Root problems!

My plants are 5 weeks old and I have them in a homebuilt nft system with a 90L res. The tubes are 11 cm in diameter.

The plants are in rockwol cubes (9x9x9cm) which are in net pots that I have put in the tubes. No direct light gets in the tubes.

The water is flowing about 2-3 cm below the net pots, and I am using ATA Clean to prevent algea, and sensi advansed nutrients (PH perfect). The water is fresh tap water (which I drink every day and I feel fine).

water temp: 19°c-22°c
EC:1.7
room temp:18°c-26°c(depends on light period)
lots of air circulation in the room
humidity:50%-75%
PH( going to calibrate my new meter soon)

promlem: The roots do not seem to grow down in the flowing water, as soon as they grow out of the rockwool cubes(which all of them do now) they slowly become dark brown and simply die,at first I thought they were just drying up but I keep the cubes moist and now they just look very droppy at times, and the roots in the same condition as before. I have been watering them by hand for the past month with a bit of fertilizer now and then, apart from being droppy they look ok. I have also put a little shower fan on to one of the tubes as an experiment to blow air around the roots to see what that does.

My thoughts where that mabey the roots are too warm??

I am new to hydro!
Can someone please point it out what I am doing wrong or not doing what I should do?

And thanks for a great community.

even though your res may be around 67-70*f i found in nft using rails that the root zone will absorb a lot more heat from the room. beneficials like greatwhite can help. my new system is a rail inside of a larger rail and filled with expanding foam insulation, big difference in heat transfer tests. try wrapping your rails in bubble insulation.

So it is a heat problem then?

Would it not fix it if I just blow more air through the tubes so that the root zone gets colder?

without pics its hard to say for sure. as for blowing air through the rails, are you doing this now? i keep mine as sealed as i can. roots dont like air. when i harvest i have a 2" thick mat of roots from end to end of the rail.

superstoner1 said:

even though your res may be around 67-70*f i found in nft using rails that the root zone will absorb a lot more heat from the room. beneficials like greatwhite can help. my new system is a rail inside of a larger rail and filled with expanding foam insulation, big difference in heat transfer tests. try wrapping your rails in bubble insulation.

Click to expand...

Ok, now I finally understand what you are talking about... How many degrees difference did it make?

The insulation might get wet? No

How did you fit them in there... did you use inner shell 4 inch, out sell 5 inch and stuff foam inbetween?

i am going to start a journal when i finish a few projects but this pic will give you an idea. i use foam collar pieces to center the rails and used a spray foam insulation. i drilled a few holes in the outer shell for getting the foam in all areas and taped them over to hold it in til cure

Sounds to me like your water level in your tubes is way too low. Also, what type of tubes are you using? Is light penetrating? If so, you need to fix that as well.

Cool your res, and wrap your tubes in that silver bubble insulation at lowes/home depot. When I ran NFT that was the KEY to keep healthy white roots, cooling reservior (which I did with pop bottles) and then wrapping the tubes and keeping the insides cool.

I didn't like battling humidty because of NFT always spraying in the room.

an nft or aero system really shouldnt affect room rh. it should be contained and let the plants put the moisture out.

Make sure your tubes are lightproof.
Also consider using a cooler (instead of a rubbermaid tub) for a reservoir. They're insulated and keep water cold for much longer. Then freeze some 2L water bottles and drop em in to cool your res.

superstoner1 said:

i am going to start a journal when i finish a few projects but this pic will give you an idea. i use foam collar pieces to center the rails and used a spray foam insulation. i drilled a few holes in the outer shell for getting the foam in all areas and taped them over to hold it in til cure

Click to expand...

Good job!, witty is the word

yes I am blowing colder air in the tubes as we speak(read somwhere that it could help), the incomming air is 13-14°c, and my observations tell me it has heated to 18-20°c where the plants are or mabey the blower is not doing much, the system is 3.5 m long and i am only using the first 1,5m(at this time), the air is comming in at the other end. should I stop this immediately??? and focus on lowering res temp???

The tubes are pp or pvc something like that, made of white plastic materials.

I did wrap them in black and white plastic from start so that there would not be any light penetrating the roots, there may be some leakage around the plants but not much.

Res is about 19-21°c now, and the water comming out of the tubes is allmost the same, mabey 22°c if that much..

And the depth of the water is around 1cm with a good and constant flow, at least 1L per minute. should there be more water and closer to the plants?

And unfortunately I can not post any pictures, sorry.

thanks again, please keep the ideas comming... I have learned a bunch on this site..

i have never heard of such a thing. air blowing on roots? your stunting the roots by air pruning. roots want cool dark wet place, if they wanted air they would grow on top of the ground.

since u said u are using ph perfect sensi ab read this. https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/525004-need-advice-some-pros-brown.html

then refer to this. https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

get the non-ph perfect sensi and brew some tea. see if that helps bc it can't hurt.

Good luck!
-Sterner

I think theres a feww issues at hand, your roots are root pruning before they can reach the flowing water.
ways to solve this is to add a drip system to each plant, this will allow your plant to grow roots and reach the water
and at this point you could shut the drip system off. Kepping your water cool is a must! If posable 66f to 70f.
also by adding bennys like teas or like said above greatwhite work well, i like aquashield super simple 20 bucks
for a gallon and works killer.

• i have never heard of such a thing. air blowing on roots? your stunting the roots by air pruning. roots want cool dark wet place, if they wanted air they would grow on top of the ground.​
  
  
  
  

You are right, When you put it that way it sounds stupid...

And thanks for the links sterner, I am sure I have some brown slime now or algae, just watered the plants with a solution of ATA Clean to see if that helps, I also put some in the res a few days ago because I thought I had slime or algae in the bottom of the tubes then, and it has almost all gone now.

Has anyone had expirience with ATA Clean, it raises the EC level and I dont know how often is safe to use, or how well it works in the long term?

• I think theres a feww issues at hand, your roots are root pruning before they can reach the flowing water.
  ways to solve this is to add a drip system to each plant, this will allow your plant to grow roots and reach the water
  and at this point you could shut the drip system off.​
  
  
  
  

I also think this is spot on... But a drip system may be out, because of low budged.

And the res temp rarely reaches 70f I think.

Going to see if complete light proofing and ATA Clean solution along with more frequent watering will help for a start. spending money on equipment will be next choice.

Thanks...

find a product called pondzyme, i get it at a local nusery, and it is a cheap way to get beneficials and they will eat all the rotten roots.

If a drip system is out of question, then you need to raise the water level to the bottom of your net pots until you have roots submerged!

Tanks a lot, I am sure all this information will help me get healthy plants..

Happy growing.

^Slanty said:

If a drip system is out of question, then you need to raise the water level to the bottom of your net pots until you have roots submerged!

Click to expand...

Even when you have roots coming out of the net pots, you should still be running the water level less than an inch below at most with that type of setup. You are running the level WAY too low from my understanding.