Need to get rid of this problem. Could be root rot/pythium... DWC EXPERTS PLEASE HELP !!!!!

[Meast21]

So for the last 2 months my ph in DWC has been acting very strange see my other threads. 1 strain of 3 will stop drinking and die. The ph gets to like 6.3 range and stays there no matter how much ph down I put in. It will go higher too even with high levels of ppm around 1100 when high ppm usually makes ph drop to low 5.0 ranges... I AM AN VERY EXPERIENCED DWC GROWER AND THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE... ph meters are correct, water temp is high 60's, its nothing basic that is causing this and IT HAS SPREAD TO OTHER TENTS/REZ'S. I mean spread by the ph issues being high (1 strain of 3 dying off from not drinking). This is like the 2nd round of plants this has happened too. Before this round I bleached everything and got new airstones and air hoses, etc... Note that the plants are cloning fine and growing fine, then the one strain that is dying/not drinking only does it when its larger. I grows fine for a few weeks.

What should I do next. Should I start running pool shock in my rez's???? My roots seem fine, but I have noticed a huge amount of green algae on the underneath of a rez lid one time about a month ago... Can root rot/pythium travel from rez to rez by ph/ppm meters???
What are pythium effects on plants? Do they stop drinking (only 1 strain of 3 doing this).

Please experts help I can't deal with this shit no more, I also have health issues.

 

[Darkoh69]

Put simply. Pythium affected roots are fighting to stay alive all the other jobs the roots should be doing go on hold. Water temps, light polluting the res, decaying plant matter, res o2 levels, hygiene are the main causes. Everything else stems from these problems. Step back, forget all your years of experience & get the fundamentals back to good & you’ll be right.

 

[Meast21]

Put simply. Pythium affected roots are fighting to stay alive all the other jobs the roots should be doing go on hold. Water temps, light polluting the res, decaying plant matter, res o2 levels, hygiene are the main causes. Everything else stems from these problems. Step back, forget all your years of experience & get the fundamentals back to good & you’ll be right.

Ok thanks.. Can Pythium travel from tent to tent or rez to rez? Any other signs you have pythium.... It must be something in my rez's that is traveling if ph is acting wierd in half of them..... NEver had problems in 8 years at all. None.

 

[Meast21]

Is pythium systematic? Meaning once it gets into a plant that plant and its cuttings are no good? Can pythium always be cured?? Need steps to cure this guys!!!!!! ... Not even sure I have it, but the odd ph levels are traveling from rez to rez... I don't want to have to get rid of everything and start over this is my livelihood bc I have health issues too.

 

[Darkoh69]

It sounds like you do. Easy to get & by the time you realise theres a problem its been there a while. How long have your plants been in? What cycle are they in & how long have they been sick for? (Apologies if you have already answered all those in your previous posts)

 

[OldMedUser]

Ok thanks.. Can Pythium travel from tent to tent or rez to rez? Any other signs you have pythium.... It must be something in my rez's that is traveling if ph is acting wierd in half of them..... NEver had problems in 8 years at all. None.

As far as I have read pythium is like powdery mildew in that it's always around but dormant unless favourable conditions arise for them to flourish and fuck up your grow. Even if your meters are contaminated it shouldn't spread unless it's a good place for it to multiply.

You say it's only one strain that is being affected? Do they share reservoirs with other strains or on their own that way?

You should be seeing lots of pieces of loose roots floating around with dark blobs in root masses and/or slimy roots that easily pull off if it's root rot that's killing your plants. The plants can go from happy and healthy to drooping and looking like death in a day but usually takes a few days of decline before that.

I've done about 50 DWC grows since '01 and always ran peroxide before I made a chiller that kept the nutes a nice 65-68F. Twice a week I would add 0.5ml/L of 35% food grade peroxide just for maintenance. The two times I did get rot, from clones started in real dirt instead of soilless mix, I upped the dose to 4ml/L daily for 4 or 5 days then every 2nd day for a week. By then they had lots of new roots and I'd removed all the dead stuff prior to starting treatment with a fresh tub of nutes. Kept at lower light levels and if drooping sprayed with water a few times a day to keep them hydrated. Never lost a plant and would have 4 or more per tub but a couple didn't grow as well after.

If you found algae under a lid on one place then it might just be a light leak there. Doesn't take much for algae to get going with all those nutes present. Algae doesn't usually cause problems unless it's all through the system.

With what it sounds like you have going on if you want to try peroxide look for gallon jugs locally as it would have to ship as hazardous material and that adds a lot to the price. Perolator charged me $69 to ship a 500g jar of sodium thiosulphate from Ontario to northern Alberta here. $22 for the chemical.

If you want to go with pool shock I never used it so got nothing for you there but should be easy to find the dosing around here somewhere. I don't like the idea of all that chlorine.

Now I'm wondering if CS would work but I'm not running DWC these days so that will have to wait.

Good luck!

 

[Wastei]

Ok thanks.. Can Pythium travel from tent to tent or rez to rez? Any other signs you have pythium.... It must be something in my rez's that is traveling if ph is acting wierd in half of them..... NEver had problems in 8 years at all. None.

Yes it can. If you had contact with the water and didn't clean your hands throughly it's very plausible. Pythium is a member of "Oomycetes" and easily explained it's a water borne mold which needs microscopic amounts to inoculate and multiply.

3ppm residual bleach(sodium hypochlorite) is what I've always used. Here's the dilution calculator:Chlorine dilution calculator. In RDWC it's best to add the same concentration 3ppm. I add every 3rd to 4th day depending on plant count and size.

 

[Meast21]

Yes it can. If you had contact with the water and didn't clean your hands throughly it's very plausible. Pythium is a member of "Oomycetes" and easily explained it's a water borne mold which needs microscopic amounts to inoculate and multiply.

3ppm residual bleach(sodium hypochlorite) is what I've always used. Here's the dilution calculator:Chlorine dilution calculator. In RDWC it's best to add the same concentration 3ppm. I add every 3rd to 4th day depending on plant count and size.

Do you use the bleach all the time? Ive been using uc roots, should i ditch that and just use bleach for rez changes and topping off rez like daily? Or go back to the UC roots after the problem is gone.

 

[Meast21]

As far as I have read pythium is like powdery mildew in that it's always around but dormant unless favourable conditions arise for them to flourish and fuck up your grow. Even if your meters are contaminated it shouldn't spread unless it's a good place for it to multiply.

You say it's only one strain that is being affected? Do they share reservoirs with other strains or on their own that way?

You should be seeing lots of pieces of loose roots floating around with dark blobs in root masses and/or slimy roots that easily pull off if it's root rot that's killing your plants. The plants can go from happy and healthy to drooping and looking like death in a day but usually takes a few days of decline before that.

I've done about 50 DWC grows since '01 and always ran peroxide before I made a chiller that kept the nutes a nice 65-68F. Twice a week I would add 0.5ml/L of 35% food grade peroxide just for maintenance. The two times I did get rot, from clones started in real dirt instead of soilless mix, I upped the dose to 4ml/L daily for 4 or 5 days then every 2nd day for a week. By then they had lots of new roots and I'd removed all the dead stuff prior to starting treatment with a fresh tub of nutes. Kept at lower light levels and if drooping sprayed with water a few times a day to keep them hydrated. Never lost a plant and would have 4 or more per tub but a couple didn't grow as well after.

If you found algae under a lid on one place then it might just be a light leak there. Doesn't take much for algae to get going with all those nutes present. Algae doesn't usually cause problems unless it's all through the system.

With what it sounds like you have going on if you want to try peroxide look for gallon jugs locally as it would have to ship as hazardous material and that adds a lot to the price. Perolator charged me $69 to ship a 500g jar of sodium thiosulphate from Ontario to northern Alberta here. $22 for the chemical.

If you want to go with pool shock I never used it so got nothing for you there but should be easy to find the dosing around here somewhere. I don't like the idea of all that chlorine.

Now I'm wondering if CS would work but I'm not running DWC these days so that will have to wait.

Good luck!

Other strains have no died, but the rez gets wierd. For example I did a different strain by its self and it grew fine but I even noticed at high ppm's like over 1000 the ph would be 6.3... Always before when I overfed the ph would go to low 5's.... I had the messed up strain in with this other strain in the same rez and everything grew fine, but the messed up strain (that would stop drinking water) started getting rusty leaves the last 3 weeks of flower.

 

[Meast21]

Yes it can. If you had contact with the water and didn't clean your hands throughly it's very plausible. Pythium is a member of "Oomycetes" and easily explained it's a water borne mold which needs microscopic amounts to inoculate and multiply.

3ppm residual bleach(sodium hypochlorite) is what I've always used. Here's the dilution calculator:Chlorine dilution calculator. In RDWC it's best to add the same concentration 3ppm. I add every 3rd to 4th day depending on plant count and size.

I don't understand this bleach calculator either. I have 5 gallon buckets.

 

[OldMedUser]

Other strains have no died, but the rez gets wierd. For example I did a different strain by its self and it grew fine but I even noticed at high ppm's like over 1000 the ph would be 6.3... Always before when I overfed the ph would go to low 5's.... I had the messed up strain in with this other strain in the same rez and everything grew fine, but the messed up strain (that would stop drinking water) started getting rusty leaves the last 3 weeks of flower.

Rusty leaves sounds like toxic salts buildup to me. I had lots of problems with that then found it stemmed from my low RH causing the plants to store too many nutes they got with all the extra water they went thru. Around mid-flower the fans first went all brown/rusty and crispy and it worked it's way up until even the tiny bud leaves were going that way at the end. I got control of that by running as low as 500ppm for most of the grow but even then would still have a touch of it but was a lot better.

Like right now I have 7 plants flowering and 4 have badly damaged tops. 3 Cherry Noir and a GG#4 seemed to have suffered toxic salts buildup from excess heat from the 600W tho the 2 Pink Kush and my CBD girl are just fine and all got the same feed and light. I shuffle the plants around so location doesn't really play into it. Just going to feed them less next time and keep the light a little further away. It's on my Light Rail 4.0 so not just sitting there baking them.

It's amazing how one strain will fuck up in conditions that others thrive in but they do,

 

[Drop That Sound]

Plants can dump enzymes and leach nutes back into the water that could affect the other more sensitive strains of plants, or vice versa.

It's not always the best idea to mix strains..

I've seen pythium or some other root borne pathogen travel right up the center layer of good size branches, like a rotten black vein for almost a foot.

So ya I can see it being systemic in that you could take an infected clone. It could be possible. That was a bad case, and even seen fungus gnats larva inside the same branches that were already dead, tunneling through the root rot canal. Craziest thing ever, to see them inside the plant like that. The gnats can spread disease too, if they fly into the netpots in DWC. What came first, the root rot or the gnat egg?

 

[Wastei]

I don't understand this bleach calculator either. I have 5 gallon buckets.

What don't you understand?

Here I calculated 3ppm with a volume of 25L. The bleach concentration is on the top at 5%. You add 1.6ml of bleach to 25L to get residual 3ppm. This is high school stuff where I'm from...

You can change the volume to gallons if you want but the calculator is really self explanatory IMO.

 

[OldMedUser]

What don't you understand?
View attachment 5133737
Here I calculated 3ppm with a volume of 25L. The bleach concentration is on the top at 5%. You add 1.6ml of bleach to 25L to get residual 3ppm. This is high school stuff where I'm from...

You can change the volume to gallons if you want but the calculator is really self explanatory IMO.

Sure seems simple enough but knowing the percentage of bleach in whatever product you use is the main first step so I grabbed our bottle of Chlorox and nowhere on the bottle is the actual concentration. Says concentrated formula with 50% more doses per bottle but that's it.

Back when I was working on my chem diploma we did a lab testing bleach levels on 4 or 5 different ones bought at the local supermarket and tho 5% is standard they varied from about 3 - 7%. Was 30 years ago so the details escape me but there was quite a variation.

If you plan to use pool shock does it show percentage of sodium hypochlorite on those products?

Chlorine is nasty stuff and a carcinogen so I avoid it if there are alternatives. Cheap like borscht tho and price is often the main criteria.

 

[Wastei]

Sure seems simple enough but knowing the percentage of bleach in whatever product you use is the main first step so I grabbed our bottle of Chlorox and nowhere on the bottle is the actual concentration. Says concentrated formula with 50% more doses per bottle but that's it.

Back when I was working on my chem diploma we did a lab testing bleach levels on 4 or 5 different ones bought at the local supermarket and tho 5% is standard they varied from about 3 - 7%. Was 30 years ago so the details escape me but there was quite a variation.

If you plan to use pool shock does it show percentage of sodium hypochlorite on those products?

Chlorine is nasty stuff and a carcinogen so I avoid it if there are alternatives. Cheap like borscht tho and price is often the main criteria.

Chlorine is not a carcinogen. Chloramines however are strongly suggested to be carcinogenic, but that's not what's discussed here. Saying chlorine or chlorides are carcinogenic is a little laughable tbh since it's probably one of the most abundant minerals on earth and everyone eat it daily in everyday foods. Cheers!

 

[OldMedUser]

Chlorine is not a carcinogen. Chloramines however are strongly suggested to be carcinogenic, but that's not what's discussed here. Saying chlorine or chlorides are carcinogenic is a little laughable tbh since it's probably the most abundant mineral on earth and everyone eat it daily in everyday foods. Cheers!

Do a little research then. The threat from pathogens in drinking water is much worse than the threat from residual chlorine in tap water but it is a known carcinogen. It's also very environmentally destructive when used in industries like pulp and paper so I prefer to avoid things like that.

It's actually Bridgmanite that is one of the most abundant minerals on earth and I don't want to be consuming that either. Chlorine/chlorides isn't even in the top 10 so again, try a little research.

 

[Wastei]

Do a little research then. The threat from pathogens in drinking water is much worse than the threat from residual chlorine in tap water but it is a known carcinogen. It's also very environmentally destructive when used in industries like pulp and paper so I prefer to avoid things like that.

It's actually Bridgmanite that is one of the most abundant minerals on earth and I don't want to be consuming that either. Chlorine/chlorides isn't even in the top 10 so again, try a little research.

Reread what I wrote and please don't put words in my mouth. I have done my research and saying chlorine is a known carcinogen is false. You think of chloramines which doesn't exist in nature.

Thinking chlorine is carcinogenic is one of the oldest myths in the book. It also depends on where you look for abundancy, but we as growers use water to grow our plants. "Chlorine is the 3rd most abundant element in the ocean (about 1.9% by mass) and 21st most abundant element in the Earth's crust." It's also a very common element in enzymatic processes in both humans and plants.

Chlorine is bad for the environment but only with improper use and disposal.

 

[Meast21]

Reread what I wrote and please don't put words in my mouth. I have done my research and saying chlorine is a known carcinogen is false. You think of chloramines which doesn't exist in nature.

Thinking chlorine is carcinogenic is one of the oldest myths in the book. It also depends on where you look for abundancy, but we as growers use water to grow our plants. "Chlorine is the 3rd most abundant element in the ocean (about 1.9% by mass) and 21st most abundant element in the Earth's crust." It's also a very common element in enzymatic processes in both humans and plants.

Chlorine is bad for the environment but only with improper use and disposal.

@Wastei could you please send me a link of what exactly brand you use? .... SO I take it I use roughly about 1.3 ML of bleach per 5 gallons of water?? Is this an aggressive rate of 3ppm and should I use it all the time even topping off my rez daily?

 

[Wastei]

@Wastei could you please send me a link of what exactly brand you use? .... SO I take it I use roughly about 1.3 ML of bleach per 5 gallons of water?? Is this an aggressive rate of 3ppm and should I use it all the time even topping off my rez daily?

I mix the same 3ppm strength to everything. I add it to my RO water jugs (7gallons) to keep them sterile. Then I don't have to think about it for a while.

I used a local brand in northern Europe but I'm currently situated in Thailand so I use the local brand they have here. I'm used to using bleach and what I do is check the biofilm in the reservoir to see if the bleach is doing what it's supposed to do, removing it. You should feel plastic and no slippery biofilm(algae) on the inside of the reservoir. If it's still there you increase slightly.

It's very hard to overdo it with bleach.

 

[Drop That Sound]

The bleach evaporates fairly quick under an aeration nutrient solution. The PPMs will drop significantly as it gasses off over a 24 hour period, so putting a bit too much in isn't as bad as it sounds.