should I quit this girls??----rootrot

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PizzaMan5000

Well-Known Member
**I've never done aeroponics beyond cloning**, but in DWC I would run 2 drops of bleach per 5 gallon bucket, every other day. I believe it was 50-100ppm. I did this for two years straight.

^^^ Bleach hasn't fixed root for for me, only prevented it.

Recently a buddy doing his first indoor grow had dwc with horrible root in one bucket. The plant was basically idle for over a week, while it's peers grew. We used the lid of a big Rubbermaid tub, laid the roots in it, and dumped 3% peroxide on the roots. We combed the rot away with peroxide and bare fingers, and rinsed with more peroxide. Peroxide literally foams the goop away. The plant was happy two days later.

I use peroxide to fix, bleach to prevent. I don't think 5-10ppm chlorine is enough. 50ppm minimum imho. Obviously, I'm not an organic/bennies kinda guy. My former grow was surrounded by moldy woods and riverbanks... Mold smell was OUTSIDE! I would take a tank sprayer full of bleach water and do the whole house.
 
K

kenmastazz

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
do you think you can cut one out of the rockwool without destroying the roots? i still think the RW is the issue being wet all the time
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I ditched the girls but kept one where i ripped apart the rockwool and got the roots out. I let the roots marinate in some tnc mycorrmax put it in a glas half filled with a very mild nute solution ph 6 under 30w led just to see what happens
 

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rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
kenmastazz said:
I ditched the girls but kept one where i ripped apart the rockwool and got the roots out. I let the roots marinate in some tnc mycorrmax put it in a glas half filled with a very mild nute solution ph 6 under 30w led just to see what happens
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when i used to buy clones, the first thing i did was cut away the rockwool and right into the hydroton.

i think that plant will do well. keep us posted.
 
JSB99

JSB99

Well-Known Member
harrythehat said:
That system is going to be the cause of so many problems as you see now and later on.
they need top watering till theres plenty of roots
spray emmiters will only wet the outside of the hydrotron
DWC works totally different is a very active system and will not give problems when running right
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Totally agree! Sprayers have got to be one of the most finicky things in hydro! They clog all the time, and if you don't catch them fast enough, the plants don't last long at all.
 
Budley Doright

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member
Larry3215 said:
I just had a thought. You said your water temps were down in the mid 60's - but what are the temps in the root chamber? Does the water have time to warm up or it the air temp inside higher by chance?

Im reaching for anything now....

EDIT: Thought #2 - light pollution.

I was just going over some changes Im planning for my next grow. One of my critical check items is always light leaks. Light leaks are bad news. Light leaks can cause algae/bacterial growth even when running a sterile rez with pure salt nutes.

I notice all your fittings, tubing, and root chamber are white plastic. Cant tell about your rez.

White plastic doesnt stop light well at all unless its really thick. I see what look like thin plastic caps filling some unused net pot holes, and that tubing you are using looks fairly thin.

Take a bright flashlight and put it up tight against the side of the plastic and see if any light gets through. Check the rez lid, fittings etc. If light is getting through, a layer of aluminum foil will block it without a lot of trouble trying to paint, or replacing parts.
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My first run at LP was a failure due to the chamber getting into the 80’s even while running a chiller. I was also a big fan of hydroguard but it’s impossible to get here so I switched to H2O2 when I needed it. The only way I was able to save that first run was to turn the sprayers in full time to keep things cool with the chilled water. I found that rockwool was a bitch as well and just started putting my seedlings directly into the medium and hand watering until the roots were established. Another suggestion would be once the rot starts if there still very young, toss them as the effort to save them re time lost is not worth it IMO.
 
K

kenmastazz

Well-Known Member
Budley Doright said:
My first run at LP was a failure due to the chamber getting into the 80’s even while running a chiller. I was also a big fan of hydroguard but it’s impossible to get here so I switched to H2O2 when I needed it. The only way I was able to save that first run was to turn the sprayers in full time to keep things cool with the chilled water. I found that rockwool was a bitch as well and just started putting my seedlings directly into the medium and hand watering until the roots were established. Another suggestion would be once the rot starts if there still very young, toss them as the effort to save them re time lost is not worth it IMO.
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Hi,

thanks for the input. I already tossed 2 sets of grow almost 20 plants. But this time I will do things differently. First of all I choose feminized seeds instead of Auto so I have more time to experiment and I will use something similar to rapid rooter instead of rockwool and will handwater until I have some roots and then start the system.

I will use a mild solution and 3 liters of tea in my 50l tank and add a cup of tea every 2-3 day. I thought a lot about sterile vs bennies and decided to use bennies as I see more advantages and to be honest I like the „nature“ route more but I hope I won’t get a backlash I’ve read that organic and hydro is tricky because of the sugars for the bennies=food for bad bacteria. I also use a biofilter hope everything will work out.

tea recipe:
1-2 handful earthworm
1 tsp tnc mycormax
1 tsp tnc bactorrs13
5-10ml Bud candy instead of molasses
4 Liter ro water
 
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Budley Doright

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member
kenmastazz said:
Hi,

thanks for the input. I already tossed 2 sets of grow almost 20 plants. But this time I will do things differently. First of all I choose feminized seeds instead of Auto so I have more time to experiment and I will use something similar to rapid rooter instead of rockwool and will handwater until I have some roots and then start the system.

I will use a mild solution and 3 liters of tea in my 50l tank and add a cup of tea every 2-3 day. I thought a lot about sterile vs bennies and decided to use bennies as I see more advantages and to be honest I like the „nature“ route more but I hope I won’t get a backlash I’ve read that organic and hydro is tricky because of the sugars for the bennies=food for bad bacteria. I also use a biofilter hope everything will work out.

tea recipe:
1-2 handful earthworm
1 tsp tnc mycormax
1 tsp tnc bactorrs13
5-10ml Bud candy instead of molasses
4 Liter ro water
Click to expand...
No backlash from me only best of luck. Yes it is tricky and I had great success with flood a drain but it was always a struggle with LPS so I didn’t run it for long. Also given my setup a chiller made things much more stable
 
H

HighFlow

Active Member
You used to do soil right? My advice would to be get some plants growing in soil where you are happy. In the mean time, sterilise the shit out of everything in your hydro setup and then when you get to it, clone from the soil grown plants and place clones in your aero system. Trying to figure out whats going on using seedlings is costly both in time and money. They're just too finicky. Get a healthy plant and clone it, then dial in your system from there. That's my take anyway. Good luck!
 
S

Slyclyde1991

Active Member
Larry3215 said:
Ignore harry. He has no clue about aero. At all.

Root rot is really tough to kill once it is establish, so you may well have to dump them all, but it is worth trying for a while longer I think.

I have questions though.

Are you recirculating or drain to waste?

Either way, dump the rez and clean it with strong bleach, rince, then refill, but keep the PPM low. Maybe even just tap water until they start to recover.

If there are sections of the roots that are really soft and pull off easily, do so. It is better to get rid of as much as you can. This will stunt the plants, but might let you save them.

Raise the chlorine to 10 PPM for 24-36 hours, then drop back to 5 PPM. I would also top water the hydroton with that strong solution. The bacteria is going to be in there too and your spray might not reach it well. Dont worry about over watering - you cant over water in hydro as long as the water is aerated.

5PPM chlorine is a safe maintenance level, but its never worked for me when trying to kill an established infection. Even 10 PPM may not work, but its worth a shot. It might burn the roots some, but thats still better than the plant going in the trash. The roots will recover if you kill the bacteria.

Im curious - are you trying to run this as NFT or LPA or HPA?

Im afraid your root chambers are going to end up way too small no matter which option though. Even autos will grow roots to fill a pretty big volume.

Im currently running 3 autos in an air atomized aero setup with a 56 gallon root chamber and its more than 1/3 full with roots and I still have a few weeks to go.

Some of my roots from different grows.
View attachment 4799807View attachment 4799811
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I just came looking at those roots. Gotta change my underwear now, thanks alot :neutral:
 
Southernontariogrower

Southernontariogrower

Well-Known Member
you can smell root rot, if you want to save them i put them in promix hp m it works well, they don't miss a beat, never had one die, had root rot a few times. Think its the mycorhyzae
 
Southernontariogrower

Southernontariogrower

Well-Known Member
I've got three plants that are in Rockwood, handwater hydro, they are in soiless now and doing fine. The less you mess the better, clean them up and drop em in. Go on as it never happened. Save them its easy. Can't say about any other medium, all I use is promix hp m, its peatmoss, perlite ,lime and mycorhyzae
 
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