Nutrients sticking to roots :(

First grow. I have a bag seed in a six inch net pot five gallon bucket with an air stone. Ph well water to 5. To 5.5 . Parts per million before fox farm is .15 ppm after adding fox farm big bloom 5 tbsp. General feeding schedule on bottle is four tbsp per gallon I only added 5 total. Stirred solution well put the stone in the middle and came back later and the roots had a thick build up all over and the nutrient is making clumps and becoming settled in the bottom and sides of the bucket. I’ve sprayed the roots clean and it was a lot thicker then the picture I’m posting. Is this normal? And I appreciate the knowledge and happy holidays!

Hold on

Go by this schedule not the bottle

And think yer messed up.... .15 ppm after adding the nutes isn't possible, may wanna re read yet pen

You need to mix the solution for at least 15-30min...be sure it's mixed before adding it to your bucket

Plus u need an enzyme cleaner like hydroguard or z7 to keep goopies at bay

Or use sodium hypochlorite and run sterile for 1/100th the cost

BobThe420Builder said:

Hold on

Go by this schedule not the bottle

And think yer messed up.... .15 ppm after adding the nutes isn't possible, may wanna re read yet pen

You need to mix the solution for at least 15-30min...be sure it's mixed before adding it to your bucket

Plus u need an enzyme cleaner like hydroguard or z7 to keep goopies at bay

Click to expand...

My apologies the ppm was before feeding. That’s from the tap my ppm is 190

mr4tune said:

Or use sodium hypochlorite and run sterile for 1/100th the cost

Click to expand...

what are your thoughts on using peroxide for roots?

I wish I was smart enough to give you an educated answer but I don't. Something about h2o2 being much more volatile than chlorine and how the 2 react different to organic material.

IMO DIY UC Roots is more forgiving as far as dosing, and it lasts longer in the water. One is using chlorine to sterilize and the other is strictly a water molecule with an extra oxygen atom or something. I've been told from quite a few sources that running h2o2 in a system is a fix, not a preventative. Broscience? maybe. My roots and wallet don't lie.

Hey dude I recommend watching this video I'm also new so hope this helps

4 tbs /gal is some pretty watered down stuff. I use 1 tbs of Flora Nova in 5 gal. Your baby plant looks freaky so it must not like it anyway. You should at least cut the nutes by half and see if the plant starts to thrive.

mr4tune said:

I wish I was smart enough to give you an educated answer but I don't. Something about h2o2 being much more volatile than chlorine and how the 2 react different to organic material.

IMO DIY UC Roots is more forgiving as far as dosing, and it lasts longer in the water. One is using chlorine to sterilize and the other is strictly a water molecule with an extra oxygen atom or something. I've been told from quite a few sources that running h2o2 in a system is a fix, not a preventative. Broscience? maybe. My roots and wallet don't lie.

Click to expand...

"My roots and wallet dont lie"
Realest shit I have heard on here in awhile.

Trout tricker said:

First grow. I have a bag seed in a six inch net pot five gallon bucket with an air stone. Ph well water to 5. To 5.5 . Parts per million before fox farm is .15 ppm after adding fox farm big bloom 5 tbsp. General feeding schedule on bottle is four tbsp per gallon I only added 5 total. Stirred solution well put the stone in the middle and came back later and the roots had a thick build up all over and the nutrient is making clumps and becoming settled in the bottom and sides of the bucket. I’ve sprayed the roots clean and it was a lot thicker then the picture I’m posting. Is this normal? And I appreciate the knowledge and happy holidays!

Click to expand...

Get rid of your organic Fox Farm and run a synthetic like GH. Any organic load you have in your water is going to be oxidized by peroxide or HOCL rendering it useless for protecting roots.

5BY5LEC said:

Get rid of your organic Fox Farm and run a synthetic like GH. Any organic load you have in your water is going to be oxidized by peroxide or HOCL rendering it useless for protecting roots.

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This. Using nutes with organic components is a bad idea in hydro. Bacteria/algae just love that crap and will grow like crazy. GH, or Jacks 321 hydro mix or the miracle grow stuff are all good pure salts and will reduce your bio problems to a large degree. As an added bonus, your PH control will be easier as any bio activity drives the PH up.

Speaking of PH, your keeping it too low. You should run 5.5-6.1 with 5.8 the ideal average. Its good for the plant to have a range of PH, so dont get too hung up on keeping it in a narrow range.

I suppose its possible you may be getting clumps of undissolved nutes on the roots, but I really doubt that. You would have to be dumping in a ton. It would have been easier to tell if you had a pic.

But - the pic you show is NOT nutes clinging to the roots or staining them. That brownish crap is the beginnings of a bio-film of some type. Any thing like that is bad news to one degree or another. It could be relatively benign or it could be the start of full on root rot.

One other critical element of keeping bacterial growth down in hydro is water temps. It really helps to keep the temps below 70F if at all possible. If you cant do that, then even if you are running pure salt nutes - with zero organic components as listed above - then you really need to run sterile. By that I mean you need to use low dose chlorine or H2O2 on a regular basis. Some peoplke have luck with bio based enzymes and stuff like hydroguard, but I think they are useless - especially if you have an established infection like in your case, or if temps are higher than 70F. For sure you cannot mix the two - chlorine or H2O2 will just kill the beneficial bacteria in hydroguard, etc.