DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

[diablo214]

Heisenberg,

I've been battling the slime for a few weeks now and finally am brewing some tea. There's no odor on the roots, their just brown and mushy with no new nute growth. This is in a new spot that experienced higher than anticipated heat in veg and for about a week my water temps went to 74 or so. I was running base a&b, RE aquashield and magical. Roots started to get brown but didn't think anything of it. Well, now my plants have literally been dormant for a couple weeks with almost no new growth. I have tried 29% H202 then flush many times and nothing, still the same problem.

My questions for u is do I need to sterilize the sstem before I renute and add the tea?? It will be almost impossible to take plants out and completelt clean and sterilize with bleach....can I run h202 through for a day, then flush and re-nute with the tea? Will the tea be strong enough to fight and overtake the bad ish tht is causing me so many problems??

 

[mr.bond]

Diablo,

It is not necessary to sterilize with H202 before adding the tea. The new tea will take care of the slime. It seems like H202 regime is pretty ineffective against your slime anyway. Just make sure you add enough tea, and give it a few days... the existing roots many not come back in terms of appearance, but they will recover and you should soon see new white root growth. After the inoculation has killed the slime, I would continue to add for a while just to help the roots come back and to help prevent the return of the slime.

Hope this helps. Cheers--

Mr. Bond

 

[Goldowitz]

Heisenberg,
I have made the changes to my room and now have more than one watt of air power going into my res. I got a little excited and started brewing tea yesterday, but only have an Elite 801 powering a single 4" round stone. The next time I drive down to the store, I will buy another 4" stone and a dual outlet pump for the tea, but want to use the brew I currently have going if it will help. Should I scrap this batch, or do you think it will be good?
Thanks
G

 

[diablo214]

Diablo,

It is not necessary to sterilize with H202 before adding the tea. The new tea will take care of the slime. It seems like H202 regime is pretty ineffective against your slime anyway. Just make sure you add enough tea, and give it a few days... the existing roots many not come back in terms of appearance, but they will recover and you should soon see new white root growth. After the inoculation has killed the slime, I would continue to add for a while just to help the roots come back and to help prevent the return of the slime.

Hope this helps. Cheers--

Mr. Bond

thanks so much for your response,, tomorrow morning i will be flushing the system's and refilling with ro water, new nutes and at around 6pm or so the tea goes in. the new ac is kicking and the room is now a cool 72 degress instead of 85 before....and the water temps are staying nicely at around67 whereas before they were a steady 73-74.

Another quick question you may be able to help answer......ideally i would like to treat with the tea for about a month or so and then go bck to just running my base a&b, cannazyme, RE and boost and cut the tea out. i know the tea is like 50x cheaper than running the canna lineup but i dont know how im gonna be able to brew enough tea for all my systems....i have about 1000 gallons of water at any given time, and the base, re, cannazyme, boost and pk 13/14 have always given me great results in the past before i had these high temps and set off an explosion.....so is short,, after my babies have been soaking in the tea for a month and presuming they are cured of their disease, will the brown crap come back full force after i stop treating with the teas or does it cure it for good if all other conditions are in line and proper??

thanks in advace

 

[mr.bond]

thanks so much for your response,, tomorrow morning i will be flushing the system's and refilling with ro water, new nutes and at around 6pm or so the tea goes in. the new ac is kicking and the room is now a cool 72 degress instead of 85 before....and the water temps are staying nicely at around67 whereas before they were a steady 73-74.

Another quick question you may be able to help answer......ideally i would like to treat with the tea for about a month or so and then go bck to just running my base a&b, cannazyme, RE and boost and cut the tea out. i know the tea is like 50x cheaper than running the canna lineup but i dont know how im gonna be able to brew enough tea for all my systems....i have about 1000 gallons of water at any given time, and the base, re, cannazyme, boost and pk 13/14 have always given me great results in the past before i had these high temps and set off an explosion.....so is short,, after my babies have been soaking in the tea for a month and presuming they are cured of their disease, will the brown crap come back full force after i stop treating with the teas or does it cure it for good if all other conditions are in line and proper??

thanks in advace

Hi Diablo,

A couple of things. Make sure you don't add the tea until it's hit the 48hour sweet spot, and refresh it after 3 days with some refrigerated or fresh reserve. Also, don't use the Cannazyme in your nutrient regime until after the slime has subsided. what kind of system do you have that requires 1000gal of water? just curious. if it is something like an ebb-and-flow, you dont need nearly as much as the recommended 1cup per gal for initial inoculation. also, keep the tea going, dont give up on it. at no point should you add in any H202 of any amount. it will kill all the good stuff from the tea.

Once you add the tea and let it do its thing, the mycorrhizal fungi and other beneficials will strengthen the roots and help prevent against new disease and such. Now that you have the room & water temperature in check, the brown slime will more than likely not come back as long as you can A) inoculate with the tea and fully rid the slime, B) maintain an active and diverse culture of beneficial bacteria, and C) maintain reasonable environmental conditions for the plants. Also, mycorrhizal fungi and the other good stuff is quite good at allowing the roots to grow in slightly warmer temperatures than usual without a slime outbreak. For example if your water hit 73F before, and that temp. was the trigger of the slime, then you will likely have better slime protection at 73F after a few cycles of the tea than you did previously. At least this was the case in my experience. The bad slime that forms in these temps can't populate due to the overabundance of the 'good' beneficials and stuff in the tea. Which brings up one last point... without that mass of good beneficial bacteria you can never say for sure whether the slime will come back. After the slime is totally gone and perhaps you see a few new roots coming in, you could add the Cannazyme back into your nutrient mix, that will give some protection against the slime (given the room temp stays reasonable) but will quickly make the slime explode if the water temp gets too high.

the only sure way to protect against the slime is to have an active, diverse culture of the beneficial bacterias, fungi, nematodes & more found in the tea (the tea has over 30,000 cultures of bacteria alone). so maybe that means you have to keep running the tea during high temperatures to stay protected even after the slime is gone, or, maybe it means you just need to inoculate once, it really depends on your grow. for example, i ran the tea for 1 or 2 cycles during my veg period to inoculate from the slime, and then after the slime subsided, 2 more cycles to keep the root growth going strong and to help protect the new roots. now i dont use the tea at all in my buckets, however, i do add the maximum rec'd dose on bottle of Aquashield with each nutrient change to help supplement some of the beneficial bacteria and keep the rez protected from slime. its not nearly as strong as the tea, but i havent had any slime issues since the inoculation and upkeep with Aquashield. perhaps after your slime is gone you could use a similar application, by adding some Aquashield in with your mix to keep the defense up. not sure if this would be feasible for you given the large volume of water you deal with. also if you try it out, do some research first and make sure the Aquashield and Cannazyme can work in harmony together. I think they can, but i'm not sure. there may have even been some discussion on this somewhere else in this thread. and of course for new plants/roots, i would definitely mix up a batch of the tea as it just makes root growth explode and it would basically give it slime-protecting armor during its youth.

Well Diablo I hope I've answered more questions for you than I've created. LOL I rambled a bit, sorry. Hope this helps and let us know... Drop some before & after pics if you got em.

Cheers,
Mr. Bond

 

[mr.bond]

Heisenberg,
I have made the changes to my room and now have more than one watt of air power going into my res. I got a little excited and started brewing tea yesterday, but only have an Elite 801 powering a single 4" round stone. The next time I drive down to the store, I will buy another 4" stone and a dual outlet pump for the tea, but want to use the brew I currently have going if it will help. Should I scrap this batch, or do you think it will be good?
Thanks
G

Hi Goldowitz,

That is a small air pump, only recommended for 15gal or less, but it should work. If you have the extra 20-40 bucks for a bigger dual-port air pump, i would say that i think it is a worthy investment. more air will make the tea culture activate quicker and should help make it more diverse. at the end of the 48hour brewing period, if the tea smells earthy, then it is probably just fine. no need to scrap unless it smells bad. cheers and good luck!

Mr. Bond

 

[Heisenberg]

thanks so much for your response,, tomorrow morning i will be flushing the system's and refilling with ro water, new nutes and at around 6pm or so the tea goes in. the new ac is kicking and the room is now a cool 72 degress instead of 85 before....and the water temps are staying nicely at around67 whereas before they were a steady 73-74.

Another quick question you may be able to help answer......ideally i would like to treat with the tea for about a month or so and then go bck to just running my base a&b, cannazyme, RE and boost and cut the tea out. i know the tea is like 50x cheaper than running the canna lineup but i dont know how im gonna be able to brew enough tea for all my systems....i have about 1000 gallons of water at any given time, and the base, re, cannazyme, boost and pk 13/14 have always given me great results in the past before i had these high temps and set off an explosion.....so is short,, after my babies have been soaking in the tea for a month and presuming they are cured of their disease, will the brown crap come back full force after i stop treating with the teas or does it cure it for good if all other conditions are in line and proper??

thanks in advace

Once slime enters a system, it is omnipresent. If you go back to your old ways, it may or may not come back, it depends on a lot of factors, as Mr Bond pointed out. One thing I can say is that after you are confident the slime has subsided, you can begin using far less tea. The water system may be huge, but the root systems are what we worry about. There is a big difference between fighting active slime and preventing out breaks in healthy plants. After recovery I usually recommend dropping the tea application to 1-2 cups per 10 gallon. You could probably get away with as little as a half cup per 10 gallon and still enjoy good protection. After all, your adding your own enzymes so basically you only need the bennies for disease displacement. That would mean brewing about 3 gallons every 10 days.

As for sterilizing just before inoculation, it's totally optional. I do recommend a good rinsing if possible, but the tea should do just fine unless your res is just ridiculously filthy. Any slime left on the roots should become food for the trichoderma. If you decide to sterilize, no need to run h202 for 24 hours, 2 hours should be plenty.

 

[Heisenberg]

Hey Heis. maybe you could answer this question for me. I did post this eelsewhere and I thought you were more knowledgeable at this.

The book I was refering to, is Teaming with Microbes.

After reading the entire book that you have linked for us, what boggles my mind is, How does Advanced Nutrients Organic Products work so well with their non-Organic products or is it just their marketing scheme. I watch video's on yoyube all day long and see guys using their line-up and getting massive results. After reading the book, wouldn't sensizyme, nirvana, tarantula, piranha, voodoo juice,, and other organic microbe products be completely useless and killed off when mixed with their base nutes of Grow, Micro, Bloom, Sensi Grow/Bloom A & B, Connoisseur, and or would the Organic products also be wiped out from their Big Bud, Overdrive, B-52, Carbolaods, Bud Candy, Bud Ignitor, Bud Factor X, or any other salted nute addative???

I am just using them for an example because that is what I see on the tube and that is what they use and get huge yields, frosty, tasty smelling meds.

I personally am just curious about this. Tea's, compost, guano's, microbes all the way, but is it really working together for them, or is the salts killing their good organic microbes and enzymes, that seem to help them to get big roots, too???


thanks, I hope you might be able to answer this.


​

I think you are confusing the term 'salt' with sodium. In chemistry, salt has a much broader definition.

The term salt is an ancient word, occurring in various forms in earliest English and in related languages. The formal mineral name for crystalline sodium chloride is halite, derived from the Greek word hals meaning salt. The mineral name was given by E.F. Glocker in 1847.

In chemical usage, salt may refer to any compound of a metal and non-metal; thus terms such as "copper salts" or "magnesium salts" refer to the chlorides, carbonates, sulfates, etc., of copper or magnesium. "Epsom salts" refers to a specific hydrous magnesium sulfate mineral, made famous by its occurrence at a spring in southern England. Sodium chloride is sometimes referred to as "common salt" or "table salt", to distinguish it from other salts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_%28chemistry%29

I'll see if I can get someone more knowledgeable to explain it better, but basically, synthetic nutes, enzymes, and even typical amounts of chlorine in tap water, will not cause significant harm to the bennies.

 

[BendBrewer]

All I know is that my plants are loving the Tea.

Can you over do it?

 

[Heisenberg]

All I know is that my plants are loving the Tea.

Can you over do it?

Not with a basic microbe tea. The worst that will happen is that a different type of slime could form on the airstones and even the roots if you use too much fungi. But that takes a great deal and is harmless. The tea will never cause your plants to burn. At the same time we don't really see any benefit from upping the dose, but perhaps a little benefit from dosing more often.

 

[BeaverHuntr]

Heisenberg.. You should make a blog or write a book or do something. You could probably make some good dough. You are constantly helping growers who cant control reservoir temperatures and have so much info. + rep as always.

 

[diablo214]

Hi Diablo,

A couple of things. Make sure you don't add the tea until it's hit the 48hour sweet spot, and refresh it after 3 days with some refrigerated or fresh reserve. Also, don't use the Cannazyme in your nutrient regime until after the slime has subsided. what kind of system do you have that requires 1000gal of water? just curious. if it is something like an ebb-and-flow, you dont need nearly as much as the recommended 1cup per gal for initial inoculation. also, keep the tea going, dont give up on it. at no point should you add in any H202 of any amount. it will kill all the good stuff from the tea.

Once you add the tea and let it do its thing, the mycorrhizal fungi and other beneficials will strengthen the roots and help prevent against new disease and such. Now that you have the room & water temperature in check, the brown slime will more than likely not come back as long as you can A) inoculate with the tea and fully rid the slime, B) maintain an active and diverse culture of beneficial bacteria, and C) maintain reasonable environmental conditions for the plants. Also, mycorrhizal fungi and the other good stuff is quite good at allowing the roots to grow in slightly warmer temperatures than usual without a slime outbreak. For example if your water hit 73F before, and that temp. was the trigger of the slime, then you will likely have better slime protection at 73F after a few cycles of the tea than you did previously. At least this was the case in my experience. The bad slime that forms in these temps can't populate due to the overabundance of the 'good' beneficials and stuff in the tea. Which brings up one last point... without that mass of good beneficial bacteria you can never say for sure whether the slime will come back. After the slime is totally gone and perhaps you see a few new roots coming in, you could add the Cannazyme back into your nutrient mix, that will give some protection against the slime (given the room temp stays reasonable) but will quickly make the slime explode if the water temp gets too high.

the only sure way to protect against the slime is to have an active, diverse culture of the beneficial bacterias, fungi, nematodes & more found in the tea (the tea has over 30,000 cultures of bacteria alone). so maybe that means you have to keep running the tea during high temperatures to stay protected even after the slime is gone, or, maybe it means you just need to inoculate once, it really depends on your grow. for example, i ran the tea for 1 or 2 cycles during my veg period to inoculate from the slime, and then after the slime subsided, 2 more cycles to keep the root growth going strong and to help protect the new roots. now i dont use the tea at all in my buckets, however, i do add the maximum rec'd dose on bottle of Aquashield with each nutrient change to help supplement some of the beneficial bacteria and keep the rez protected from slime. its not nearly as strong as the tea, but i havent had any slime issues since the inoculation and upkeep with Aquashield. perhaps after your slime is gone you could use a similar application, by adding some Aquashield in with your mix to keep the defense up. not sure if this would be feasible for you given the large volume of water you deal with. also if you try it out, do some research first and make sure the Aquashield and Cannazyme can work in harmony together. I think they can, but i'm not sure. there may have even been some discussion on this somewhere else in this thread. and of course for new plants/roots, i would definitely mix up a batch of the tea as it just makes root growth explode and it would basically give it slime-protecting armor during its youth.

Well Diablo I hope I've answered more questions for you than I've created. LOL I rambled a bit, sorry. Hope this helps and let us know... Drop some before & after pics if you got em.

Cheers,
Mr. Bond

Bond and heisenberg,

Thank u both for ur detalied responses, I greatly appreciate it.

Ok. So the bad news is I'm not able to let the tea brew for a full 48 hours...I live over 100 miles from my location and I need to get back home for work. The tea will go into the system tonight right before I hit the rd after it has been brewing for roughly 30-31 hours. Good news is tht is has been brewing at about 85 degress so hopefully having those higher temps will give me a more robust living tea than if it had been brewing at room temps of about 72. When I leave tonight I'm gonna do another small batch of tea and it will brew for about 60 hours before I come back...is tht too long?? My plan was to hit them with their innitial innoc tonight with the 30 hour tea and then hit them again with a 60 hour tea....I know these time frames arnt ideal but I'm hoping it will at least start the healing process of my babies....

Bond, I run (4) 14 site 13glln RDWC systems and each one has about 200 gallons of water in them, and then I have (2) 14 site 8glln system for veg and each one of those has about 100 gallons in them....

 

[mr.bond]

Bond and heisenberg,

Thank u both for ur detalied responses, I greatly appreciate it.

Ok. So the bad news is I'm not able to let the tea brew for a full 48 hours...I live over 100 miles from my location and I need to get back home for work. The tea will go into the system tonight right before I hit the rd after it has been brewing for roughly 30-31 hours. Good news is tht is has been brewing at about 85 degress so hopefully having those higher temps will give me a more robust living tea than if it had been brewing at room temps of about 72. When I leave tonight I'm gonna do another small batch of tea and it will brew for about 60 hours before I come back...is tht too long?? My plan was to hit them with their innitial innoc tonight with the 30 hour tea and then hit them again with a 60 hour tea....I know these time frames arnt ideal but I'm hoping it will at least start the healing process of my babies....

Bond, I run (4) 14 site 13glln RDWC systems and each one has about 200 gallons of water in them, and then I have (2) 14 site 8glln system for veg and each one of those has about 100 gallons in them....

Diablo,

No worries mate. Even though the brewing schedules you spoke of aren't ideal, it should work out. The 30-hour tea won't be as diverse as it should be, but the 60-hour tea will be more mature, and should be plenty hungry to start attacking the slime. Any longer than 60 hours, and I believe Heisenberg stated that the food for the bennies starts to run out. I am impressed that it will take only 3 gal. of tea to upkeep the slime protection once the bad stuff has been wiped out.

Anyway congrats on such a nice grow system. That sounds like a big setup you have going. Post some pics if you can, always like to see what others have going on. Especially if you get some before and after pics of the roots!

Cheers!

Mr. Bond

 

[Goldowitz]

mr.bond,

Thank you for the fast reply. Everything smelled fine so I went ahead and inoculated one res yesterday and will do the other two this weekend, after some routine cleaning. I will update my results as I see them.
G

Hi Goldowitz,

That is a small air pump, only recommended for 15gal or less, but it should work. If you have the extra 20-40 bucks for a bigger dual-port air pump, i would say that i think it is a worthy investment. more air will make the tea culture activate quicker and should help make it more diverse. at the end of the 48hour brewing period, if the tea smells earthy, then it is probably just fine. no need to scrap unless it smells bad. cheers and good luck!

Mr. Bond

 

[diablo214]

Heisenberg/bond,

UPDATE.

So it has been about 5 days since i first treated with the tea...and it SEEMS to be working, but slower than what others are experiencing. Granted, my roots were BAD, completely covered in brown slime, almsot no white roots whatsoever. One thing i think i messed up on was my res temps were set to around 67-68 which after reading some more it seems that may have been a bit cold for the microbes to do their thing? Can one of you confirm this??

good thing is i am seeing new white roots, as slow as they may be, and my ph levels have finally settled again around 5.7-5.8. Before giving them the tea they would, in a matter of hours it would spike up to the high 6's, low 7's so that right there tells me i am on the right track and the tea is working. I am still noticing leaves slowing dying off so im not sure why thst happening if the tea seems to be working on all other fronts??? maybe one of u guys can chime in in regards to that?? I would say 80-90 percent of my roots are covered in the slime still, but as stated above for the first time in weeks i am seeing new white roots growth....dont know if the already brown areas will stay that way forever or if they will slowly get better.

Question about tea brewing time....i read previously from someone else who said they keep their tea brew going for up to ten days, just adding molassis every few days to keep alive....BUT ive heard heis say to never let it go over 48 hours. i am in and out of town alot, is 55-60 hours ok if tea temps is inthe 80's with 4 airstones in one 5 galloon bucket ok? i let a batch go for about that time earlier in the week and it smelled fine when done, is their any other way to know for sure? And lastly, hwo cold does the firdge need to be appx to house the tea? I just bought a 1.4cu foot minifridge from sears that a 5 gallon bucket fits in perfectly but i want to make sure it is cold enough to keep the tea properly. and lastly, if the mini fridge does work, do i need to but a lid on the bucket or can i just put the bucket in with no top?? As always, i appreciate ur help in advance....ive been an rdwc guy for almost 2 years and NEVER encountered this problem, and as soon as i stared my new place...BAMMM withen weeks it hit me and i was at a complete loss on knowing how to fix it...i lost 25 percent of the babies, but so far becasue of ur help it looks like i will be able to save the remaining 75 percent!!

 

[Heisenberg]

Question about tea brewing time....i read previously from someone else who said they keep their tea brew going for up to ten days, just adding molassis every few days to keep alive....BUT ive heard heis say to never let it go over 48 hours. i am in and out of town alot, is 55-60 hours ok if tea temps is inthe 80's with 4 airstones in one 5 galloon bucket ok? i let a batch go for about that time earlier in the week and it smelled fine when done, is their any other way to know for sure? And lastly, hwo cold does the firdge need to be appx to house the tea? I just bought a 1.4cu foot minifridge from sears that a 5 gallon bucket fits in perfectly but i want to make sure it is cold enough to keep the tea properly. and lastly, if the mini fridge does work, do i need to but a lid on the bucket or can i just put the bucket in with no top?? As always, i appreciate ur help in advance....ive been an rdwc guy for almost 2 years and NEVER encountered this problem, and as soon as i stared my new place...BAMMM withen weeks it hit me and i was at a complete loss on knowing how to fix it...i lost 25 percent of the babies, but so far becasue of ur help it looks like i will be able to save the remaining 75 percent!!

Sounds like the recovery might have been slowed down a bit by the temps. And remember, brown slime is not stunted by cold temps. Also, some strains are slower to recover than others. New white shoots are the key, things will probably speed up as the roots improve.

48 hour seems to be the optimum brew time because it is the peak of diversity. If brewing longer is what suits your grow there should be no real problems. The tea may be slightly less effective but nothing to worry about. After 48 hours we start loosing some of the microbes that do not multiply, such as nematodes.

The average fridge is 35-40f which is a range that severely retards bacterial growth. I think a mini fridge should be perfect. If there is ice forming on the top of the tea then it's too cold. A lid is optional but ideally the tea should not be kept in an air tight container.

 

[rosecitypapa]

Heisenberg/bond,
Question about tea brewing time....i read previously from someone else who said they keep their tea brew going for up to ten days, just adding molassis every few days to keep alive....BUT ive heard heis say to never let it go over 48 hours. i am in and out of town alot, is 55-60 hours ok if tea temps is inthe 80's with 4 airstones in one 5 galloon bucket ok?

I've tried to have a perpetual tea running, but around the ten day mark, it turned and smelled really nasty. I've also tried doing it without the addition of molasses but it stopped developing light froth at the outside perimeter of the bucket. The froth a top is a sign of activity, 4 airstones might have you returning to a froth foaming wide mouthed bucket monster.

For optimal results, can't you brew the tea and then take it to your grow?

 

[Heisenberg]

Heisenberg.. You should make a blog or write a book or do something. You could probably make some good dough. You are constantly helping growers who cant control reservoir temperatures and have so much info. + rep as always.

I know this sounds extremely cheesy, but helping other is my reward. More so, killing slime is my payoff. The slime took from me hundreds of dollars in profit and savings, and robbed me of some really good genetics. I fought battle after battle with the slime winning each time before I found the magic bullet. So anytime someone reports that they have purged the slime, it makes my efforts worthwhile.

 

[Srgsaibot]

Hi,

Cheers Heisenberg for the redirection to your thread and the extensive info, if you get a chance could you look at my pics and confirm I have the dreeded slime


I should Add my girls are happy and health, tho I cant view the roots very well as thier in clay balls.

 

[Heisenberg]

Hi,

Cheers Heisenberg for the redirection to your thread and the extensive info, if you get a chance could you look at my pics and confirm I have the dreeded slimeView attachment 1609565View attachment 1609566
View attachment 1609567

I should Add my girls are happy and health, tho I cant view the roots very well as thier in clay balls.

Hrmm this looks like early slime growth, and a lot of it! The bubbles in the slime and the speed with which it showed up tells me it is the brown slime algae. I would get some tea in there right away. Plants often look healthy for a while because the slime does not make them sick, it just chokes and starves them eventually. Some of your roots will start to turn brown and get pythium. If I were you I would make up some tea and add it to a fresh res and not add nutes for 12 hours. Depending on your res size, I would add, after the initial dose, another cup or half cup per day for a few days. Make sure to pour some tea through the net pots. You may want to drop the carboload and silica until you have things under control. Once you introduce the tea you should be well on your way to a healthy res within a week.

Also don't forget to be sure you have plenty of oxygen bubbling through the water.