tenaciousb
Active Member
Hi there! Long time lurker, relatively new grower (one previous grow, soil, success). It has been a long 24 hours, so bear with me if I seem long winded. Here's the pre-information:
I'm running a RDWC, 5gal buckets, 9 sites with dispensary clones about 2 weeks old, planted in Sunleaves' "Rocks", one 18 gal res with a 1/10 hp water chiller, under a vented 1000w MH, in a 5x5 secret jardin tent.
I added the water chiller about a week ago after my solution temps were peaking around 78F. After some other tweaks here and there, I've got everything dialed in to where my solution temp stays right around 68F give or take a few degrees. My room temp stays between 75-82F with the light on, and around 68 or 70F with the light off. Humidity typically ranges between 25%-35% (Colorado winter=low humidity, bleh).
Flora Nova nutes. PPM was staying steady at about 200ppm (young clones), and PH was remaining fairly steady with a drift from 5.7-6.0.
Okay. Hopefully that takes care of the backstory.
I noticed over the past couple of days that my res was starting to get that weird fishy/mildewy kind of smell. I was hoping that it was just time for a flush, so yesterday morning, I went in to do a total flush and noticed some slick white film collecting on my tubes that run from the water pumps in the res. Upon further inspection, I noticed this same film collecting on my air stone tubes as well. I noticed brown gunky stuff collecting around the outside of the water pumps as well. I started inspecting my roots, and I noticed the same kind of fishy/mildewy smell in each of the buckets and on the net pots. The roots are all mostly white or cream colored, with no excessive slime of any kind, but some of them do have a slight brown tint. These are young clones, so they are still only starting to form healthy root systems. A couple of them have only just started dropping roots down into the water (they were introduced about a week later than the others).
So, I panicked, thinking the worst....root rot, the dreaded 'slime' you hear about in DWC systems. I did the following:
- I took out all of the plants and moved them to a set of clean buckets with no water, and sprayed them down with 5.8 water and let them hang out.
- I ripped everything apart and threw all of my tubing, grommets, and fixtures into a large Rubbermaid with a couple of bottles of h202, dishwashing liquid, and HOT water. Scrubbed out all of the buckets with antibacterial soap and hot water. They got a rinse of h202, wiped down with Clorox wipes, and rinsed again with tap water. I ran h202, soap, and hot water through the chiller, the water pumps, and all of the tubing.
- I threw away the old res and bought a new one.
- I rinsed each plant, roots, and net pots with cold tap water, and I put them back into their temporary buckets to hang out for a little bit longer.
- I reassembled the 9 buckets (grommets, fittings, air stones, etc.) minus the res, poured in fresh RO water, put the plants back into the buckets and called it a day.
- This morning I put about a capful per gallon of h202 (3%) into the buckets with the plants, and I'm making a trip to the grow store to get what I need to put the res back together (grommets n shit).
That's everything. I did some research into brewing a tea to help get rid of and prevent slime/root rot. The Heisenberg tea information blew my mind, and I plan to start brewing a batch today. I'm also thinking about taking the plants out one more time, and running bleach or alcohol with hot water through the whole system for about an hour once my res, water pumps, and chiller are hooked back up, then run regular tap water through for about an hour to rinse, and THEN put the plants back in with PH adjusted RO water, see how they do for a day or two, then add nutes back into the system. Good or bad idea?
Am I missing anything? Am I just freaking myself out and going overboard here? Was this the onset of root rot/slime? Is it just going to come back since I can't seem to thoroughly wash and disinfect the net pots and the grow medium without killing the plant?
If you've made it this far, thanks so much for taking the time to read this. Any advice or input would be much appreciated.
I'm running a RDWC, 5gal buckets, 9 sites with dispensary clones about 2 weeks old, planted in Sunleaves' "Rocks", one 18 gal res with a 1/10 hp water chiller, under a vented 1000w MH, in a 5x5 secret jardin tent.
I added the water chiller about a week ago after my solution temps were peaking around 78F. After some other tweaks here and there, I've got everything dialed in to where my solution temp stays right around 68F give or take a few degrees. My room temp stays between 75-82F with the light on, and around 68 or 70F with the light off. Humidity typically ranges between 25%-35% (Colorado winter=low humidity, bleh).
Flora Nova nutes. PPM was staying steady at about 200ppm (young clones), and PH was remaining fairly steady with a drift from 5.7-6.0.
Okay. Hopefully that takes care of the backstory.
I noticed over the past couple of days that my res was starting to get that weird fishy/mildewy kind of smell. I was hoping that it was just time for a flush, so yesterday morning, I went in to do a total flush and noticed some slick white film collecting on my tubes that run from the water pumps in the res. Upon further inspection, I noticed this same film collecting on my air stone tubes as well. I noticed brown gunky stuff collecting around the outside of the water pumps as well. I started inspecting my roots, and I noticed the same kind of fishy/mildewy smell in each of the buckets and on the net pots. The roots are all mostly white or cream colored, with no excessive slime of any kind, but some of them do have a slight brown tint. These are young clones, so they are still only starting to form healthy root systems. A couple of them have only just started dropping roots down into the water (they were introduced about a week later than the others).
So, I panicked, thinking the worst....root rot, the dreaded 'slime' you hear about in DWC systems. I did the following:
- I took out all of the plants and moved them to a set of clean buckets with no water, and sprayed them down with 5.8 water and let them hang out.
- I ripped everything apart and threw all of my tubing, grommets, and fixtures into a large Rubbermaid with a couple of bottles of h202, dishwashing liquid, and HOT water. Scrubbed out all of the buckets with antibacterial soap and hot water. They got a rinse of h202, wiped down with Clorox wipes, and rinsed again with tap water. I ran h202, soap, and hot water through the chiller, the water pumps, and all of the tubing.
- I threw away the old res and bought a new one.
- I rinsed each plant, roots, and net pots with cold tap water, and I put them back into their temporary buckets to hang out for a little bit longer.
- I reassembled the 9 buckets (grommets, fittings, air stones, etc.) minus the res, poured in fresh RO water, put the plants back into the buckets and called it a day.
- This morning I put about a capful per gallon of h202 (3%) into the buckets with the plants, and I'm making a trip to the grow store to get what I need to put the res back together (grommets n shit).
That's everything. I did some research into brewing a tea to help get rid of and prevent slime/root rot. The Heisenberg tea information blew my mind, and I plan to start brewing a batch today. I'm also thinking about taking the plants out one more time, and running bleach or alcohol with hot water through the whole system for about an hour once my res, water pumps, and chiller are hooked back up, then run regular tap water through for about an hour to rinse, and THEN put the plants back in with PH adjusted RO water, see how they do for a day or two, then add nutes back into the system. Good or bad idea?
Am I missing anything? Am I just freaking myself out and going overboard here? Was this the onset of root rot/slime? Is it just going to come back since I can't seem to thoroughly wash and disinfect the net pots and the grow medium without killing the plant?
If you've made it this far, thanks so much for taking the time to read this. Any advice or input would be much appreciated.
