mickfanning
Active Member
So the WaterFarm system without air stone stones would be enough oxygen for bennies?
DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes
- Thread starter Heisenberg
- Start date
So the WaterFarm system without air stone stones would be enough oxygen for bennies?
Green melody
Member
I notice lately with my brewing also getting that black goo, but only when i add the mycos later in brewing. I brew the ewc for a day or so and when i add the great white/ mykos wp mix to the top they almost house on that foam and blacken in a just few minutes, soon forming the goo.
when i brew without mycos period, no black goo. even when i used a goo stained bucket that i used directly after a myco brew and didnt sterilize, just rinsed out.
also when i add mycos at the same time as the bacteria, when there is still no foam yet, the goo is present only on airstone, not bucket or foam.
so the black goo is most likely just the mycos housing rather than the bacteria?
The Dawg
Well-Known Member
I Ran 2 Grows without airstones.But when I did my research by re-reading this thread Heis recomends a airstone in the bottom of your res to give the bennies a oxygenated home and the more oxygen you put into your res the better.Now knowing how a waterfarm works I would have to say that the oxygen supplied by the airpump would be barely enough to keep the bennies active.However when you add a airstone to your res you are supercharging your bennies.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
A small waterfall is enough to put oxygen in the water but probably not if it is just a slow drip. It would be prudent to add stones.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
I have come to see this black goo as a great source of bennies, but what baffles me is why it would be all over one airstone while leaving the other pristine. Finicky bennies I guess.
Chopsticks33
Active Member
Hey Heisenberg, can i add candy bud from Advance nutes to my res or brew with benn? I have a 200g res ucdwc system.
Chopsticks33
Active Member
Hey Heisenberg, I been using your tea with my dwc for almost a year now and been a life saver. recently I started a flood and drain 4x8 table. I got 6x6 hugo rock wool on it. I feed it once a day. I been getting root rot the past 2 round.I know its root rot because on the bottom of the rock wool, the root are brown and have some rotten smell.. The rock wool stay kinda heavy also. I will start using tea every 5 day like you say. I hope this will help. Fan leaves are getting yellow now...Any one have experience with rockwool?
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
Sounds like you need better drainage on your rockwool. Rockwool receives oxygen from the drain process. As the water drains away it pulls fresh air into the cube. If the bottoms are never fully draining, then they are never really getting refreshed in that area. Raise your cubes or tilt your table so they drain. Also, if you flood more often you will be hitting them with oxygen rich water more often, effectively refreshing that parts which are always saturated. In any case, simply adding tea will not do the trick, you need to fix the underling problem.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
I believe bud candy works just fine to feed bennies, or any sort of carbo load.
Chopsticks33
Active Member
Thanks for the great tips! I will feed it about 2 time in 12 hr cycle. It is ok for the rockwool to stay heavy and wet? do you know how high should the flood be and how long should it be flood?
Greetings,
I just wanted to chime in and report the condition of my grow. To recap, I "preveg" in hydroton, DTW. From there, they go into RDWC biobuckets. I've been fighting what I believe to be Pythium for a couple of months. I started the tea regimen about a month ago. It made a marked difference. Plants were no longer dropping dead, but still not vibrant and healthy, by any means.
I tried adding more air in the buckets, allowing the roots to "dry" a bit, raising the plants to increase air gap, lowering res. temp., etc. None of these things seemed to make much difference.
I ran across an article some time ago, about how a nonionic surfactant will destroy the zoospore stage of pythium. I was a bit scared of it, because I couldn't find the specific surfactants they used, I didn't understand the units they reported for dosage, and I didn't know how it would work with the tea. After considerable further study, I went for it about a week ago. I settled on one ounce of Wet Betty (original) in a 60 gallon system.
Wow! It may be a bit early to start ringing the bell, but in just a few days, the difference is remarkable!!! This method may not work in other systems, or battling other pathogens, but in my world, it was the straw that broke the Pythium's bubble. For my situation, the combination of tea and surfactant appears to be kicking some serious ass!
Many thanks to Mr. Heis., and all others who have contributed here. I hope that my experience will prove useful to others.
Grow well,
B.B.
I just wanted to chime in and report the condition of my grow. To recap, I "preveg" in hydroton, DTW. From there, they go into RDWC biobuckets. I've been fighting what I believe to be Pythium for a couple of months. I started the tea regimen about a month ago. It made a marked difference. Plants were no longer dropping dead, but still not vibrant and healthy, by any means.
I tried adding more air in the buckets, allowing the roots to "dry" a bit, raising the plants to increase air gap, lowering res. temp., etc. None of these things seemed to make much difference.
I ran across an article some time ago, about how a nonionic surfactant will destroy the zoospore stage of pythium. I was a bit scared of it, because I couldn't find the specific surfactants they used, I didn't understand the units they reported for dosage, and I didn't know how it would work with the tea. After considerable further study, I went for it about a week ago. I settled on one ounce of Wet Betty (original) in a 60 gallon system.
Wow! It may be a bit early to start ringing the bell, but in just a few days, the difference is remarkable!!! This method may not work in other systems, or battling other pathogens, but in my world, it was the straw that broke the Pythium's bubble. For my situation, the combination of tea and surfactant appears to be kicking some serious ass!
Many thanks to Mr. Heis., and all others who have contributed here. I hope that my experience will prove useful to others.
Grow well,
B.B.
big liverski
Active Member
did you add the wet betty to the res or foliar apply?
big liverski
Active Member
I have been battling the slime for this whole grow, and what has worked best for me is mega dosing it- 5 cups every two days- it keeps it at bay. next week i am flushing- can i use tea in my last week with final flush?
I added to the reservoir at the rate of .02 oz/gal. That's about half way between what the article suggested, and what AN recommends.
Grow well,
B.B.
big liverski
Active Member
was back reading this thread and some people mentioned that Advanced Nutrients were slime prone- just wondering id this is true. I bough my used BCNL Producer with AN nutes that were probably 2 years old
I've heard that some of their stuff is like that, but I hope Betty isn't one of them. So far, she's doin' me right. I think all AN products are over-priced, and over-hyped. The reason I chose that one, is that it was readily available, and I could figure out how to dose it (I think). So far it's amazing though. I am looking for other options. I feel like I'm really out on a leaf here, because Wet Betty says it's 1.5 % surfactant, while I saw another that was a fraction of the price, at 80% surfactant. I'm totally in the Research & development stage on this, but I'm convinced I'm doing a good thing in my world.
I have no desire to jack this thread, and I'm still using the tea religiously. It saved my grow, I have no doubt. It didn't wrench the evil claws of root rot totally from my grow though. The plants were alive, but not thriving. In about a week of the combined attack, my grow has totally turned around. That's my world. My thanks again to all involved here, especially Mr. Heisenberg. Do you have any idea of the the number of pounds you've helped save over the past couple of years? Again, I thank you!
Grow well,
B.B.
I have went thru this thread and learned a bunch. What made me put the research into this style vs sterile is that from what I understand is that with bennies you can get away with less than favorable rez temps and greater rez temp fluctuations resulting in less stress than if ran sterile.
If correct can I get an idea from some that use the tea how great a swing in temps were ok, and extreme temps. So far I believe I have read in this thread from 56 - 80.
I think this info would definitely sway growers who like me have less environmental control and no finances for chillers and such.
Any replies would be appreciated...and hats off to you Mr White for providing me with a wealth of knowledge as well as fanning the flame i have growing for DWC.
.....now say his name!
If correct can I get an idea from some that use the tea how great a swing in temps were ok, and extreme temps. So far I believe I have read in this thread from 56 - 80.
I think this info would definitely sway growers who like me have less environmental control and no finances for chillers and such.
Any replies would be appreciated...and hats off to you Mr White for providing me with a wealth of knowledge as well as fanning the flame i have growing for DWC.
.....now say his name!
Chopsticks33
Active Member
Mr. Heis, know anything with using wet betty with your tea? I been dealing with root rot for years. first with dwc and now with flood and drain.. I kinda gave up on dwc because no harvest for almost 2 year now and now i switched to flood and drain with 6x6 rockwool sitting on flood table and still root rot! HELP ME!! I NEED A GOOD HARVEST!! im on the edge of giving up!
BigBuddahCheese
New Member
I always thought of Wet Betty like SM-90 a wetting agent that is used with sterilized buckets or reservoirs not one with beneficial bacteria like a tea. I think it will kill the good bene's or not so good for them.
According to the research, the surfactant (wetting agent) affects microbiology with a zoosporic life stage. Zoospores have no cell wall, and the surfactant causes their thin cell membrane to rupture, spilling their guts. Most beneficials do not have a zoospore stage, and are therefor not taken out in this way.
I've been using the combined attack for a couple of weeks now, and it's still working well in my world. I have noticed that the microbes are no longer building up on the inside of the reservoirs like they did before, so I've added more housing in the reservoirs (grow stones in double stockings). Apart from that, I really don't know what affect the surfactant is having on the bennies. I do know however, that my plants are thriving. No signs of pathogens any more.
I wouldn't attempt this approach if the tea is giving you the upper hand. It's purely experimental for me. My plants were greatly improved by the tea, but still weren't healthy after a couple of months of using the tea. I've only been on the dual attack for a couple of weeks, so I'm not willing to start the victory chant yet, but it seems to be working very well in my world. At this point, I'm more concerned with how the plants are responding, than with the affect it's having on the bennies.
Grow well,
B.B.