Cleaning Hydroton

So I finished my first hydro grow a couple weeks ago, and am getting things cleaned up, and ready for my next go around. I'm wondering if any of you guys have any proven ways to clean hydroton well. I've rinsed it with clean water a couple times already, but is that enough. I'd like to get all the nutes out, and make sure its clean and then I will soak it in some clean PH'd water before I put any plants in it. So any suggestions from you guys that have done this all before would be great!! Thanks TC

Spray it down good a few more times then when you're done, spray it down again .

I usually just dump them all in the sink, fill it with very hot water, a drop of bleach, and i let them soak for a while. A little hydrogen peroxide helps too.

Make sure you get all of the old roots out of it. To get all the obscure little root pieces I put the Hydroton in a five gallon bucket and cover it with screen door material. I put a water hose all the way down to the bottom of the bucket and turn it on. The root pieces float up to the top and stick to the screen. After about ten or fifteen minutes, I turn the water off then tip the bucket sideways and pour all the water out through the screen. When you are done you have a big mass of roots stuck to the screen. This gets most of the stragglers.

After I do that I put the hydroton back into the pots and dip them in water with a bunch of H2O2 in it. This kills off any leftover mold or bacteria that are still lurking.

I took mine and put them in a one of those turkey fryer pots. Boiled it for 20 minutes or so. Stick hose in it and rinse really well. A;so float all the lil root slag out like described earlier..

Ok good so headed down the right path. I was gonna rinse it till the water came out pretty clear, then soak it over night in some ph'd water.

1 part bleach, 9 parts water

soak

rinse

I like to use a strong H2o2 (1 part) water (9 parts) mix, and soak for a couple hours. Followed by a good rinsing with the hose.

I do so every 2 weeks and have yet to encounter any problems.

i dump all mine in one of those kiddie swiming pools, fill with water and 6 or 8 oz h2o2, stir like crazy then scoop all roots debris off the top and flush with more water good to go

I gotta find a place to get the strong H2O2 around me. I havn't looked hard, but I need to get some. I used fox farms for part of my last grow, but decided I want to go with somthing chemical based, or a tleast designed for hydro. So I figure some H2O2 would be good to keep things clean.

ya, I usually wash mine by mixing a little clorox bleach with water and using rubber gloves just stirring them all up to get the dead bits of roots/etc off the rocks, then a fresh water spray/soak should clean them well to be ready for the next grow. Just make sure you run the hydro setup with the final PH adjusted and nutrient added mix for a day or so with the cleaned rocks inside prior to allowing a new plant to take in the solution from the hardware (seedlings are delicate chemically).