated with a 8" airdisc and commercial air1 18w airpump, as well as a 2800gph koralia circulation pump, plus the chiller always mixing the water up too.. So between all of those things, my res should be very nicely aerated, wouldnt you agree?

To sum things up right now, im not sure how/why i got it, but im pretty sure ive got root rot.
My res is well-aerated, and at a perfect temperature.
My room is perfect temp and hum..

The only thing i can think of is that there is no "fresh" air entering the growroom, since its a closed-room CO2 setup. I simply have my CO2 controller pumping CO2 into the room staying at around 1000ppm, with a minisplit air conditioner keeping the room cool. In other words, there is NO INTAKE and NO EXHAUST.. Could this be causing my problem? Could that somehow cause root rot from lack of oxygen in the growroom itself, even though my res is aerated?

The way i see it, my room has plenty of CO2 which is what the plant uses, and my reservoir has plenty of aeration which is what the roots use. So there shouldnt be a problem, right? Again, the only thing i can think of is that the room has no actual air exchange, or fresh oxygen. But since im using CO2 that should be fine right? Because the res is aerated and taking care of the roots, and the CO2 is taking care of the plant itself.. Ugh, at this point i dont know if i can really "get rid" of the root rot, so i might have to start over.. yet again..

What do you guys think? could this be causing a problem? and if so, why?

Your plants will convert the co2 into growth plus o2 so you shouldn't be able to over co2 them, I read somewhere that the critical level (to harm them) was something like 2000 ppm. That's a lotta carbon man. Personally I would keep shoving h2o2 until something gives. It eats away the rot. Let me ask you this though... Are you adding molassas to your res? I get nasty funk on my roots when I tried it a few times. Also I would try adding an enzyme like cannazym by canna, it is supposed to eat the dead roots or help the cycle along.

If your airpump is bringing air from outside aren't you in effect bringing in fresh air?

I'm at a loss. One thing I would change though is the 3" rockwool cubes. I used to do that. Then I went over to the 3" coco cubes in the t-bag type material (better). Now I grow in the 1" root-riot cubes, transfer to coco in pots, then finally rinse all the coco off before planting straight into hydroton. I no longer get the 'floating plants' thing and there isn't a soaking wet 3" block of rockwool around my stem all the time.

wait! Before you start over and trash those plants, didn't you say you were using a 1 part organic nute base?
In my ebb&grow when I started I used GH floraNova 1 part nutes I noted the roots that did dangle into the bottom buckets were brownish, but no slime or smell..now that I started a new grow and am using chemical nutes my roots a a beautiful white.
Anytime you use viscous, brown-black nutes in your res it will stain you roots, if your plants are healthy I would leave them alone!'You have some amazing growth, I am noticing my seedling are about 3 weeks old, close to 3 1/2, most have roots flowing down into the pots.And you do know about raising the pots by an inch or two? So that when they drain, they fully drain, mine have about 1/4" residual after a cycle, my plants are nowhere close to the size of yours, they actually did better and had faster growth with the mostly organics of floranova, but of course, I didn't like the stained roots. Time to perhaps reconsider..way awesome grow setup..wish I had that kind of $ to put into it, especially since I am growing for myself and 2 other patients now and can have 45 plants!
Just some food for thought from another newbie, lol.

Hmmm that sucks ender if u have root rot then ur Rez water should have an odd smell and slime on the sides of Rez another way to check smell is next time they are getting ready to flood put your head over the top of your bucket and smell the air getting pushed out if u are not using the roots excel anymore keep using the h202 it kills the Fungal spores from the root rot change ur Rez frequently I'm thinking that the root zone is getting warm after they drain and creating perfect conditions for the rot to set in I think like pm it's systemic but u won't have a prob until conditions are right for it to take off . and if u can correct the cause they will recover and grow new roots start using an enzyme to break down dead root matter multi zen or hygrozyme. Can we see a pic good bad ugly might help us help u .

Since u are in a larger rock wool cube maybe cut back to 2 flood and drain cycles during lights on and none during dark period try this on a day when u will be there to check them frequently just in case hopefully u get it figured out that's about all I can think of good luck

I cant really take pictures because its buried in hydroton.
However, they ARE a brown in color, weather its rot or from nutrient stains.

As far as the smell goes, the roots simply smell like dirt. But not "nasty" or anything.
But from the way the plants look (mild droopage, fluctuating deficiency symptoms) it seems like rot.
Even the new plants i put in look fine for a little while, but after developing a few leaf nodes they start going downhill. Perhaps its because they are "catching" root-rot from the other plants, like a disease. Or it could be something else, i dont know. But my best guess is that at least some of my plants got root-rot and spread it to the rest.. Because ive grown in a different location with a similar CO2-enriched setup and i know what the growth looks like (dinosaur plants with rapid growth and huge leaves that look lush and beautiful) and this is NOT what im seeing.

UPDATE!: I have decided to restart most of my grow, and change some things.

The following is a list of what i plan to do:

-Take the best clones i can find off of each strain.
-Remove all the plants from the system completely.
-But keep the few plants that still look good, and plant them into soil.
-Clean out and sterilize the system (buckets/hoses/reservoir) completely.
-Refill the system with Hydrolite (Silica Rocks) instead of hydroton clay.
-Use 1" rockwool cubes for the clones (instead of the 3" ive been using).
-This time ill be starting from clones like im used to, not seeds.
-Add a 4 or 6 inch exhaust fan (with passive intake) that runs only at night.
(This will refresh/exchange the rooms air, and hopefully help somehow).
-Change my nutrients from organic back to salt-based like im used to.
-Change my flooding/fill schedule down to only 3x a day (every 5 hours).

Why am I doing this you ask?
Somehow i got root-rot, and its taking over my garden.
Plants are growing slowly, are un-lively, and showing wild symptoms.
After removing a couple plants, i found that they had brown roots.
Unfortunately, i think something caused this towards the beginning.
From there, it simply spread to all the plants that didnt have it.
At this point, my only option is to re-start my grow, and do everything perfect.
The good looking plants i plan to keep in the room, but transplant into soil.
I believe all of the steps listed above will lead to a successful new grow.
I apologize to those of you who have waited so long, but i promise you that the
new grow will be 1000x better and more exciting than this one was.
Im still not sure if i plan to continue on THIS journal, or start a new one, but ill be sure to let you all know.

As of right now, i have already taken the clones, and after the weekend ill be buying everything
i need to do what i have planned: all the new medium/substrate i need, a fan, etc..

Thank you to everyone who is still following along, and i will be sure to update ASAP!

Can you tell me two things? One, what is your humidity at? When you have a fully sealed room, humidity is always gets very high, and is easy to overlook. Also, are you sure there is enough oxygen in your water?

Its almost exactly 50% humidity in the room.
Yes im sure there is enough oxygen in my water.
Im using an 18w commercial air1 airpump and an 8 inch airdisc, as well as a 2800gph water circulation pump, and a chiller. All of which contribute to my very well-aerated reservoir.

Idk if this will help, and it relates to bubble buckets rather than flood systems but.. I was getting the exact same thong you're describing in my bubble buckets, I talked to a guy at the grow shop and he asked me about my water level. The problem was that my water level was hitting the bottom of the grodan rockwool cube and saturating the root flare with water (the root flare is the part of the root system nearest the stem e part where it flares out into soil or whichever medium, this part of the root has to stay dry). The way I understand it, this applies to all plants and all trees. So I adjusted my water level and created an air gap under my net pot lid and the problem corrected, the Brown roots dissipated and fresh white roots grew through.. can you adjust your flood level? If not could you just raise the buckets up a few inches to in turn lower the flood level?

Another thing I learned about tree's and cannabis is when you transplant you should keep your root flare at the surface with the top barely exposed, since the roots will only grow down this gives your roots more room to grow and prevents the flare from being too moist.