DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

I knows it's a stupid one!!! but I was not with it yesterday ... I added my tea and forgot to strain it and I've got a lot of thick slime today ... Not sure if bad or it's just because of the dissolved earthworm casting ? I kept the bottom 4 l in the fridge and that too has a thick slime sediment at the bottom of the bottles ? Is it safe to leave in the rdwc ? And just check the pumps ? Help needed ?

Hi,

Firstly a great thread, thank you.

I need some advice, ive been running RDWC for a few grows and had lots of issues. Mainly pythium, this being caused from too high res temps, i was running beneficial bacteria but i think the temps (Temps went up too 75of for about 2 weeks) was too much.

I have a chiller and temps are kept between 64-68of. The roots are white but there is a slight discolor up as the roots leave the hydroton. I am worried that the pythium is coming back.

I have been adding benifical bacteria and pouring through the hydroten. Im using GH3



Using
2.5Gallon RO Water
10ml Mycrogrow Soulbe
16ml unsulfured Molasses
8ml Roots Excelorator
2x Handfuls Earth Worm Casting (Got these in cheese cloth)

I think you should be fine.. is this your tea recipe or are you putting these straight in rez?

Be sure to ph before adding roots.excel

Amazing thread! Been reading it for a while. First post.....

We have been battling slime/Pythium since the second week of setting up our RDWC.
We're at about 80 gallons of water over 16 buckets and a rez.
Regardless of water quality, water temp, water flow, aeration, or nutrients: the slime always came back.

The tea discussed here definitely makes a difference. My only issue with it is it seems hard to sustain, and more like a fresh band aid that keeps getting put over the same wound over and over until you harvest or move your pants.

Based on the same logic that fish aquarium enthusiasts use, I built a "biological filter" that I believe helps keep those cultures alive and available to your system if they need it. After the initial 48 hours of running it, my water has kept clear and nasty-smell-free for over a week with no water change.

I have a lot more to say about it, but I thought a new thread may be more appropriate: https://www.rollitup.org/t/dwc-slime-prevention-biological-filtration-bio-filters-bio-chambers.844209/

Thanks again for the amazing quality of posts by both Heisenberg and everyone else. Without this, i would not have thought of the above.

Scroga said:

I think you should be fine.. is this your tea recipe or are you putting these straight in rez?

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Hey, thanks for the reply.

This is my tea recipe, its been bubbling for 36hrs, i plan to give it another 24hrs. The tea is still foaming quite a lot.

Do you know about the pithium and where it starts. I have some roots coming out of the hydroten that look darkish, still white roots coming out all over the place but there are a group of roots that look dark.

If my clones had pythium whats odds of me finishing the crop, week 2 now of Veg?

Best regards,

M

Is there really any point in adding Roots Excelurator to my tea? Does it really do anything? From what I've heard it contains anaerobic bacteria and being bubbled and what not with aerobic bacteria wouldn't its effects just be nullified? Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

Stoned Tree said:

Is there really any point in adding Roots Excelurator to my tea? Does it really do anything? From what I've heard it contains anaerobic bacteria and being bubbled and what not with aerobic bacteria wouldn't its effects just be nullified? Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

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If I'm honest I've had to end of problems while using hg roots in dwc! I've now switched to canna rizatonic with great results, I use this while adding tea hope this helps.

i didnt go all the way to harvest with just tap water in DWC. so i cant really say. but i imagine adding an excessive amount of PH down regularly can cause some sort of issues. the way i see it the less you have the adjust the better. i'm not an experienced hydro/dwc grower nearly all of my knowledge is in soil growing. i can help you with pretty much anything in that category im a newbie in hydro settings.

I like this thread. I suspect your success isn't in getting the beneficial into your DWC systems, but their 'shit' so to speak. Fungi & Bacteria produce antibiotics. Popular household products are a great example: ethanol (alcohol) or acetic acid (Venigar)...however, fungi and bacteria also produce macromolecular antibiotics such as penicillin, and many more. I LOVE IT! Talk about sticking it to chemical companies! ..we are now culturing our favorite bacteria and fungi to select for the most productive antibiotics...then adding it to our systems to kill off pathogenic bacteria and fungi.

Great thread! Here's what I came up when searching...this is from wikipedia:


Industrial production techniques
Antibiotics are produced industrially by a process of fermentation, where the source microorganism is grown in large containers (100,000–150,000 liters or more) containing a liquid growth medium. Oxygen concentration, temperature, pH and nutrient levels must be optimal, and are closely monitored and adjusted if necessary. As antibiotics are secondary metabolites, the population size must be controlled very carefully to ensure that maximum yield is obtained before the cells die. Once the process is complete, the antibiotic must be extracted and purified to a crystalline product. This is simpler to achieve if the antibiotic is soluble in organic solvent. Otherwise it must first be removed by ion exchange, adsorption or chemical precipitation.

Strains used for production
Microorganisms used in fermentation are rarely identical to the wild type. This is because species are often genetically modified to yield the maximum amounts of antibiotics. Mutation is often used, and is encouraged by introducing mutagens such as ultraviolet radiation, x-rays or certain chemicals. Selection and further reproduction of the higher yielding strains over many generations can raise yields by 20-fold or more. Another technique used to increase yields is gene amplification, where copies of genes coding for enzymes involved in the antibiotic production can be inserted back into a cell, via vectors such as plasmids. This process must be closely linked with retesting of antibiotic production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Production_of_antibiotics

well i decided a couple weeks back to try DM Zone at aggressive strength to see how things went. and back to beneficial tea i go. i noticed roots just werent taking off like they should be. couldnt figure out why. in my aerocloner they were banging. soon as i put em in dwc its like they stunted. anyway, i go check right now to see how things are looking at there it is. white snot slime again. SLIME 1 DM ZONE 0. back to beneficial tea i go. i hit em with an emergency dose of mycogrow soluble powder (beneficial bacteria and fungii). with just a splash of the beginning of the tea brew (molasses, alaska humus, mycrogrow powder). hopefully that will start fighting it off while the tea brews for the next 36 hours. looks like i have no choice but to stick with the tea as nothing else seems to work. my conditions are perfect, water temps at 68 all day and night. way more air than the minimum in the reservoir, and i was using an aggressive dose of DM zone. didnt work. i noticed way better root growth when i was using beneficial tea before. i'm sticking to it this time. i thought since i had been clean for a month that my slime was in the past. i was wrong. glad i caught it early. its only on my cherry pie in flower (which is probably why it looks the way it does). i noticed the blue dream in a different bucket has a couple of brown spots of algae on the roots, but they're still growing strong and the plant looks good. i think i caught that res early enough and dosing it with tea before the slime hits will do the trick. no sign of anything in veg, but im dosing with tea also as preventative. grr. hopefully heres to clear sky's for my future DWC grows.

Can the clear slim form on the roots very lightly, as in very slight where you can just about notice it?

yes, thats how it was on mine just yesterday with the exception of one ball of the root which the slime was thick. some roots didnt even have visible slime.

in my opinion it starts as what looks like little brown algae spots on your roots. if you have those, even a speck, slime is coming. best to start tea innoculation then, before it hits the slime stage.

this morning i added another half cup with about 15 hours of brew. i'll do another half cup tomorrow morning after about 36 hours, and another half cup after 48 hours. but this morning where the slime was, the white appearance is now DARK. like alaska humus color. i imagine the beneficials have coated the slime pathogens and are in the process of taking over. i'll keep dosing until its under control.i already see new root tips coming from the outside of the 'black slime' aka beneficial coating.

im going to dose my plants with a light dose of both rhizotonic and liquid karma as well from now on since i'll be running beneficials.

sidewing said:

yes, thats how it was on mine just yesterday with the exception of one ball of the root which the slime was thick. some roots didnt even have visible slime.

in my opinion it starts as what looks like little brown algae spots on your roots. if you have those, even a speck, slime is coming. best to start tea innoculation then, before it hits the slime stage.

this morning i added another half cup with about 15 hours of brew. i'll do another half cup tomorrow morning after about 36 hours, and another half cup after 48 hours. but this morning where the slime was, the white appearance is now DARK. like alaska humus color. i imagine the beneficials have coated the slime pathogens and are in the process of taking over. i'll keep dosing until its under control.i already see new root tips coming from the outside of the 'black slime' aka beneficial coating.

im going to dose my plants with a light dose of both rhizotonic and liquid karma as well from now on since i'll be running beneficials.

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thanks for the reply.

It was very slight and hard to see, it must have been because i made a bad tea. When i removed the plants from the syste to be destroyed i noticed the rot had gone all the way up to the stem of the plant.

I am still unsure if it was bad atea poured thro the net pots. i followed the recipie but maybe i didnt have a good enough air pump.

i was using 20l min air pump with 3 airstones.

i dont usually pour straight tea into the net pots. i pour it into the res. i have a drain valve on the bottom of my res, if needed (only if the plant is young) i'll drain from the res and dump into the top of the net pot. once they are established i dont feel there is any need. plant shouldnt be rotting inside the net pot unless you have your water level all the way up there. it should be dry in there so shouldnt have any issues. the slime should be what is under water. which should only be roots. slime and rot are not the same thing. rot is caused due to lack of oxygen usually. slime can be caused by anything. i had my conditions perfect, 68 degree water, sterile res (i just changed it, and cleaned with bleach), plenty of aeration, no light leaks. and the slime still hit. not sure what caused it, but the beneficial tea works for keeping it at bay. and my healthier plant in flower (the one only 1-2 weeks in) the roots look way thicker and healthier since i dosed em with tea. thats one think i did notice with the tea vs sterile is the roots get THICK, white and grow very aggressively. im sure the rhizotonic helps with that also.

i was looking at the ingredients on the side of the mycogrow soluble and it says humic acid and kelp.. (organic ingredients). this may be why its not a good idea to add mycogrow powder directly to the res. instead brewing it in tea first breaks it all down for the microbes to eat.

i tried to cut a corner and add myco powder straight to res without brewing. i noticed im getting a little bit of the same (beginning signs of brown stuff). its not slime yet. but the plants in veg i can rinse it off with a spray nozzle. the plant in flower some came off but some didnt. which is usually what happens before it turns into slime. its grabbed hold of the roots. its only at the top of the roots (nearest to the net pot). all the roots below (a good foot segment) are all white. my tea bucket i let run for over a week without touching it and it smells kinda fishy. i sprayed it with bleach and washed it off real good and i started brewing a batch of tea again. i guess i'll just stick to applying every 3-4 days until it seems fully controlled then i'll try to fall back to once a week when i do res change.

i wish i was one of those people that could just run sterile and not have to deal with all this.

Alright dudes, I'm finally trying again after months of giving up I've made sure I've tackled everything I missed last time. Plenty more air..I've bought a chiller and temps are now at 68-69 instead of 75-80. It's also cooler now. I'm also going to use the tea when the time comes. Right now everything is cleaned up and I'm running plain water with nothing added since all I have is 4 very little seedlings. I hope all goes well...

Well I tried everything else! The tea seems to be working....just staying the course and being patient. Thanks Heisenberg! Also one question....I'm using Hydroguard by botanicare...has anyone tried it or know about it. The hydro store guy swore it works! So I. Use it in place of aquashield.

Hydro guard is the replacement product for aqua shield. They don't make as anymore. You'll get the same benefit plus more just running a tea with Alaska humus. I add mycogrow soluble powder as well but the humus would be just fine

I don't use teas, although I have- and everything stands at the ready to use again if needed. But I've forgotten what it's like to have snot in the sauce problems. Here's why;

NO FUCKING AIRSTONES! No airpumps or lines, either. I built a system that puts a waterfall where it belongs- in every working tubsite. I keep my water about 66-68, pH 5.5-6.3 depending on the stage of life, EC 1.2-1.6. I use dry nutrient salts, nothing from a water bottle, ever.

If you only have one waterfall for many tubsites, this might be your problem.

I have a few other tricks up my grow, too; have a look, link in my signature line. RDWC is all I do- and I do it very, very well.