GREEN ROOTS?!

Hey everyone, thanks for poppin in to read this

I got a problem, especially with one of my plants... This is my second grow and all of my girls have GREEN on their roots! 5 out of 6 seem fine but one is really looking rough (see first picture)

The second picture I attached is of the roots of that one. Pretty nasty huh?
Now people, I'm using 5 gallon buckets for each plant with 3.5 inch net-pots set down in the lids... I've heard of using H202 to help this problem (algae?) but is that right and if so how much to use?


Green also appeared on my first grow about 3 or so weeks before I harvested but they came out fine. I've also attached a picture of two balls of roots side by side from my first grow, one that started getting the green, and an other that didn't. Both came out fine.

HELP!?

The green looks like algae.

Are your buckets lightproof?

Could be worthwhile sterilising everything and h2o2 dipping the roots to remove the algae, then make sure no light is getting to your water in anyway.



J

I was at a grow supply store just today and that's exactly what their advice was too! The light getting in causes algae.

I bought six black 3-gallon buckets today with black lids to replace the ones I have right now to make them light-tight but what about the current algae?
Does algae eat the nutes as well?
And as for removing the algae, cutting off its light will prevent further growth... but shouldn't I remove whats there?
@jondamon; you say dipping the roots can work? Completely in non-diluted h2o2? And what about the hydroton? Dip it deep enough to soak the hydroton too?
Thank you so much for your help.

I'm theorizing that my first grow came out fine because, well first off; I vegged them in a dark blue 18-gallon Rubbermaid tote with shared water, 4 plants in two totes. Then, when I needed to start to flower them, I transplanted 6 of the 8 plants into the orange 5-gallon Home Depot buckets that I'm using now. Perhaps the darker plastic during vegging-stage was essential.

This time I am using the orange 5-gallon buckets I used for flowering-stage, for vegging. 1 plant per bucket, none are sharing water, all are on pumps with their own airstones. The orange buckets were brand new. Maybe the light had not yet been able to "penetrate" the plastic. When you leave some plastics in the sun (or two 1000 watt HPS for flowering in this case) it fades... so perhaps it "faded" (although not visibly) during my first grow just enough to let algae start growing towards the end (hence the appearance of algae in the last 3-4 weeks of flowering last time and algae appearing on all my vegging plants now.)

But this theory seems a little bizarre and unlikely.
Just food for thought.

A lot of totes out their in stores are for storage, not for Hydroponics. Their gauge (thickness of their walls) are to soft (a lot of pores) causing light to be able to travel through regardless of their colors.
Friends of mine have failed numerous times (DWC) using the orange HomeDepot buckets cause light glows right through till they figured it out. Never had a problem once they had changed over to black buckets. Of course you don't have to run out and buy new buckets. You can just wrap them with any color duck tape.
One more thing is that some people when making their DWC buckets, they use a clear water level viewing tube on the side of the bucket instead of buying a clear smoked blue tubing from a nursery. Depending on how and where your lights are set/positioned can and will allow a lot of light to shine through clear tubing reflecting in to your buckets. Root rot sucks Man, best of luck.

Sorry, but just an idea for you......... you may want to get some clones cut and start over fresh instead of taking a chance of possibly losing everything......? I hope that you won't and everything cleans up, but maybe just to be safe, start cloning......

Algae cannot grow without light.

Block the light issue and the algae will dissapear.

Do not use H2o2 UNDILUTED.

Depends entirely on the % of H2o2 to clear the algae.

Another good remedy is to dip the roots in a 10% bleach solution (non fragranced) for about 1 minute.

This will kill the algae. Then dip into fresh water for about 2mins to help remove some of the bleach.

Then back into your setup with the lighting issue fixed.



J

Chances are though that if you move to the new buckets without any light leaking into them the algae should die off.



J

jondamon said:

Chances are though that if you move to the new buckets without any light leaking into them the algae should die off.



J

Click to expand...

Yup, no light, no algae, it needs light to photosynthesize hence the green colour. Your roots are also rotting a bit.

Algae exhibit a wide range of reproductive strategies, from simple asexual cell division to complex forms of sexual reproduction.
Algae lack the various structures that characterize land plants, such as the phyllids (leaf-like structures) of bryophytes, rhizoids innonvascular plants, and the roots, leaves, and other organs that are found in tracheophytes (vascular plants). Most arephototrophic, although some groups which contain members that are mixotrophic, deriving energy both from photosynthesis and uptake of organic carbon either by osmotrophy, myzotrophy, or phagotrophy.

Okay, so I replaced all the 5 gallon Home Depot buckets with 3 gallon black buckets but will light still get in where the tubes go in? I've used them electric tape as you can see in the second picture to block off some light but I know light travels through the tube, so I'm wondering if I should get some black tubing...

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My guess would yes it will leak light.

The biggest question is will it be enough to allow the algae to grow?

I don't know for sure and personally wouldn't risk it if for a few pennies you can get black tubing then get black tubing.



J

But I believe the idea for tubing is to make it easier for you to measure the water level to the bottom of your net pot without having to raise the lid everyday. Black tubing would be defeating it's main purpose. They do sell the transparent blue tubing or just run black a couple of inches and a connector adding clear near the top portion.

Algea is a bitch cuz it likes to grow in perfect growing conditions! Perfect light, humidity and water..if you have clear containers it's pretty much garunteed. How long has it been there? A good way to get rid of it I s hydrogen peroxide, mix about 1% with 99% water and water. It will kill the algea, before you do this change the planting material up, so get va brand new container and so I less or whatever your using transplant then water with mixture..works everyone. Just don't use more then 1% as you don't wanna kill the roots. This is also a good preventative measure to avoid it all together also good for cloning to avoid would or root rot!' The best way to prevent algea is to deprive it of light tho, so make sure EVERYTHING is light proof! Also colloidal silver, grapefruit seed extract or barley streaw rafts work.

Oh and cut all that dead leaf and such off as the nutrients it sending to try and repair them can be used for new growth instead;