DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

[5BY5LEC]

So do I actually have to brew the Tea? I had slime and my plants were going down QUICK! So I added a good dose of: https://gluckspilze.com/Mykorrhiza-Soluble
This is basically a much better and stronger version of Great White. Does adding it to the res as powder also work? I could not wait 48 hours because my plants were really dying. I started to brew my tea at the same time when I added it to the res.
I will change to tea as soon as it is done.

Is making tea just cheaper or is it better than using Great White/and myko powder?

Funny that I used Mykos back when I used to grow in dirt. Never thought about using them to cure root rot or other diseases in hydro. Thank you Heisenberg .

It is said here that Fungi don't need to brew as they don't multiply anyway.

 

[reallycoolguy]

It is said here that Fungi don't need to brew as they don't multiply anyway.

Where? Can you post a link? I don't want to read through 220 pages.

 

[5BY5LEC]

Where? Can you post a link? I don't want to read through 220 pages.

LOL neither do I

 

[reallycoolguy]

It is said here that Fungi don't need to brew as they don't multiply anyway.

But isn't the other stuff multiplying?

 

[reallycoolguy]

I was using H202 and my roots were slimy so I added a myko product and now my roots look like this. Is this normal? Looks like intense root rot to me. I can wash off the black stuff but some brown bits remain.

My myko product also contains some humic acid, is this a problem? Did I add to much mykos? My product is quite strong and maybe I added a little to much?

 

[reallycoolguy]

I was dealing with slimy roots so I got a mykorrhizae powder (alternative to great white) but everytime i add this and look an the roots the next day, its all just stuck in my roots and it looks terrible .
Can I put it in some kind of "teabag"? Like a nylon sock for example?

 

[5BY5LEC]

But isn't the other stuff multiplying?

Yup, just not the fungi.

 

[Animatey]

Anybody running tea successfully long term without EWC?

@Heisenberg seems to indicate in post #233 that you can use just great white or similar product, but not 100% sure.

DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

Still have issues... now major ones.... I switched from h202 to bennies awhile back due to brown algae in the rez and roots.... I suppose I should have blasted the crap out of the roots before i switched to bennies.. The roots have never shaken the brown slime.. the rez has been fine, but...

www.rollitup.org

I'd like to just use Recharge and molasses.

The reason I'd like to skip the EWC is I've read the there can be pests like springtails etc in it. I once had springtails infest parts of my house and it took about 4 months of many different pesticides in various forms applied regularly before they completely vanished.

 

[reallycoolguy]

So I tried the tea but somehow all of it kept stucking to my roots

 

[MischiefManaged]

So I tried the tea but somehow all of it kept stucking to my roots

So, I jumped into hydro because I’m extremely anal about how things are done and at first I wanted to go sterile. I’ve read through about almost two years of posts and finally got the balls to do it. It absolutely fixed my plants. Not kidding. I’m so glad I stumbled upon this just by trying to figure out if I should go sterile. It worked. Follow the recipe down to the T if you must. But it works. I lost half of my plants and the new ones with twisted leaves and nute deficiencies are showing healthy new growth in about ten days of following the regiment. You’re going to get a dark sort of substance sometimes but that’s normal. Don’t be alarmed. Don’t touch your roots unless your hands are sterile. My dude I’ve read so much of this thread I can assure you, follow Heisenberg because he knows his shit... ten years later I can attest that this works. I attached some pictures. The first one with the few roots was one of the sick plants. All had brown algae, now, they’re showing new growth everyday. They’re back to full speed.

 

[voxultrasonic]

I recently tried brewing some tea, and I'm not sure I'm having any luck or if what is happening is normal...

I have two sets of plants: Blueberry x Big Devil Autoflower (started first) and Blue Dream Feminized.

With the autos, I think I did a lot wrong from the start (first try). Here's the catch-up:

Blueberry x Big Devil Autos

• Blueberry x Big Devil Autoflower plants
• Growing in 5 gallon DWC buckets from Alfred Horticulture (the kit with pump/buckets/pellets/air stones)
• Using Remo Nutrients (Micro/Grow/Velokelp/Magnifical) and following the feed schedule on the website

I definitely made a few mistakes in the beginning:

• After initial germination, I placed the young seedlings into Holland peat starters and hung those in a power cloner (mistake 1)
  • The peat starters held on to water which I believe promoted growth of pathogens
  • I didn't have airstones in the power cloner, just spray nozzles (no o2)
  • The result of this was 2 plants were pretty stunted
  • I don't think I managed the PH well in the beginning either
• I did not wash the hydroton pellets thoroughly enough (thought running under tap water w/ a strainer would suffice)
• I did not use de-chlorinated water, just used water straight from the tap (I'm in BC, Canada)
• Temps in the buckets were generally good (ranging from 64-70 degrees), and since then I've added reflective insulation to the buckets and temps generally top out at 68 now
• I think I could have kept the seedlings in the power cloner longer on a low-nute feed before transplanting to the buckets

I noticed root growth was abysmally slow since the beginning, and generally long and stringy rather than growing side-shoots. I started to get concerned when I saw the 'tangling' that people refer to and little brown globs on the roots near the waterline.

After transplanting to the DWC buckets I got vigilant w/ the Ph, but it was aggressively rising (I was adding Ph Down several times a day just to keep it under 6.5).
Two days ago it was time for rez change #2, so I dumped all nutes, filled 4 BRAND NEW buckets (that I sterilized with a bleach solution) with only water and h2o2 solution. I filled the buckets up as high as I could so the hydroton baskets also get submerged in the solution and dropped all 4 plants into that. Ran that for 24 hours with airstones. I mixed up 4 buckets of nutes in clean buckets in this order:

• Filled with water
• Added dechlorinator
• Added Micro
• Then added Grow, Velokelp, and Magnifical
• Added newly purchased Hydroguard
• Added a solution of Dr Marijane (2g powder dissolved per bucket)
• Checked PH - Solid 6.0 - decided to leave it at that to see how it goes

I allowed each plant to chill in an empty bucket for 20 mins or to get some air before placing back into the fresh nutes (with 2x LARGER brand new freshly sterilized air stones).
The next day, I was PUMPED to find the PH was rock-solid. Had not moved at ALL. Great sign! Dark brown blobs had diminished significantly, roots looked a little "fluffier", and was seeing new roots/shoots perking up.
However, today (the following day), I noticed a SLIGHT rise in PH to 6.2/6.3, and still seeing little black goops.
I'm wondering if I'm having problems or maybe is this just the velokelp or something? I have read autos tend to just grow long roots rather than wide roots, but this isn't sitting right with me.

I thought the roots were tan because of the nute solution (the Dr Marijane & Velokelp are pretty dark), and the roots don't feel slimy or stinky.

I think I added the plants into a nutrient/hydroguard solution prematurely after the h202 soak... 1st day after was looking ON POINT... then the next day... it's worse than ever! Brown globs have increased in size and number, and seeing some snot like stuff on some roots. Bad scene!
For the immediate near-term, I attacked it with h202, and continued with a daily dose of that until it started clearing up. Then essentially did a re-do of what I did prior but this time with 24 hours of plain-ph-balanced water bath after h202 soak before going into a tea for 24 hours, THEN going into nutes w/ hydroguard as such:

1. Dump Nutes
2. soak in fresh water for 24 hours
3. make tea - I don't have any EWC, but I think I have access to some Bio-Gold (bird poop stuff) in freshly sterile buckets, and soak in those for 24 hours
4. soak in fresh water with Heisenberg tea added (in new buckets while cleaning out remainder of infected buckets) for 24 hours
5. move everything back into nutes, and add the tea as prescribed

Everything seemed to be going as planned for a few days. Old unhealthy roots continued to get a bit browner and slimier, and new white roots creeping out the sides of the hydro baskets. However, this morning when going in to inspect I noticed the reservoirs all had a funky smell (not so much earthy as septic), and those little side-shoot roots have stopped growing (they were almost explosive before).

Not sure what's going on now... I did the full res-change on Friday (today I was going to add more tea that I brewed fresh over the weekend when I noticed the smell)

New growth that started after treatment (but not really growing anymore):


The putrid slime-rope:


More slimy stinkiness:



Blue Dream

These ones had a WAY healthier start: I Germinated from seed, and grew those in the power cloner w/ Prop-o-gator and a splash of tea and they grew nice radish-white spiny roots. Once they started tangling up in the cloner it was time to transplant to buckets (Saturday). This time I did a very thorough/rigorous cleaning of all the clay pellets to be used, and soaked those for 32 hours in a water + Dr. Marijane root inoculant solution (basically super concentrated Hydroguard). Not taking any chances, I got another air pump and am running two airstones per bucket (it's not crazy turbulent, but a single one didn't seem to provide enough bubbles). As a further measure, I added tea to each of these buckets as well.

• Day one/two seemed okay, although was annoying to see my roots getting slighly "tan" (I have read that the Remo Nutrients VeloKelp stains roots that way so I decided not to worry)
• Day three (today) - the once-beautiful white roots are starting to look sludgy. I read that when CURING root rot with tea, you can incur this brown sludge... but should I be seeing it when adding the tea to otherwise healthy plants?

The once-beautiful roots are not covered in all-sorts of crap (it looks like typical tangling and brown slime I see when people post photos of root rot) - I'm thinking preventative tea just caused me all sorts of problems just now:





What am I doing wrong? I feel like I've done everything right, and everything is going wrong anyway.

@Heisenberg please help!

 

[Rurumo]

Yup, just not the fungi.

Fungi does in fact multiply in the tea https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4303005/

 

[MischiefManaged]

I recently tried brewing some tea, and I'm not sure I'm having any luck or if what is happening is normal...

I have two sets of plants: Blueberry x Big Devil Autoflower (started first) and Blue Dream Feminized.

With the autos, I think I did a lot wrong from the start (first try). Here's the catch-up:

Blueberry x Big Devil Autos

• Blueberry x Big Devil Autoflower plants
• Growing in 5 gallon DWC buckets from Alfred Horticulture (the kit with pump/buckets/pellets/air stones)
• Using Remo Nutrients (Micro/Grow/Velokelp/Magnifical) and following the feed schedule on the website

I definitely made a few mistakes in the beginning:

• After initial germination, I placed the young seedlings into Holland peat starters and hung those in a power cloner (mistake 1)
  • The peat starters held on to water which I believe promoted growth of pathogens
  • I didn't have airstones in the power cloner, just spray nozzles (no o2)
  • The result of this was 2 plants were pretty stunted
  • I don't think I managed the PH well in the beginning either
• I did not wash the hydroton pellets thoroughly enough (thought running under tap water w/ a strainer would suffice)
• I did not use de-chlorinated water, just used water straight from the tap (I'm in BC, Canada)
• Temps in the buckets were generally good (ranging from 64-70 degrees), and since then I've added reflective insulation to the buckets and temps generally top out at 68 now
• I think I could have kept the seedlings in the power cloner longer on a low-nute feed before transplanting to the buckets

I noticed root growth was abysmally slow since the beginning, and generally long and stringy rather than growing side-shoots. I started to get concerned when I saw the 'tangling' that people refer to and little brown globs on the roots near the waterline.

After transplanting to the DWC buckets I got vigilant w/ the Ph, but it was aggressively rising (I was adding Ph Down several times a day just to keep it under 6.5).
Two days ago it was time for rez change #2, so I dumped all nutes, filled 4 BRAND NEW buckets (that I sterilized with a bleach solution) with only water and h2o2 solution. I filled the buckets up as high as I could so the hydroton baskets also get submerged in the solution and dropped all 4 plants into that. Ran that for 24 hours with airstones. I mixed up 4 buckets of nutes in clean buckets in this order:

• Filled with water
• Added dechlorinator
• Added Micro
• Then added Grow, Velokelp, and Magnifical
• Added newly purchased Hydroguard
• Added a solution of Dr Marijane (2g powder dissolved per bucket)
• Checked PH - Solid 6.0 - decided to leave it at that to see how it goes

I allowed each plant to chill in an empty bucket for 20 mins or to get some air before placing back into the fresh nutes (with 2x LARGER brand new freshly sterilized air stones).
The next day, I was PUMPED to find the PH was rock-solid. Had not moved at ALL. Great sign! Dark brown blobs had diminished significantly, roots looked a little "fluffier", and was seeing new roots/shoots perking up.
However, today (the following day), I noticed a SLIGHT rise in PH to 6.2/6.3, and still seeing little black goops.
I'm wondering if I'm having problems or maybe is this just the velokelp or something? I have read autos tend to just grow long roots rather than wide roots, but this isn't sitting right with me.

I thought the roots were tan because of the nute solution (the Dr Marijane & Velokelp are pretty dark), and the roots don't feel slimy or stinky.

I think I added the plants into a nutrient/hydroguard solution prematurely after the h202 soak... 1st day after was looking ON POINT... then the next day... it's worse than ever! Brown globs have increased in size and number, and seeing some snot like stuff on some roots. Bad scene!
For the immediate near-term, I attacked it with h202, and continued with a daily dose of that until it started clearing up. Then essentially did a re-do of what I did prior but this time with 24 hours of plain-ph-balanced water bath after h202 soak before going into a tea for 24 hours, THEN going into nutes w/ hydroguard as such:

1. Dump Nutes
2. soak in fresh water for 24 hours
3. make tea - I don't have any EWC, but I think I have access to some Bio-Gold (bird poop stuff) in freshly sterile buckets, and soak in those for 24 hours
4. soak in fresh water with Heisenberg tea added (in new buckets while cleaning out remainder of infected buckets) for 24 hours
5. move everything back into nutes, and add the tea as prescribed

Everything seemed to be going as planned for a few days. Old unhealthy roots continued to get a bit browner and slimier, and new white roots creeping out the sides of the hydro baskets. However, this morning when going in to inspect I noticed the reservoirs all had a funky smell (not so much earthy as septic), and those little side-shoot roots have stopped growing (they were almost explosive before).

Not sure what's going on now... I did the full res-change on Friday (today I was going to add more tea that I brewed fresh over the weekend when I noticed the smell)

New growth that started after treatment (but not really growing anymore):
View attachment 4731984

The putrid slime-rope:
View attachment 4731985

More slimy stinkiness:
View attachment 4731986


Blue Dream

These ones had a WAY healthier start: I Germinated from seed, and grew those in the power cloner w/ Prop-o-gator and a splash of tea and they grew nice radish-white spiny roots. Once they started tangling up in the cloner it was time to transplant to buckets (Saturday). This time I did a very thorough/rigorous cleaning of all the clay pellets to be used, and soaked those for 32 hours in a water + Dr. Marijane root inoculant solution (basically super concentrated Hydroguard). Not taking any chances, I got another air pump and am running two airstones per bucket (it's not crazy turbulent, but a single one didn't seem to provide enough bubbles). As a further measure, I added tea to each of these buckets as well.

• Day one/two seemed okay, although was annoying to see my roots getting slighly "tan" (I have read that the Remo Nutrients VeloKelp stains roots that way so I decided not to worry)
• Day three (today) - the once-beautiful white roots are starting to look sludgy. I read that when CURING root rot with tea, you can incur this brown sludge... but should I be seeing it when adding the tea to otherwise healthy plants?

The once-beautiful roots are not covered in all-sorts of crap (it looks like typical tangling and brown slime I see when people post photos of root rot) - I'm thinking preventative tea just caused me all sorts of problems just now:
View attachment 4731987

View attachment 4731988


What am I doing wrong? I feel like I've done everything right, and everything is going wrong anyway.

@Heisenberg please help!

I’d check your nutrients man. It seems like the algae comes back faster than you can fight it. Heisenberg said that you can’t mix organic with synthetic. Now, I haven’t looked up Remo nutrients but just make sure it doesn’t have anything that will feed the algae. I saw some guy mix it and it looked brown. It might be the nutrient line you’re using that’s feeding the algae. Once the algae is established, it’s hard to let the microbes get a good foothold if the algae gets fed more and faster. If your PH is rising, still algae. I’d say try salt nutrients.

 

[BaRabus]

Hey...

I'm running the same Mix This Saturday..

Well..I'm doing the Hydroguard ...White Shark...and Ancient Forest Mix...

And I'm wondering for Hygenic reasons for the future...

I just ordered and received my new 4 bucket RDWC system.

Currently, the infected girls are sitting in just DWC buckets. Should I just keep them in the buckets (sterile ones) and not put them in the RDWC
to spread and contaminate and infect my new system? Or should I just run it in the new system for proper nutrient flow to jump?

Well...Now that I asked it..lol...It makes more sense to just keep them in the DWC (sterile) system to prohibit further contamination.

As far as disinfecting the current air stones, I have been soaking them in peroxide until they stop bubbling of bacteria/fungus..Then soaking them in alcohol...then pouring peroxide on them again and I see no bubbling...
is this a correct procedure?

 

[voxultrasonic]

Is this what the after slime is supposed to look like?
I did a res change yesterday, and added EWC tea (brewed properly this time using EWC, Mycos, & Hydroguard) to my new batch of plants that are just entering week 3 of veg... holy hell they look AWFUL after just one night - went from crispy white radish roots to this mess:



Is this normal? It doesn't look healthy - roots look stressed and bunching up.

 

[BaRabus]

went from crispy white radish roots to this mess

I'm not a Pro at this stage cause I'm currently undergoing the treatment and

IF you are treating..then how were they CRISPY WHITE?

they should have been SNOTTY or Clumped with White Snot..

If you are just adding the Tea...to PREVENT..then you added more than specified.

They should Look like that after 1 Day..just 1 day brother...of treating the problem

3 days later they should be clearing up..Not 1 Day

That is the brown attacking the slime (IF YOU ACTUALLY HAD SLIME) and attaching to it fight
READ through the ENTIRE Posting of this by Heisenberg..

Everyone is crying like you about the roots and how they should look 2, 3 and 4 days after...

Good luck brother

 

[voxultrasonic]

This current batch did not have any slime. I was trying to use EWC tea as a preventative measure. Based on my experience with root rot on my last try, I wanted to get ahead of it (like the saying goes, an ounce of prevention....).

So, are you saying this appears normal for day one? I remember Heisenberg saying there should be an "after slime" if you treat with EWC tea... As you can read in my post, I'm just asking if this looks normal to anyone for day one after a res change/treatment.

If it's normal, I'll stay the course as per the original post (I just need confirmation on what I am seeing here).
If it's not normal - what would you recommend? Dump res and go back to a minimal nutes until this gets under control?

I'm not a Pro at this stage cause I'm currently undergoing the treatment and

IF you are treating..then how were they CRISPY WHITE?

they should have been SNOTTY or Clumped with White Snot..

If you are just adding the Tea...to PREVENT..then you added more than specified.

They should Look like that after 1 Day..just 1 day brother...of treating the problem

3 days later they should be clearing up..Not 1 Day

That is the brown attacking the slime (IF YOU ACTUALLY HAD SLIME) and attaching to it fight
READ through the ENTIRE Posting of this by Heisenberg..

Everyone is crying like you about the roots and how they should look 2, 3 and 4 days after...

Good luck brother

 

[BaRabus]

So, are you saying this appears normal for day one?

Only if You are in the process of Treating the slime problem.

Everyone who are using it as an additive to prevent aren't putting that much in there.

It is supposed to be a small amount as supposed to the amount you put if you are experiencing Root Problems

I can't recall the exact amount but I think only a small amount is to be added and that amount shouldn't do that.

That is an accumilation of Ancient Forest and looks like you didn't strain the tea? (I'm asking)

Most of my roots were damaged so I removed them but the ones it attached too didn't look like that. It looked like everyone else's when the tea is working. (mine wasn't working properly cause I used TAP water...SMH) but it worked slowly with the active beneficial bacteria that was present.

It doesn't look like anyone is responding on this thread cause I posted a question about the air stones and no one replied but It worked.

 

[voxultrasonic]

I did strain the tea - just looked like orange pekoe going in, although I know what you're talking about - on my first failed grow I didn't strain the tea at all and ended up with little black "spots" on the roots that were basically clumps of worm poop clinging to the roots (which eventually would go bad and make things even worse).

RE: Tap water - I used a de-chlorinator meant for aquariums. (actually I did two batches - one dechlorinated and one just with regular-ass tap water).

Only if You are in the process of Treating the slime problem.

Everyone who are using it as an additive to prevent aren't putting that much in there.

It is supposed to be a small amount as supposed to the amount you put if you are experiencing Root Problems

I can't recall the exact amount but I think only a small amount is to be added and that amount shouldn't do that.

That is an accumilation of Ancient Forest and looks like you didn't strain the tea? (I'm asking)

Most of my roots were damaged so I removed them but the ones it attached too didn't look like that. It looked like everyone else's when the tea is working. (mine wasn't working properly cause I used TAP water...SMH) but it worked slowly with the active beneficial bacteria that was present.

It doesn't look like anyone is responding on this thread cause I posted a question about the air stones and no one replied but It worked.

 

[BaRabus]

Ok..exactly...right with the black spots..

But if You have the slime..it forms a Brown membrane like coating over the white slime and attacks it.

(actually I did two batches - one dechlorinated and one just with regular-ass tap water).

Cool... I know the regular tap water Tea won't do anything OR if some of the beneficial bacteria survives. It will be a slow process as Mine was

Go with the RO (or Dechlorinated ) .....

I would rinse my roots thoroughly with Tap water, if I were you and use the small dosage of the tea in my reservoir with my Nutes.

Ensure you do as Heisenberg describes when using it as such.

You have to Add your Nutes and PH down (if you have to use PH down) 1st cause it will kill the active bacteria if you add the Tea 1st then the PH down.