Need some help with roots.

Well I've had a few little guys going for about 2 weeks now. They looked great until a few days ago. The plants still look good but the roots look like snot. They still are semi white/brown (flora nova turns all my roots brown) but are slimy and have brownish/back balls of slime. If i didnt know better i'de say someone blew their nose on my shit.. PH @5.8-6.0. Water temps might reach 75 tops but normal 70. I have 2 air pumps with 2 outputs on both. EACH plant has an airstone under it. I've been using the same water i always do, and previously had great success. My res doesnt allow light in and has been grown successfully in same res before.

I rinsed the roots with water, got the goo off. Changed the res. nutes and PH.

I checked back THE NEXT DAY and roots look slimy again. The res has ZERO slime on walls. res liquid looks fine.

I have no idea where this slime is coming from as its ONLY found on the roots. The res is changed every 2 weeks. PH is good. PPM is good. Ive done this before with this same setup and never seen this.

How can i get root slime when each plant has an airstone under it, ph is good, ppm is good, temps are good, water is good. ???

Here are some pictures. Like i said the FloraNova product has always turned my roots a brownish color. Its the clear snot, slime shit that concerns me.

you need to use some hygrozyme and if you combine that with rhiztonoic you will see a fast exploding growth rate of roots in less than a week

who makes that product. what does it do??

^^ yea.. same question here...

Also, im looking for more of a "why" rather than a "how". Ive grown under these identical conditions multiple times and never seen anything like this. I cleaned roots and res and it was back in full force the NEXT DAY. Meanwhile this slimy, buger like substance cant be found anywhere other than the roots.

I have to fix this soon. I have Bluebeery Cheese, Violator kush, WW and Durban poisen in there.. I dunno what ide do if those 4 ladies had to be chopped down... Talk about uber pissed

Beer42O said:

^^ yea.. same question here...

Also, im looking for more of a "why" rather than a "how". Ive grown under these identical conditions multiple times and never seen anything like this. I cleaned roots and res and it was back in full force the NEXT DAY. Meanwhile this slimy, buger like substance cant be found anywhere other than the roots.

I have to fix this soon. I have Bluebeery Cheese, Violator kush, WW and Durban poisen in there.. I dunno what ide do if those 4 ladies had to be chopped down... Talk about uber pissed

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You definitely have a pythium infection. Roots should feel almost dry, even if you have just pulled them out of the water, because they should be constantly drinking. When I pull my plants out of aero setup the roots feel semi-dry no matter what and I assume it is because they are drinking water very fast. Back a few months ago I got a bad root rot problem and the roots were like that in the beginning (slimy, starting to yellow or brown in color, minimal root growth, and the roots themselves would easily break). After it got worse the entire root zone had grey mold on the roots from high temps. Also, 75 may not seem high but it is still high enough to maintain a pythium infection.

I use an aquarium chiller and it keeps the water at 68 degrees, which keeps away root rot and the water also actually holds more oxygen at lower temps. You might want to look into one in terms of long term protection.

As for right now, goto a local hydro store and buy some beneficial bacteria to inoculate your tank with.

Also, get gallon jugs filled with water, throw them in the freezer overnight(everyday), and then put them in your rez when the lights are on.

You can also go to petco to get a small $10 electronic aquarium thermometer so that you can make sure that your rez temps are below 70 at least. So the helpful bacteria along with the ice should help a lot. There a lot of different kinds of things you can buy to help prevent root rot, but in terms of getting rid of it once you have it....well that is a lot harder and thats why prevention is key. The bacteria and ice jugs are your best bet for now, but an aquarium chiller is definitely the best thing for preventing root rot for hydroponics/aeroponics.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions just send them my way.

Anyone else have suggestions on the cause and fix of my issue. Im leaning towards what the above poster suggested (high res temp) being ALL remaining variables are correct and have worked with success in the past.

Only reason i can think its doing it now, and never has before is the light. Right now i have 4 little guys going, i topped all 4 to keep them low. Being that the plants are low, i have a 400wtt mh about 1 foot above my res. I'm thinking the light is warming up the water.. I'm going to move the light up 1/2ft. If the plants stretch a little so-be-it. It's better than them being dead.

i have found that you can have a higher temp 70-80 if you use hygrozyme....CANNA makes Rhizotonic

yes, the problemn is from high temps, all in all the unltimate best idea is to use a chiller, or before you start your grow spray the outside out your res with some glue stuff and put aluminum foil around the whole outside, aluminum foil reflects mostly heat and a little light, this way no light will get into the tank, nor will any heat from your bulbs

i'd suggest going the cheap route first

another thing, the air pump can also heat up your res, back when i was using flo's this was what was heating up my res...back then i had no clue that res temp had to be a certain range, so my plants died out....if you have a powerful air pump check to see what the air feels like coming out, i normally hang my air pump right next to the output of my reflector hood, that way it gets cooled down, my res temp stays around 63-67

Beer42O said:

Anyone else have suggestions on the cause and fix of my issue. Im leaning towards what the above poster suggested (high res temp) being ALL remaining variables are correct and have worked with success in the past.

Only reason i can think its doing it now, and never has before is the light. Right now i have 4 little guys going, i topped all 4 to keep them low. Being that the plants are low, i have a 400wtt mh about 1 foot above my res. I'm thinking the light is warming up the water.. I'm going to move the light up 1/2ft. If the plants stretch a little so-be-it. It's better than them being dead.

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...the water temp doesn't HAVE to be high for you to get a pythium infection. Pythium can be water born and mostly is but it can also be air born, meaning that if the air temps in your rez are way above normal (which they probably are from having your light so close) then the roots hanging in the air will get the infection and it will almost immediately spread to your water. Just saying that the infection doesn't have to start in the water.

Like I said there is a bunch of little shit you can do to help prevent pythium, but in terms of keeping it away for good all the time....a chiller is the only way.

If you just ignore your rez temps and just use hygrozyme, the hygrozyme will actually kill ALL bacteria in your water, which isn't exactly good. Counteracting bad bacteria with good bacteria is far better than just using a sterilizing compound in terms of growing. So...like I said....go to your local hydro store and buy some Bacillus Subtillus...if they have it....use the ice jugs....and then you will be home free. Other than this I don't see what you could do other than get a chiller....and don't insulate your rez with "tin foil"(tin foil is terrible for anything in a growroom, for insulation use radiant barrier, you can pick it up from home depot for cheap) or anything for that matter unless you are goingto get a chiller. Radiant barrier reflects up to 97% of heat, but if you insulate your rez with nothing cooling it down (like the chiller or ice jugs) then it is going to be like an oven in your rez because no heat will be able to escape. The insulation doesn't keep heat out....it just mitigates heat transfer so that the temp in your rez is not affected by your atmospheric conditions as much, but it is only 97% not 100%. With that in mind if you have nothing cooling down your rez, it will slowly start to heat up because no heat will be escaping the rez it will all be reflected back in. IF you had a chiller keeping the water cold, then you would want the radiant barrier so that the light and air temperature won't affect the water temperature as much (making the chiller more effective).


Peace.

Bobby: In regards to the aluminum around the outside of the res. It's already done., since day 1. And i have 4 small air pumps. I found that the larger ones with say, 4 outputs, usually produced more heat than the smaller ones. Thats why i have a lot of smaller pumps rather than just 2 large ones. So the heat is not coming from the pumps.

Im going to get hygrozyme, raise the light, flush roots, flush res. Add hygrozyme. Put juggs of water in frezzer and use those to cool res. meanwile ill look for coolers that wont break the bank too bad.

Appreciate the help as i really want to save these. Blueberry cheese, violator kush (both barneys) yummmmm

But otherwise the plants look great, nice dark green leafs, nodes 1" apart, very bushy. Im sure if i let the plythium get comfortable it will sufficate my plants, but im going to the store after work today..

it will take a few days for the hygrozyme to start working, but thenafter it doesn't stop working, just keep adding it every water change...


the thing with hygrozyme is that you will notice the light brown slime turn into a dark brown slime when it starts to work, that slime will stay there until it dissolves and the plants eat it up..hygrozyme turns root rot into usable stuff for plants, everything else will start to fall off and will be removed when you do a water change, soon you will see nothing but bone white/semi-tan roots (healthy roots)

hygrozyme is a lot better than a 300-1000 dollar water chiller, believe me, i have them BOTH

bobbyboy34 said:

it will take a few days for the hygrozyme to start working, but thenafter it doesn't stop working, just keep adding it every water change...


the thing with hygrozyme is that you will notice the light brown slime turn into a dark brown slime when it starts to work, that slime will stay there until it dissolves and the plants eat it up..hygrozyme turns root rot into usable stuff for plants, everything else will start to fall off and will be removed when you do a water change, soon you will see nothing but bone white/semi-tan roots (healthy roots)

hygrozyme is a lot better than a 300-1000 dollar water chiller, believe me, i have them BOTH

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The thing is that water has more DO (dissolved oxygen) when it is held at lower temperatures. Hygrozyme definitely has its benefits, and if you think your grow is suceptable to becoming infected then use it. If you can keep things in control though, you shouldn't need it. I have heard stories of hygrozyme killing off the good bacteria MORE SO than the bad and then the bad bacteria took over even more so from the complete lack of good bacteria after using the hygrozyme. Its up to you just be careful....they are your babies after all.

A little quote from http://waterontheweb.org/under/waterquality/oxygen.html

For trout, or your plants, there ain't no difference, cold is better.

"
Another physical process that affects DO concentrations is the relationship between water temperature and gas saturation. Cold water can hold more of any gas, in this case oxygen, than warmer water. Warmer water becomes "saturated" more easily with oxygen. As water becomes warmer it can hold less and less DO. So, during the summer months in the warmer top portion of a lake, the total amount of oxygen present may be limited by temperature. If the water becomes too warm, even if 100% saturated, O2 levels may be suboptimal for many species of trout.

i had a similar pithium problem and it wasent brown but i use gh nuets. if anything find my post and check it out, i went through hell but got it resolved.

Called up my local hydro store. He has the Hygrozyme but doesnt have any "beneficial bacterias" that he knew of. Are there any other popular brands i could ask for?

I got home and went t check onmy plants. Stuck my hand in the res and it was COLD. i dont htink this is a heat issue. So i dug in a little further. Stuck my ph pen in res and it read 6.1. dash high, so i go to put in a tad ph down, still 6.1.. hmmm so i dunk my pen in 7.0 solution and its reading like 101! so then i put the pen in my tap (which i KNOW is 7. and its reading some weird ass number. I try to go back to res and get readng and pen is just all over the place. So maybe this has been a broken PH pen all along?

But how come my other res is fine and plants are making nice buds if pen is wrong?

either way. Ill go buy some ph reading solution tomorrow (cant afford ANOTHER pen) along with the hygrozyme.

Clean roots off in the tub earlier. They are still close to white. MUCH MUCH MUCH whiter than those pics i showed. Some of the roots broke off in the process but they didnt look good anyhow.. I dunno, i woulda thrown this grow away if it werent for the genetics...

Beer42O said:

Called up my local hydro store. He has the Hygrozyme but doesnt have any "beneficial bacterias" that he knew of. Are there any other popular brands i could ask for?

I got home and went t check onmy plants. Stuck my hand in the res and it was COLD. i dont htink this is a heat issue. So i dug in a little further. Stuck my ph pen in res and it read 6.1. dash high, so i go to put in a tad ph down, still 6.1.. hmmm so i dunk my pen in 7.0 solution and its reading like 101! so then i put the pen in my tap (which i KNOW is 7. and its reading some weird ass number. I try to go back to res and get readng and pen is just all over the place. So maybe this has been a broken PH pen all along?

But how come my other res is fine and plants are making nice buds if pen is wrong?

either way. Ill go buy some ph reading solution tomorrow (cant afford ANOTHER pen) along with the hygrozyme.

Clean roots off in the tub earlier. They are still close to white. MUCH MUCH MUCH whiter than those pics i showed. Some of the roots broke off in the process but they didnt look good anyhow.. I dunno, i woulda thrown this grow away if it werent for the genetics...

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In your situation just stick with the hygrozyme, beneficial bacteria has way more of a role in soil than it does with hydro. And in terms of keeping your grow room steril ,hygrozyme is definitely a better bet. Beneficial bacteria just eats all of the same stuff in your rez that bad bacteria does, so the bad bacteria runs out of food and then can't survive. That will help with preventing root rot problems but hygrozyme is better ifyou already have a root rot infection for sure.

And like I said, the water can be cold, but if the air in the rez is warm (which it can be without making the water too warm) can create problems.

Just stick with the hygrozyme and everything should be fine.

Stupid question... Where is the +rep button moved to?

K. Got back, changed res. I see ZERO plythium slime on roots. Im changing res and adding hygrozyme anyhow. PH was VERY VERY low. 4.9ish. I quickly got plants out of res and fixed... added hygrozyme to other res in 12/12 as well... ill keep everyone posted, and thanks again for the help.

hygrozyme also stablizes the nute solution somewhat, you won't see the same fluctuation with it as you would without it

it says 8-10ml per gallon, max of 15ml p/gallon. I only used about 20ml. per res. Figure they have about 4 gallons each. So i went about 1/2 strength. I figure if i see an improvement i can always add more. I find with hydro your better off starting low and adding from there.