First time 6 site RDWC 60 gallon problems

[kingtitan]

Are you sure its the southern ag your smelling and not the root rot?

I ran no southern ag since the change I did prior to last night and the smell was very minimal, probably left over water in the pipes perhaps and the slime was slowed during that time. I added that 1 drop last night and today the water has a bit more smell. I quickly check that one tap root and it looks like it is covered in slime again. I see new roots shooting out the netpot pearly white and no slime.

Ill take a closer look in light in a few hours.

 

[Cold$moke]

Try some hydroguard?

I remember someone saying they called the southern ag company and they supposedly said its not good in dwc.
But i dont know the details on that

But jypsydogg uses it in his res with high temps

So im not sure .

Im sold on the hydroguard fir the time being

 

[kingtitan]

Try some hydroguard?

I remember someone saying they called the southern ag company and they supposedly said its not good in dwc.
But i dont know the details on that

But jypsydogg uses it in his res with high temps

So im not sure .

Im sold on the hydroguard fir the time being

I would try the hydroguard but it is not available in Canada since apparently they changed for Aquashield to Hydroguard name.

I am sure this was supposed to work but I messed up somewhere. Maybe that initial h2o2 was in the system still after 30+ hours? so when I added the AG it killed it off and left food for slime to take hold? I tried to stay damn clean before starting, even sprayed down the tent for good measure. nightmare!

 

[rkymtnman]

I would try the hydroguard but it is not available in Canada since apparently they changed for Aquashield to Hydroguard name.

I am sure this was supposed to work but I messed up somewhere. Maybe that initial h2o2 was in the system still after 30+ hours? so when I added the AG it killed it off and left food for slime to take hold? I tried to stay damn clean before starting, even sprayed down the tent for good measure. nightmare!

i'd give them a good dose. for 60 gal res, do you have 300mL dose for them? don't give up on the southern ag just yet. it works but you are starting from scratch after the h202 dose

 

[Cold$moke]

Hopefully you get it straightened out

im going to go buy some more while its on sale lol

 

[kingtitan]

I am having a hard time decinging what to do right now. 300ml of AG sounds like a nightmare when just adding 3ml and that 1 drop is messing me up. Think i wanna try going strile with h2o2 doses every few days.

You guys think i should skip the RO and start with tap water? tap water here is world class so i am not worried. its about 230ppm at the tap. or maybe mix the 20gal RO i have right now with it?
I am going to get the hose hooked up to my water heater and spray this down with my 10% pool bleach. The plants should be find for an hour or so if i put them onto 5gal buckets (the net pots were made for it). planning to let them soak in some h2o2 in the buckets while i do cleaning.

sorry for grammer, typing on mobile loaner from service provider lol

 

[Cold$moke]

I dont think it's been long enough to notice improvements

but if you really notice a huge difference just from a drop of the ag

Take what ever course you are comfortable with

You have several options pick the one your going to feel is best and roll with it.

I can say just from my tiny week long stint with bleach.
I wont be going down that road again ymmv

Ill try to get you a pic

 

[Cold$moke]

These are my roots after about 1 week of completely cutting the root ball off and adding hydrogaurd

Im so glad i didnt put bleach in my main rdwc setups because the only ones that got any rot where the ones with bleach .

Ymmv

 

[HydroRed]

you do h2o2, correct? have you ever compared/contrasted it to chlorine?

Yes, drug store 3%. Other than tap Ive never run added bleach but hear good results from those that use the pool shock. All these years and I've never had root rot or res skunk to need to step up any further than I have with the H2o2 and I've also never owned a chiller. I better find some wood to knock on now.....

 

[HydroRed]

Isnt Hydroguard a benny? If it is, the H2o2 killed off any magic it was doing.

I am having a hard time decinging what to do right now. 300ml of AG sounds like a nightmare when just adding 3ml and that 1 drop is messing me up. Think i wanna try going strile with h2o2 doses every few days.

You guys think i should skip the RO and start with tap water? tap water here is world class so i am not worried. its about 230ppm at the tap. or maybe mix the 20gal RO i have right now with it?
I am going to get the hose hooked up to my water heater and spray this down with my 10% pool bleach. The plants should be find for an hour or so if i put them onto 5gal buckets (the net pots were made for it). planning to let them soak in some h2o2 in the buckets while i do cleaning.

sorry for grammer, typing on mobile loaner from service provider lol

I always use tap water that ranges from 6.8-7.8 throughout the year and a ppm of 110 (+/- 10). I also drink the same water I feed them with.
I also use 3% H2o2 every 3 days in my res @ somewhere around 10ml per gal. I know you can get stronger doses, but the 3% is .79 a half gallon and it is VERY forgiving vs the strong hydro shop stuff. I can do a full run for about $3 in H2o2. Not to mention the plants love it.

 

[kingtitan]

Isnt Hydroguard a benny? If it is, the H2o2 killed off any magic it was doing.

I always use tap water that ranges from 6.8-7.8 throughout the year and a ppm of 110 (+/- 10). I also drink the same water I feed them with.
I also use 3% H2o2 every 3 days in my res @ somewhere around 10ml per gal. I know you can get stronger doses, but the 3% is .79 a half gallon and it is VERY forgiving vs the strong hydro shop stuff. I can do a full run for about $3 in H2o2. Not to mention the plants love it.

Yeah I am going with you here, I wanted to run sterile with MegaCrop with H2O2, i was diluting my 29% but i found it much easier to dose directly with the full strengh (first in a 5 gallon bucket of the rez water and add it over 5 minutes.

Are you also doing MegaCrop + H2O2? I am currently sterilizing as we speak. Emptied rez 100% with vac. added about 40 gallons of tap water and spiked the chlorine content to 30ppm. Leaving it running with pump for 30 min then drain,then another 30 gal fill to wash off the left over chlorine. I will fill with tap water this time and skipping the CalMag altogether Any additional chlorine will be depleted when I add H2O2 @ 2ml/gal (3% dilution), this is how i lower sanitizer in my hottub before going in after a shock treament.

what do you suggest for MegaCrop PPM or total PPM 400 ish?. just measure tap again (been a while and its at 7.6 and 210ppm). I wi ll PH to 5.5 and monitor rise, not sure how it wil behave as i am used to RO water.

While cleaning I am 100% certain it is the Southern AG. I added 1 drop last night after a rez change and it was almost as bad as the first time when I did 3ml. Airstones completely covered thick, seems to love high oxygen areas. I am done with this, I don't know if something has gone wrong with the batch I have or not, I am not getting the same results as others at all. The seller was nice enough to refund my money.

I am going to PH the tap water and leave it with not nutes until i come back here to see if there are any nute suggestions. I have a huge amount of MC right now, so I am not shy.

 

[HydroRed]

I did a Kosher Kush run with only MegaCrop, Tap water, and H2o2 and had fantastic results. Its in my sig link fully documented with pics/feed schedule/ppm/ph buffers,..everything. Its good stuff.

 

[kingtitan]

Alright all Sterilized and cleaned with 30ppm Purox bleach and running pump for 45 min. Any bits of the sludge that was left was getting attacked by the bleach and breaking up, I manually removed any bigger pieces, not much was left after my initial scrub to loosen things up and getting out the shop vac and even got all the pipes too.


Drained down to a low level and gave it another scrub all around, washed the sides and then shop vac again.
Soaked the 12" air stones in bleach and then rinsed under hot tap water while rubbing to get off any slime.

Fill time now...
Tap Water: 210ppm PH 8.3
MegaCrop: 90g for 60ish gallons
H2O2: 100ml of 29% which works to about 4ml/L (15ml/g)
Total PPM at 425
PH 5.67

I went with a bit extra H202 and will add a bit more on the next light cycle just to keep things in a sterile range until things get better. Decided to lower dose the Mega crop for now. I was being thrown off at the amount of PH Down I had to use with tap water but i guess it will hold more steady than the 12 hour adjustments with RO.


took each netpot and washed it under the tap while rubing off what ever slime I could, any weak ones would pull off with the nitrile gloves. I washed from the bottoms, sides and tops. Good thing they were small, easy.

Roots are all white from what I can see, might be some bits of slime in the only pot that was attacked the most. the rest look fine. I hope the tap wash sterilized the pots. My goal was to have the least amount of organic material that the H2O2 has to burn off.

 

[Cold$moke]

Your totes seem pretty still what size air pump and circ pump?

Just remember roots are organic as well and will also oxidize.

Just be sure you got your mix right from someone who runs h2o2 and youll be fine

Good luck hope it turns for the better

 

[kingtitan]

Your totes seem pretty still what size air pump and circ pump?

Just remember roots are organic as well and will also oxidize.

Just be sure you got your mix right from someone who runs h2o2 and youll be fine

Good luck hope it turns for the better

Oh those first pics have the air stones removed while I was soaking them in a bucket. The pic with the 3 in the pots and 3 totes open shows them with the air stones. the water is quite turbulent, system is fed by a commercial 70L/minute air pump, the circulation pump is Danner Mag Drive 9.5 (950gph but I have it turned down slightly to keep the back totes where the pump pulls a bit more even.

@HydroRed seems to be using at 10ml/g as maintenance so I believe 15 is not much. I believe George Cervantes says 88ml/g (3oz) for treating disease in hydroponic.

Its been about 5 hours since the change. Rez looks clean, smells like MC and not bad pond water. Plants are not drooping at the moment and my PH has not budged a bit! by now with RO I would have been sitting at 5.8 if I set it 5.5.

Thanks for the input everyone! ill keep things updated and then move on to my grow journal.

 

[Cold$moke]

Ok no stones makes sense lol.


Doesnt that mean your flow is a little bottle necked if the 2 totes arent the same level?
I might just be confused though.... baked

Im running a 900 gph pump full bore and the only bucket that changes in height is the "brain" bucket. My plant Chambers are all level and currently running about 24-30 gallons total

But i made.my design way different then everybody elses rdwc.

 

[Cold$moke]

Also just a reminder to give the buffers in the nutrients time to do there thing.


Ill mix my nutes up and get the ph close to 6

Then i wait about half a day before i go in there and get my ph to 5.8 .

I find it stays much more stable this way.

Hope eveything gets better mega crop is the last l fertilizer i might try.

 

[kingtitan]

Bad drawing but this will help you understand why the back buckets go a bit lower.



I can run it full bore but then I may need more water in the system and 60 gal is a lot already lol!

In flower I can run full bore as I will probably be able to drop the water level a couple inches in each tote.

 

[JSB99]

Alright all Sterilized and cleaned with 30ppm Purox bleach and running pump for 45 min. Any bits of the sludge that was left was getting attacked by the bleach and breaking up, I manually removed any bigger pieces, not much was left after my initial scrub to loosen things up and getting out the shop vac and even got all the pipes too.

View attachment 4088476 View attachment 4088478 View attachment 4088479
Drained down to a low level and gave it another scrub all around, washed the sides and then shop vac again.
Soaked the 12" air stones in bleach and then rinsed under hot tap water while rubbing to get off any slime.

Fill time now...
Tap Water: 210ppm PH 8.3
MegaCrop: 90g for 60ish gallons
H2O2: 100ml of 29% which works to about 4ml/L (15ml/g)
Total PPM at 425
PH 5.67

I went with a bit extra H202 and will add a bit more on the next light cycle just to keep things in a sterile range until things get better. Decided to lower dose the Mega crop for now. I was being thrown off at the amount of PH Down I had to use with tap water but i guess it will hold more steady than the 12 hour adjustments with RO.

View attachment 4088477
took each netpot and washed it under the tap while rubing off what ever slime I could, any weak ones would pull off with the nitrile gloves. I washed from the bottoms, sides and tops. Good thing they were small, easy.

Roots are all white from what I can see, might be some bits of slime in the only pot that was attacked the most. the rest look fine. I hope the tap wash sterilized the pots. My goal was to have the least amount of organic material that the H2O2 has to burn off.

Very nice!

A couple things to consider:

• Either paint, or cover, your lids so the light doesn't get through and wreak havoc with your roots. PlastiDip spray paint works really well for blacking out the lids.
• Instead of returning the water using an elbow, and just pouring the water into your reservoir, create a "waterfall", which will add copious amounts of DO to your water. This can be done very simply, with a pipe or tube, with small holes drilled in it, to jet/spray the water into the reservoir.

This is mine. It's just a short length of PVC with little holes drilled in it.

 

[JSB99]

Very nice!

A couple things to consider:

• Either paint, or cover, your lids so the light doesn't get through and wreak havoc with your roots. PlastiDip spray paint works really well for blacking out the lids.
• Instead of returning the water using an elbow, and just pouring the water into your reservoir, create a "waterfall", which will add copious amounts of DO to your water. This can be done very simply, with a pipe or tube, with small holes drilled in it, to jet/spray the water into the reservoir.

This is mine. It's just a short length of PVC with little holes drilled in it.
View attachment 4088576

BTW, DO NOT use PVC cement to weld it on. The pressure isn't enough to separate the pipe. This pic above shows screws holding it in place, but I've since removed them, because they're not needed. The reason you want to do this is to 1. Make it easy to take apart and clean, and 2. you can swap out the waterfall pipe if you want to experiment with other configurations.