Coco Hempy - Bucket Cleanup or Not?

I have to clean up some used hempy buckets that had perlite in the bottom and coco up top in prep for a new grow. Empty, they smell like a wet puppy dog. I had used Piranha beneficial microbes in them as well as Canna Rhizo in my nute schedule. Would you wash it to the point of sterilizing it or just rinse in hopes of keeping the beneficial s living? If sterilizing what do you use...H2O2 or IPA....bleach maybe?

This must have been a dumb question or a lack of a lack of hempy growers that know the answer. I ended up rinsing my buckets with tap water, rubbing out the mineral deposits and going for it....hempy buckets are what they are...simple, forgiving and virtually carefree. Never going back.....

I use a mild bleach solution to soak and rinse reusable medium.

Hot water and a capful of bleach. That wet puppy dog smell is root rot / pythium / anareobic bacteria, use more h2o2 next time, and try to water with cool water, especially if you live somewhere like AZ where cold water comes out of the tap at 82F lol try to get it down to 68-70F. You don't need beneficials with chem nutes.

I use coco pots until flower then I go to a 3 gallon pot but I toss my used coco pots after 2 uses.

Jella, I always use Clorox to wash the buckets. For perlite, I just rinse it out on a screen with the garden hose. I've heard that coco is recyclable, but not sure of the process. I've never used any microbial additives before, but I personally would try and clean it out and start out new again.

I would think the scent is from the microbes, decaying not root rot, I've never seen any sign of root rot in a hempy, nor have I ever had a foul scent breaking down a bucket.

Yo Wattsaver, I totally agree....not a hint of anything like root rot with my hempy yields and root color after dumping the buckets at grow's end., even in the heat of summer with only mild AC running at 81.....Its funny...when I got down and serious rubbing the bucket insides, I found the couple of pinches of Piranha powder I threw in the bottom was still there and had solidified on the bottom of the bucket....it had never dissolved over the course of 3 months of growing.....it was probably the reason for the smell. By coincidence, I was just handed a bottle of Tarantula liquid microbial (Advanced Nutrients?) as a free sample at the hydro shop....I'll use that next time as an added protection. I live in a hot freaking area of the world...and had some bad experiences with hydro methods and root rot and pythium before....I can't even get a turbo-clone to work without bacteria & slime taking over in 3 short days. Hempy rocks though!

Hey thanks to all for the bleaching suggestions....it kind-of escapes me since my normal tap water smells like diluted Clorox to begin with....

I noticed that wet puppy dog smell after i'd chopped the plants but didn't dump the buckets or take the roots for a day or 2, so they did actually rot. That was a mistake as i found it's much easier to seperate the roots from the perlite when they're alive and healthy still.