Roots getting dark after nute change.

Hey guys I am very new to DWC as this is my first attempt. I am using a 5 gallon bucket with a duel outlet air pump and a circle style air stone. My reservoir seems to be getting tons of oxygen. I am using Advanced Nutrients PH perfect Sensi Grow part A and part B as directed on the bottle. I am PHing my water to around 6.1 - 6.2 and water temp seems to be pretty cool, though I don't have a thermometer to test it. I am vegging under a SunBlaze 4ft 8 bulb t5.

My issue is every time that I change out the nutrient solution (every week to week and half) my roots get this super nasty looking dark color to them. They aren't slimy but if I rub my finger across the roots it will accumulate on my fingers. It is like a dark red / brown color. My reservoir is light proof and I really just don't know what is going on. I also noticed as you can see in the pictures the plant is limpy and not real perky if you will. When I feel the leaves they feel like velvet and super soft almost wet feeling to the touch. Outside of that the plant seems to be quite healthy and vibrant green. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated as I have really no clue what I am doing here. I have also noticed that after several days that they have been in the nutrient solution the roots seem to clear up slightly. Here are some pictures of the plants in question.

that looks like root rot to me.

if i was you i would get my self some Hydroguard. its a life saver.
if it persists or gets worse i would brew a tea. search on the forum "Heisenberg tea" its a sticky at the top in the DWC section.

coopersheldon said:

that looks like root rot to me.

if i was you i would get my self some Hydroguard. its a life saver.
if it persists or gets worse i would brew a tea. search on the forum "Heisenberg tea" its a sticky at the top in the DWC section.

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The thing that I don't understand is that it only does this when I change the nutrients. Can that be explained?

could just be the nutrients staining the roots, but the way they are all clumped together like this doesnt look good to me

and you think that Hydro guard cause I do have some could reverse this damage or should I just scrap it?

Vildez said:

and you think that Hydro guard cause I do have some could reverse this damage or should I just scrap it?

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Its up to you, you need to ensure.
1) no light leaks
2) enough bubbles
3) cool res temps no higher than 20degrees.
4) everything is nice and clean

could brew a tea & try and fight it (just for practise if you were going to scrap it)
hydroguard would help IMO

coopersheldon said:

Its up to you, you need to ensure.
1) no light leaks
2) enough bubbles
3) cool res temps no higher than 20degrees.
4) everything is nice and clean

could brew a tea & try and fight it (just for practise if you were going to scrap it)
hydroguard would help IMO

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You say brew a tea.. Can you give me an example I would love the practice regardless if scraped or not. I just really want to learn this and have no clue what I'm doing, so if there is any knowledge that you can pass on, by all means hook it up!

1) get 2 gallons of water.
2) pH water if required
3) put air stone in
4) add 1/4 Teaspoon Mykos Water Soluble
5) add 1/4 Teaspoon Great White
6) a palm full of BioBizz Worm Humus (in a sock) (cant find Ancient forest)
7) 3/4 Teaspoon Black Strap Molasses

then let it bubble for 48 hours.

coopersheldon said:

1) get 2 gallons of water.
2) pH water if required
3) put air stone in
4) add 1/4 Teaspoon Mykos Water Soluble
5) add 1/4 Teaspoon Great White
6) a palm full of BioBizz Worm Humus (in a sock) (cant find Ancient forest)
7) 3/4 Teaspoon Black Strap Molasses

then let it bubble for 48 hours.

Click to expand...

Are these things I can pick up at a hydro store? I'm not sure what Great White is unless your talking about beer. BioBizz and the Mykos ??? Once this is brewed am I just letting my plants go to this, and if so how long?

Are you using just the Sensi A+B? I'm using the Connie A+B, with B-52 in veg and mine do the same thing. I think it's the B-52 staining the roots on mine, looks just like yours and it goes away in a couple days. Does it feel almost gritty/fine sand like when you run your fingers on it? That's what mine felt like.

I'll also say use Hydroguard. I started getting root slime in my flower unit because i couldn't control temps. Once i started using the Hydroguard the root slime went away and hasn't come back even though my res's have gone as high as 78F a couple times.

What are your res temps? I need to ice mine down ( frozen soda bottles) every couple days to keep them in check. I try to get the res to drop to mid-low 60's then i let it come back up over a couple days to low 70's and do it all over again, ideally you want it to be 68-72. Get a digital aquarium thermometer similar to this.

I paid about $10 for it but you can get them way cheaper online. like here>
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/321401390347?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82
I started with one, moving it from bucket to bucket but have ended up buying one for each of my res's/buckets.

if you make a tea, it makes all the products last 1000x longer.
but for ease hydroguard and a good old scrub will do.
ensure no light leaks and keep temps under control
ensure there is atleast 1" of air gap between the netpot and the water level.

check this video out.


FYI. AquaShield is hydroguard.

how are the nutes being added. are they just measured and poured in the res or are they diluted in some water like a half gallon and stirred. also one other question do you add all the nutes in the same cup all at once then pour the nute in. pending on how you add the nutes could have been a ph shock to the roots as of the concentrate of nutes standing by the roots..i found with a dwc i like a 300gph pump to recirculate the res so the nutes are always being mixed.

coopersheldon said:

that looks like root rot to me.

if i was you i would get my self some Hydroguard. its a life saver.
if it persists or gets worse i would brew a tea. search on the forum "Heisenberg tea" its a sticky at the top in the DWC section.

Click to expand...

Did I make you a believer with the hydroguard?

Vumar said:

Did I make you a believer with the hydroguard?

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Without a doubt aha!

tokalotapot said:

how are the nutes being added. are they just measured and poured in the res or are they diluted in some water like a half gallon and stirred. also one other question do you add all the nutes in the same cup all at once then pour the nute in. pending on how you add the nutes could have been a ph shock to the roots as of the concentrate of nutes standing by the roots..i found with a dwc i like a 300gph pump to recirculate the res so the nutes are always being mixed.

Click to expand...

I fill my reservoir to the desired volume of water and then separately add the nutes one at a time (part A, part B). After using a stir stick and making sure the nutes are all mixed up in the reservoir I then ph my water to 6.0 - 6.2. This is then when I add the plants back into the DWC. Is this not correct or am I doing something wrong there?


As far as Hydroguard ...... (Hoping it solves the problem)

I haven't done a reservoir change yet and am doing one tmrw morning. I will be using it but as the week has gone on like always the roots have now seemed to clear up significant. That's the part I don't understand is why it only happens about 3 hours after then res change. Then it lasts for aprox 4 days until they clear up again. Any further knowledge on what could be going on here would be greatly appreciated.

Vildez said:

I fill my reservoir to the desired volume of water and then separately add the nutes one at a time (part A, part B). After using a stir stick and making sure the nutes are all mixed up in the reservoir I then ph my water to 6.0 - 6.2. This is then when I add the plants back into the DWC. Is this not correct or am I doing something wrong there?


As far as Hydroguard ...... (Hoping it solves the problem)

I haven't done a reservoir change yet and am doing one tmrw morning. I will be using it but as the week has gone on like always the roots have now seemed to clear up significant. That's the part I don't understand is why it only happens about 3 hours after then res change. Then it lasts for aprox 4 days until they clear up again. Any further knowledge on what could be going on here would be greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

it sounds the the nutes are just staining at the start then as they're more diluted its washing off, adding hydroguard will still do you the world of favours.

let us know how you get on mate

Hay I'm doing dwc first time and I use hydrograud and my roots are white I'm using general hrydro nova and its known to stain roots brown but with hydrograud there white.

this is only my educated guess. only thing i ever do different it sounds like is i dont take my plants out of my dwc when changing my nutes. also how many gph is your oxygen pump maybe lack of disolved oxygen in the water.i use glass bonded 6lmp airstones because the blue humus airstone clog and have really bad back pressure check the plant needs 1.4lmp of disolved oxygen to thrive.so i used 6lpm with 60watt airpump for the sake if there is a clog i still have overkill.last but not least what is your res temp. and with advanced nutrients no need for anything else dont waste the trip, in my opinion they are the besta and most hated by all which i love because they keep me above all competition.

Well first off I want to say thank you all so very much for being so helpful. I want to agree that it seems that the plants roots are simply being stained as I have made sure that everything else is stable. My rez temps are between 65 - 70 F. my PH ranges from 6.0 - 6.2. I do rez changes every 5 days and it seems to really only happen the first day or so. However I'm still getting some real bad cupping in the leaves and still a little droopy. Here are some updated pictures of how they are looking now. Let me know what you guys think.

-- I will be doing a rez change about 20 minutes after I post this.

hygrozym get it. damn that's gross