Root rot, should I cut off all exposed roots and try again?

I have been having some issues with my grow to say the least. It all started with my clones that came infected with spider mites. I have been treating them, but it's my first time dealing with them and I'm not super confident about it.

Then, about 2 weeks in, a chunk of something got caught in my water chiller. The res temps went up to about 74 and I noticed some root rot starting. I quickly rinsed the roots, clipped the slimy brown part and changed out the res. A few days later, almost all the roots on one plant have the slime on them. The other plant looks better, but still not great.

My question is, do I try treating with hydroguard and hope it comes back? Or would I be better off sterilizing my entire setup, dipping the entire plant in some pest management solution, clipping all exposed roots off, and re rooting? Can I even do that? Or do would need to take the branches only as clones.

Here are pics of both plant and their roots, they have been rooted for about 2-3 weeks and I think they have stalled

hydroguard will only help the uptake of nutrients and compete against the bad bacteria, but won't kill the bad bacteria causing root rot.
i include hydroguard in my nutrient solution when i feed my plants in my dwc.


i personally think you should try hydroguard first for a few days, and if you don't see any improvement, try h202.
for h202 transfer your plants into another bucket with a solution of h202 and let it kill off the bacteria for a few days, while cleaning and sterilizing your current bucket with hand soap and water. after a few days, transfer your plant back to its original sterilized bucket with nutrients including hydroguard.

last resort would be cutting off the root rot roots and have the plant recover by growing new roots. this would be my last resort if h202 and hydroguard doesn't work.

Why the two posts?


Like I said in the other one. Ditch the Hydroguard and use bleach or pool shock in a sterile environment. Both will work better than H2o2. Run a sterile system and move on.

I posted to the wrong section and can't figure out how to delete the original one, my bad.

Won't it keep coming back if the root rot is re introduced to the sterile system?

think of it like surgery and your plant is the patient

you have observed symptoms and diagnosed your plant with root rot, and need surgery.
surgery is using h202 to kill the bad bacteria causing root rot by breaking down the cell wall of the bacteria through oxidization.
post surgery treatment is treat the plant with medicine to recover faster which is your nutrient system including hydroguard and sterilizing your system.

Mr_X said:

think of it like surgery and your plant is the patient

you have observed symptoms and diagnosed your plant with root rot, and need surgery.
surgery is using h202 to kill the bad bacteria causing root rot by breaking down the cell wall of the bacteria through oxidization.
post surgery treatment is treat the plant with medicine to recover faster which is your nutrient system including hydroguard and sterilizing your system.

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What strength of h202 solution should I use? I have seen 3ml per gallon, is that enough?

How long should I treat them with that before putting it with it's regular nutrient solution (+ hydroguard)?

adam2706 said:

What strength of h202 solution should I use? I have seen 3ml per gallon, is that enough?

How long should I treat them with that before putting it with it's regular nutrient solution (+ hydroguard)?

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that's fine. 2-5 days of the plant being treated with a h202 solution. you can include nutrients in your h202 solution btw. just keep observing the roots until you see improvement. if you see no improvement, wait another day of the plant in the h202 nutrient solution. change the h202 solution everyday, because oxidization will make the h202 go away.

adam2706 said:

I posted to the wrong section and can't figure out how to delete the original one, my bad.

Won't it keep coming back if the root rot is re introduced to the sterile system?

Click to expand...

I ran hydro for years. The only time I had root rot was when I first started running a few flood tables and was using H202. I switched to bleach and went for years without another instance of root issues.

It's your grow. Hydroguard, H202, bleach, etc... Use what you want. I'm just telling you what I found worked. Bleach is simple, inexpensive and effective.

Good luck.

xtsho said:

I ran hydro for years. The only time I had root rot was when I first started running a few flood tables and was using H202. I switched to bleach and went for years without another instance of root issues.

It's your grow. Hydroguard, H202, bleach, etc... Use what you want. I'm just telling you what I found worked. Bleach is simple, inexpensive and effective.

Good luck.

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Thanks for the recommendation, I have heard mixed things about including bleach in the res with plants in there. How strong do you mix it?

Now that my water chiller is cleaned out, I fixed the long term problem (hopefully), now it is just finding a way to get the roots healthy again.

remember to use hand soap and not dishwasher soap when cleaning your reservoir.

Mr_X said:

remember to use hand soap and not dishwasher soap when cleaning your reservoir.

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I am swapping out the buckets and sterilizing them with hot water and bleach. Not taking any chances here!

xtsho said:

Why the two posts?

Do I clip clones, re root, and restart?

I have been having some issues with my grow to say the least. It all started with my clones that came infected with spider mites. I have been treating them, but it's my first time dealing with them and I'm not super confident about it. Then, about 2 weeks in, a chunk of something got caught in...

www.rollitup.org

Like I said in the other one. Ditch the Hydroguard and use bleach or pool shock in a sterile environment. Both will work better than H2o2. Run a sterile system and move on.

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It is the hardest thing to convince people pool shock or bleach is perfectly safe and effective

Herb & Suds said:

It is the hardest thing to convince people pool shock or bleach is perfectly safe and effective

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I'm down to give it a go. What strength do you recommend for bleach?

my current grow

sapling got an algae problem due to a light leak



recovery after a h202 and water solution. fixed the light leak with my golf scorecard. i also added a few drops of h202 onto the rockwool cubes. i used hydroguard after 3 days of using h202

don't worry about h202 harming your plant. your plant's cell wall is a lot tougher than pathogens and bacteria's cell wall.

adam2706 said:

I'm down to give it a go. What strength do you recommend for bleach?

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Use plain basic bleach with the only ingredient sodium hypochlorite. Aim for about 3ppm, added every 3-5 days.

I use tap water which starts with 1ppm (city water report) and add bleach to get to 3ppm.

Use this calculator to work out how much bleach you need to add - for me it was 6 drops.

I don't add bleach directly, I either add to a small amount of plain water or my nute top-up solution and introduce to the res that way.

My bleach treated roots

UPDATE:
I ended up pulling the plants, rinsing them with h202 solution and running that for about 3 days. I then added a/b nutes with cal mag and a small amount of bleach in sterilized buckets. Psylo, I used your calculator and I think that was what did the trick. It ran a week and the plants started to perk back up. I checked the res and I had some explosive root growth!

I'm not out of the woods yet, but I'm on the right track thanks for the advice everyone! I thought these plants were goners. Glad I stuck with them

Good to see things are improving. These plants can take a beating so there is almost always a way forward once you correct the problem.

My understanding is H202 and chlorine(in the bleach) work the same way so you only need to use one or the other. I found that calculator in a thread on here so just passing it along!