Media cleanse...(hydroton)

I've recently noticed I have not been getting the full potential of my plants. I usually run individual power growers with no major issues but I have noticed my ladies never really drank much during flower(ppm never changed much). Experimenting with some different nutes I ultimately killed the roots of several plants. Although the foliage recovered quickly I had to repeatedly run fresh water through the systems along with some Florakleen & Hydrogen Peroxide I had on hand from a few years back. I did these fresh water flushes for two days at the end of every week like I previously stated.

Upon adding fresh nute mixes I noticed my ladies are more than eager to eat at these points leading me to believe that I have been running my nutes too high in my systems and the salts were locking out most of the nutes as they built up. I generally tried to stay around 1000 ppm (My tap water is 200ppm) but it gets higher as the water level decreases sometimes reaching 1600+, but then or before it reaches that I usually top off with fresh water bringing the ppm's down. Even after bringing the ppm's down they have never eaten like this before.

I guess my question is what do you true blue Hydroton users use to clean your media while growing in it???

I'm running out of Florakleen but I want to continue the end of the week flushes. Was thinking of running some mild Dish soap & hydrogen Peroxide through the system for 2 days then back to nutes.

Suggestions...

I use h202, it keeps the medium sterile ans clean the roots
but be carefull.. you need to go easy with this stuff.
By the way, I like to go easy with nutes too.

I ran ro/clearex flushes but now just flush with ph adkusted tap water.

You shouldn't have to clean your media while growing in it. I change my nute solution every 7 - 10 days. I aerate the res as well as circulate at a high rate. <shrug>

ounevinsmoke,
No dish soap...unless you were joking about that. I agree with Mith that they shouldn't need cleaning DURING a grow. Hydroton re-use is controversial. I know some growers throw it away after one use, and one guy posted that he's been using same stuff for two years. I've read that the pores can get clogged after awhile so I limit my use to 3 or 4 runs. It's not that pricey.

I would suspect that your current issues are probably unrelated to hydroton.
JD

i tried many methods, bleaching cooking and boiling and what else. you don't need all this to keep your rocks clean. you can certainly reuse your rocks indefinitely. i've been reusing the same batch for well, 10 years now. after harvest, i remove the rootballs and soak the rocks in the flood table with H2O2 overnight. i use 35% food grade peroxide. then i drain, flush with tapwater and grow on. new rocks are much more of a fuss to clean because they contain much dust and dirt in them, as they are reused, the dust cleans off. i think that if your plants were not eating, it is because the accumulated salts in your res are causing lockout. change your res, you could flush the plants with water as you change the res then feed again. it is only normal for your plants to appreciate a fresh res