DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

M

ms2010

Member
I'm using the tea and have amazing white roots but I'm getting a little algae around the top of the net pot. Is algae harmful to the health of my girls and if I pour the tea over the net pot will it kill it off? I'm also wanting a good flush for DWC. Thanks for the help.
 
Olympus Mons

Olympus Mons

Well-Known Member
ms2010 said:
I'm using the tea and have amazing white roots but I'm getting a little algae around the top of the net pot. Is algae harmful to the health of my girls and if I pour the tea over the net pot will it kill it off? I'm also wanting a good flush for DWC. Thanks for the help.
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Are you using a top feed drip system with your DWC? Algae shouldn't be growing on top of your net pot (filled with hydroton I assume?) unless there is plant food there. Get rid of the drip emitter and circulate nutes through the bottom of your bubble buckets. Clean your hydroton with water and bleach.

I always add the tea through the net pots so the roots get soaked from the top down. Never had algae.
 
Heisenberg

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
ms2010 said:
I'm using the tea and have amazing white roots but I'm getting a little algae around the top of the net pot. Is algae harmful to the health of my girls and if I pour the tea over the net pot will it kill it off? I'm also wanting a good flush for DWC. Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
A little algae is harmless and can easily be taken care of by cutting out some light covers to fit around the top of your pots. I have no experience with flush products. I use plain water for 4-5 days before harvest. I do believe clearex has a good reputation.
 
M

ms2010

Member
Olympus Mons said:
Are you using a top feed drip system with your DWC? Algae shouldn't be growing on to of your net pot (filled with hydroton I assume?) unless there is plant food there. Get rid of the drip emitter and circulate nutes through the bottom of your bubble buckets. Clean your hydroton with water and bleach.

I always add the tea through the net pots so the roots get soaked from the top down. Never had algae.
Click to expand...
Heisenberg said:
A little algae is harmless and can easily be taken care of by cutting out some light covers to fit around the top of your pots. I have no experience with flush products. I use plain water for 4-5 days before harvest. I do believe clearex has a good reputation.
Click to expand...
I use Growstones, no drip system but the algae started after I raised the water level, super charged the air stones and stopped using H2O2. I will lower my water level 1/2 inch below the net pot and use some landscape material to put over the net pot (great idea). As always thanks for the help.
 
Heisenberg

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
I am going to address a concern recently pointed out to me. There is good evidence that once we enter bud and start feeding bud nutes, the mycos actually turn parasitic. IOW they no longer help our plants do anything, yet the plants continue to waste energy feeding them.

But remember, we do not use mycos in DWC for the symbiotic relationship. We do not hope to gain the extra feeding and soil exploration they are known for. We want simply to displace disease. This is a purpose that mycos continue to serve even if they turn parasitic. You can look at it as simply a trade off. Your plants send a little energy down to the fungi and in turn they keep slime away. Once we get to using very high levels of bud nutes, it's likely the that mycos completely die off anyway.

If you are too concerned you can simply sterilize your roots once you put the plants into bud, and reinoculate with tea. The mycos will not have enough time to develop a new colony before harvest, but the other beneficials will.
 
dirk d

dirk d

Active Member
just made my first batch of fungal dominate AACT. how long would you say i should brew this for heisenburg?? thanks.
 
T

TheNewGuyy

Active Member
Heisenberg said:
I am going to address a concern recently pointed out to me. There is good evidence that once we enter bud and start feeding bud nutes, the mycos actually turn parasitic. IOW they no longer help our plants do anything, yet the plants continue to waste energy feeding them.

But remember, we do not use mycos in DWC for the symbiotic relationship. We do not hope to gain the extra feeding and soil exploration they are known for. We want simply to displace disease. This is a purpose that mycos continue to serve even if they turn parasitic. You can look at it as simply a trade off. Your plants send a little energy down to the fungi and in turn they keep slime away. Once we get to using very high levels of bud nutes, it's likely the that mycos completely die off anyway.

If you are too concerned you can simply sterilize your roots once you put the plants into bud, and reinoculate with tea. The mycos will not have enough time to develop a new colony before harvest, but the other beneficials will.
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what does this mean for a AF AQ and ZHO combo ??
 
Heisenberg

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
TheNewGuyy said:
what does this mean for a AF AQ and ZHO combo ??
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Nothing really, they still serve our purpose just fine. It may be a concern for someone in soil, because soil growers use mycos for different purposes. They want the symbiotic relationship mycos form with roots which effectively gives them increased root mass as the fungi explore parts of the soil the roots never would. They also aide greatly in decomposition and uptake of nutes. We get none of that in a synthetic DWC, so we don't really care if it that function goes away once we enter flowering. It would only be a concern for someone who is looking to force their plants to utilize every last bit of energy for budding. For virtually every grower, there are going to be many other areas to worry about energy efficiency before we care about the tiny bit of energy the mycos steal.
 
R

redberk

Member
Brewing my first batch of tea now, it's been 24 hours.. I am going to flush res tonight and pre-treat new RO water with h202, 29% as per bottle.. 2ml/gallon. Question is will 24 hours be enough time for the h2o2 to dissipate so that the tea will not be compromised? Also, the same question for cleansing/spraying the roots with h202/tap water mix 24 hours before adding tea? Is this a good idea pre-treating the water and roots before the bennies?
 
Heisenberg

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
redberk said:
Brewing my first batch of tea now, it's been 24 hours.. I am going to flush res tonight and pre-treat new RO water with h202, 29% as per bottle.. 2ml/gallon. Question is will 24 hours be enough time for the h2o2 to dissipate so that the tea will not be compromised? Also, the same question for cleansing/spraying the roots with h202/tap water mix 24 hours before adding tea? Is this a good idea pre-treating the water and roots before the bennies?
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If you have a tenacious outbreak of slime it is a good idea to sterilize first, but sitting the roots in h202 for a couple hours is probably enough. Most h202 breaks down within 12 hours, but can take as much as 3 days in some conditions.
 
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