I messed up, now I have slime : (

Ok here is what is happening: What started as clear slime growing in 5 out of 9 buckets in my DWC.



It was week one after putting into buckets from rooted clones. I changed out the solution in 5 of the buckets using 25 ml of sensi grow a/b 25 ml of 3% hydrogen peroxide, and by a stoned mistake 2ml of super thrive. The slime appeared about 3 days later in those buckets. I changed the buckets after cleaning the roots, and put in 25ml sensi grow a/b 10 ml of h202 29%. All seemed fine for a few days, I lowered by light, and bam it came back in those buckets. I had also since changed my other 4 "without super thrive" and they show no signs of it.

The morning the slime appeared I had lowered the light, temps increased around the plants to 84 degrees, and water temps in buckets increased to 75 degrees. I have also noticed some light that may be getting through the hydroton. I know I need to fix that asap, and keep the temps down, which I have done to about 70 degrees. Temps are still warmer then I want, and I plan to get a reservoir soon.

How should I clean this off of here, and what should I clean the air stones with??? This kinda sucks, and is super strange it is only happening in the 5 I messed up on. Sorry for the rant, I'm kinda baked. First time DWC. Any help appreciated : )

try add a beneficial bacteria like greatwhite or pondzyme. temp is your main culprit, you need to keep temps 65-68 or at least break the hot cycle once a day using frozen water bottles

Keep the h2o2 out with bennificials right?? You are the man superstoner!!

Check 0ut Heisenbergs thread mate
And I use super thrive in my DWC and no probs. The light leak coupled with high temps will be the reason for sure

do not use h2o2 with beneficials. i changed from greatwhite to pondzyme mainly for cost but my roots like it better. $15 for a pound will treat thousands of gallons.

I've cleaned out the buckets, air stones, and air lines super good.

Put fresh PH balanced water into buckets at 3.25 gallons. I got the Great White beneficials and added 1/3 of a scoop per bucket, no nutrients.

I have improved the cooling system for the room as well as the light.

I put some really sweet insulation on top of the net pots that I got from Lowes, and also cut a thick form of foil, and put it on the hydroton. Light will no longer be getting in through there, besides the plants are so bushy they almost completely cover them.

I got a bunch of those things you freeze for coolers, and am going to be putting them in when the lights come on. Temps are dropping here, so this wont be an issue much longer. Update in a few days...

20oz soda bottles work good for buckets

Cool, I actually got some of those gel things that freeze, would those as good as 20 oz bottles?? They say they are not toxic. It's sealed up in a plastic container, I can check for cracks and stuff as I change em daily. I already bought em, and they should be frozen in a few hours.

This happened to me once. Cleaning all equipment with bleach water, flushing with bleach water, removing slime from the roots by hand, and buying Aquashield and mixing up fresh nutes fixed the problem in 5-6 days more or less. It was an $8 fix because I already had bleach, and I got 50% of the Aquashield.

I've been wanting to try those sporting goods gel packs too, because they are shaped more convenient than a bottle... but mainly I want to see if those packs hold the frostiness in better than ice bottles. If they sink (which I doubt they do), that would be fanfuckingtastic.

I'll update on em tomorrow. It would seem like they would, just wouldn't want one to open up and leak what ever is in it into the bucket, I picked em up at Kmart for 1.50 each. This is temporary, I will be putting in a recirculating system really soon. Then I just gotta focus on keeping the res cool, should be much easier : )

the bottles stay colder longer.

Do you put just water in the bottles, or salt water??

Bottles float, and do not last all night. Gonna find some 20 oz pop bottles and rotate between them and the chiller things. Once I setup the ebb n flow or recirculating dwc im getting a chiller.

Day 1 no signs but it took about 4 days to reappear from last time. I'm keeping the room colder too.

just keep it up with the gw and the bottles two times a day.

That is what I am doing. I've noticed foam building up in the buckets now. From what I read this is a good thing, meaning the beneficials are working. So far so good, but we shall see in a few more days. Plants not showing any signs of stress. My PH is all weird though. Do the beneficials cause a PH swing?? I've read PH down wont effect the beneficials, is this correct?? I'll be making some adjustments tomorrow AM.

Here is about 40 hours after bucket changes.



Things look different that is for sure, not sure if it is good or bad, but looks like one of my plants cleared up and has all white roots. Still getting foam in the buckets, hopefully that is the microbes eating what ever was left of the slime on the roots???

Nice job mate, good to see you putting things into action and getting results!
I think the ph will stabilise after a day or two

Ya I actually dropped the ph to around 5.8 this morning. I also just got done making a tea, after reading Heisenberg's thread. I had to substitute a few things, but should be solid.

2 tsp xtreme gardening Mykos
2 tsp concentrated worm castings
1 tsp nitrozime
2 gallons of distilled water

It's in a bucket with an air pump now, I stirred it with a wooden spoon on my drill ; )

I'm gonna let that brew for 2 days, and probably add that at a about 1 cup per 3.25 gallons in the buckets.

New white roots means it's going to be ok. The old shitty roots never really heal.

Here is the same roots today.


The slime has spread to to other plants. It seems that at only 25% nutrients, it does not come, but once the nutrients are increased, it arrives about 4 days later. I yesterday I added the great white to the other buckets, looks like it is fighting the slime. The tea will be ready tomorrow afternoon, then the war ends and the slime is exterminated, or I quit hydro and grow in dirt.