Plants are having a rough time!

[HydroRed]

OK. This guy has it right. Only thing is that the store bought 3% H202 is garbage in a Hydroponic system.
Get 29% or higher.
And it will NOT Kill roots, the roots love the extra Oxygen. Just follow the directions on the bottle. Assuming you buy it at the Hydro store.

Agreed, I just suggested the 3% since it is very inexpensive and found at most any grocery store or pharmacy. Absolutely get the hydro grade 30% if available.

 

[Budley Doright]

It's not lol, well not today anyways, the hydro store is open tomorrow, I'll see. Also wondering about water treatment stores and if they sell. I'll google that one so I get my story straight and not stammer for an answer about what I'm doing lol.

 

[redi jedi]

Dont fear chlorine

H2O2 gets expensive when your dealing with more than a few gallons

 

[redi jedi]

Not sure how h202 slows growth? It oxygenates the water and the roots and the only byproduct of it is water. Its cheap as dirt and readily available at any drugstore. Only real downfall to using it is it will kill off beneficial bacteria along with the bad bacteria if you are running organics.

Never use H2O2 from a drugstore..has a stabilizer for shelf life which is no good for plants. Use food grade only..29-35%

 

[Budley Doright]

All I've ever used is 29%, it's getting hard to find here.

 

[ttystikk]

It's the copper.
Copper and Nutriants do not mix.
Replace the copper screen with some silk screen mesh. You can get silk screen mesh at any art store.
Paint strainers work well too.

This is BULLSHIT and I'm tired of seeing it repeated. I use a copper coil heat exchanger in my RDWC control bucket, have for years, no problems. The only way copper will hurt plants is by direct contact.

 

[ttystikk]

@Budley Doright I had endless problems with RDWC until I got my water temps down into the mid 60s and made sure everything was constantly aerated, in my case by waterfall/topfeed.

I find that my early veg girls do better with mixed spectrum, such as two 2700k T5 tubes for every one of 6500k. As my girls get bigger in veg, I run HPS in order to get them to stretch a bit.

I've noticed that plants vegged under 5000k COB LED lighting look fantastic, leading me to believe that they like a broad spectrum of light, not just blue.

 

[Budley Doright]

Thanks tty!!! Been sailing through this spray setup for three years now with out a hitch. Not sure how to deal with this! I am hooking up the coil this weekend to get temps down and am trying to find some 35% H2O2 but the water treatment places won't sell it. The bleach doesn't seem to touch it. Water temps are at 69 right now and as of yesterday I blasted the res with Beanies. The plants are still going but they are stunted. Any help! Should I use bleach or not, seems some say yes, some say no? I should have lots of DO as the roots are suspended in air and water fall is dropping 6" into bottom res.

 

[Dumme]

Thanks tty!!! Been sailing through this spray setup for three years now with out a hitch. Not sure how to deal with this! I am hooking up the coil this weekend to get temps down and am trying to find some 35% H2O2 but the water treatment places won't sell it. The bleach doesn't seem to touch it. Water temps are at 69 right now and as of yesterday I blasted the res with Beanies. The plants are still going but they are stunted. Any help! Should I use bleach or not, seems some say yes, some say no? I should have lots of DO as the roots are suspended in air and water fall is dropping 6" into bottom res.

Hydrofarm sells it. Check out ebay

 

[Mustaine4prez]

This is BULLSHIT and I'm tired of seeing it repeated. I use a copper coil heat exchanger in my RDWC control bucket, have for years, no problems. The only way copper will hurt plants is by direct contact.

Wow. Don't be calling out people's comments as bullshit. Nothing bullshit about it. The copper fittings are not good for a hydroponic system. Plan and simple.

I simply suggested a safer screen material to use instead of the copper. My post was not bullshit. It was actually helpful.

 

[Dumme]

I use copper in every hydro system I've had. Never a problem. I use it for all the water lines (PEX fittings).

All my feed lines go through my drain lines so the copper is making contact 100% of the time in multiple spots. Doesn't seem to bother the fish either.

 

[HydroRed]

Never use H2O2 from a drugstore..has a stabilizer for shelf life which is no good for plants. Use food grade only..29-35%

No stabilizers in mine that I can find in the ingredients? I thought the stabilizer for shelf life was the fact it has a sealed top and a brown light proof bottle.

 

[redi jedi]

This is BULLSHIT and I'm tired of seeing it repeated. I use a copper coil heat exchanger in my RDWC control bucket, have for years, no problems. The only way copper will hurt plants is by direct contact.

Way back in the day when Al.b.Fuct was around he told me never to use any metal components in a hydroponic system. According to Al, there is an ion exchange between the nutes and the metal. It effectively neutralizes your nutes...now I'm regurgitating what he told me from memory but its all in his threads.

A few years later, when I built a mini-fridge chiller using 50' copper coil, I found out he wasn't wrong. When my plants started to yellow out even though my EC was still were it should be. Within days, I lost the crop.

Now do all nutes react with metal...IDK? At the time I was using AN, and they reacted without a doubt.

 

[redi jedi]

No stabilizers in mine that I can find in the ingredients? I thought the stabilizer for shelf life was the fact it has a sealed top and a brown light proof bottle.

That may be due to labeling requirements of where you live...just a guess. I'm in Canada.

 

[ttystikk]

Way back in the day when Al.b.Fuct was around he told me never to use any metal components in a hydroponic system. According to Al, there is an ion exchange between the nutes and the metal. It effectively neutralizes your nutes...now I'm regurgitating what he told me from memory but its all in his threads.

A few years later, when I built a mini-fridge chiller using 50' copper coil, I found out he wasn't wrong. When my plants started to yellow out even though my EC was still were it should be. Within days, I lost the crop.

Now do all nutes react with metal...IDK? At the time I was using AN, and they reacted without a doubt.

My copper heat exchange coil has been sitting in my control bucket for years with no visible ill effects whatsoever. I'm not sure about any ionic exchange but the only time I've ever seen adverse effects was when I put a plant directly in that bucket. Where the roots touched the copper, they died.

I'm using dry nutrient salts without a lot of buffering, so I'm adding pH up and down to balance- right into the control bucket. If anything would do it, that would... wouldn't it?

You can grow very well in stainless steel tanks, so it's not every metal that does it.

 

[redi jedi]

My copper heat exchange coil has been sitting in my control bucket for years with no visible ill effects whatsoever. I'm not sure about any ionic exchange but the only time I've ever seen adverse effects was when I put a plant directly in that bucket. Where the roots touched the copper, they died.

I'm using dry nutrient salts without a lot of buffering, so I'm adding pH up and down to balance- right into the control bucket. If anything would do it, that would... wouldn't it?

You can grow very well in stainless steel tanks, so it's not every metal that does it.

Ya I've got SS wort chillers in my control buckets and theres no problem...

 

[Budley Doright]

I have removed the copper just in case and anything else that differs from original setup. Picking up a jug of peroxide this week but honestly it's getting tough to find here,

 

[ttystikk]

I have removed the copper just in case and anything else that differs from original setup. Picking up a jug of peroxide this week but honestly it's getting tough to find here,

My chiller works, no chemicals required.

 

[Budley Doright]

Yup just picked up the fittings to hook it up. Temps are an issue but I think I saved a couple of the girls the bleach seemed to do it, should have chiller going tomorow night. thx tty!

 

[blackforest]

Yup just picked up the fittings to hook it up. Temps are an issue but I think I saved a couple of the girls View attachment 3535285View attachment 3535287 the bleach seemed to do it, should have chiller going tomorow night. thx tty!

Looks like you are winning the battle. Lower rez temps are a must. I don't know how @ttystikk does it with rez temps alone, but I won my root battle by wiping everything out like you did, I used h202, (twice 24 hrs apart), changed out the water/nutes then added hydroguard w/ roots excel. Chiller keeping temps at 64-65, roots are bleach white and very clean. It's a clear liquid and is working very well. Some people have not had success with it, but I believe they were culturing bad bacteria with higher rez temps and perhaps too much aeration.

I actually backed off my air supply after reading undercurrent's website because the main goal with a chilled water source is dissolved oxygen rather than aeration from my understanding. Even small air pumps will max out DO in many situations. From my limited experience, I believe a highly aerated solution actually helps proliferate bacteria. Add in water temps above 70 and hope is limited imo. Perhaps one reason ttystikk's system works on chilled water only, with no air stones, only individual waterfalls is because the low aeration, although high dissolved oxygen along with low water temps keeps bad bacteria in check. I also believe a high ec with high aeration will cause bacteria outbreak, even at lower water temps. Before reading extensivly about undercurrent systems, I was running 60 lpm air into my 28 gal system, undercurrent recomends 22lpm for mine. I actually added a second 60lpm pump thinking more air the better, but the next day I noticed the slightest browning. I ran them for another 24 hrs and it got worse. Needless to say, I changed to a smaller air pump and everything is extremely happy. That's my theory at least. I'd love to hear anyone else's ideas too. Good Luck!