How do you wash Your hydroton

tip top toker

Well-Known Member
Hydroton is cheap.
It's not worth the time and effort to re-use it.
Time and effort? You mean the time and effort required to go out and buy a new bag and then wash it all again. I wash mine once and re-use over and over and over. I opened up a 100L sack of it about 18 months ago and last week was the first time i went back into it.
 

Dirty Harry

Well-Known Member
I rinse in the bathtub, then fill and soak in some H2O2, then rinse again picking out what ever.
I then put it into a 23 quart pressure cooker with 3 inches of water and pressure cook at 15lbs for 45 min.
That sterilizes the whole batch, and any root matter seems to make its way to the top of the rocks and can be picked out when cool.
I do the same for my fish tank gravel, but I rinse that in a spaghetti strainer and pressure cook to sterilize.
It may be overkill, but any matter that did not get picked out will be sterilized.

EDIT: If you do this, follow proper pressure cooker procedures. Newer cookers have interlocks to stop you from opening it under pressure. Old cookers DO NOT have these locks and you can blow yourself up and get severely burned if you open it too soon.
 
Top