It's A Fuct World

facestabber

Active Member
Well. To be polite:
You were talking about fighting existing pathogens while I was answering a question about replacing regular use of h2o2 with uv.



Yes, some reports of this occur every now and then.
Personally I have never experienced this problem, and my corals typically show me right away when something is wrong with the mineral balance (sensitive creatures, these little bitches complain about anything from micro nutrients to the neighbours being to loud Saturday night).

I dont think that with a normal uv filter sized for fish tank duty you would ever run into this problem, given that we change the entire reservoir so often.

Link to outside source:
http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.200401/msg00668.html

Sorry stormp if I came off as "mean" or whatever. Wasn't my intention, we're all big boys here :)
 

tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
Hey, Facestabber (lovely name, by the by ;))! FTIW, I used to do a recirc dwc and got the brown slime a few times, and I actually joined riu because of Heis' thread. Since then, I started doing sog f&d because of Al's success, and it is SO much easier than the dwc and much higher yielding than the big plants I was growing. While doing dwc, Heis' tea was amazingly effective, while h2o2 only slowed the slimes progress, even in high dosages. When I first started my sog f&d, I kept on with the tea and it worked great at first - the plants loved it and looked great! The problem came when it was time to clean the rezes. Holy shit, the fucking bio-gunk in the rezes was thick and really gross, and took forever to clean out completely. Since I've switched to h2o2 in the rezes, the plants still grew great and the tanks were gunk-free, and super easy to clean. h2o2 is a cost, but totally worth it imo, esp. if you're doing this for a living. Just my experience, hope it helps. Good luck!
 

facestabber

Active Member
Hey, Facestabber (lovely name, by the by ;))! FTIW, I used to do a recirc dwc and got the brown slime a few times, and I actually joined riu because of Heis' thread. Since then, I started doing sog f&d because of Al's success, and it is SO much easier than the dwc and much higher yielding than the big plants I was growing. While doing dwc, Heis' tea was amazingly effective, while h2o2 only slowed the slimes progress, even in high dosages. When I first started my sog f&d, I kept on with the tea and it worked great at first - the plants loved it and looked great! The problem came when it was time to clean the rezes. Holy shit, the fucking bio-gunk in the rezes was thick and really gross, and took forever to clean out completely. Since I've switched to h2o2 in the rezes, the plants still grew great and the tanks were gunk-free, and super easy to clean. h2o2 is a cost, but totally worth it imo, esp. if you're doing this for a living. Just my experience, hope it helps. Good luck!
Again, great advice but I'm looking for that sterile cure to brown slime (cyanobacteria). I'm a faithful user of DM Zone and sometimes H2O2 but I cannot honestly say either of them can CURE an existing problem and keep it at bay. Seems the benny camp has an answer in the heis tea. Does the sterile camp have a cure? Word on the street is that this stuff is peroxide/o2/chlorine/chloramine resistant.

I feel like this issue needs to be properly addressed because many growers including myself are die hard advocates of either bennies or sterilizers. I've argued with people that used bennies and urged them to go sterile right here on RIU. Was I naive to do so? Does sterile only work sometimes (unless cyanobacteria attacks)? If so I'm contemplating a total change in my methods.
 

Scroga

Well-Known Member
i came to the conclusion from my ton of reading that i could just add worm castings to my dwc as a preventative...which 'they say' is better than a cure..so thats what i do...as well as 'inocculating' the root zone with worm castings when i transplant... i know you want sterile, i just want no problems...im lazy with rez change and havnt had problem.. touch weed..
 

tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
Strange i only get a bit of bio around my air stones! But i dont use the zho in my brewing.
Yeah, maybe the bio-gunk is mainly from the zho. Also, I don't cover my rezes per Al's advice and some light gets in there. h2o2 takes care of any algae now, though...

Again, great advice but I'm looking for that sterile cure to brown slime (cyanobacteria). I'm a faithful user of DM Zone and sometimes H2O2 but I cannot honestly say either of them can CURE an existing problem and keep it at bay. Seems the benny camp has an answer in the heis tea. Does the sterile camp have a cure? Word on the street is that this stuff is peroxide/o2/chlorine/chloramine resistant.

I feel like this issue needs to be properly addressed because many growers including myself are die hard advocates of either bennies or sterilizers. I've argued with people that used bennies and urged them to go sterile right here on RIU. Was I naive to do so? Does sterile only work sometimes (unless cyanobacteria attacks)? If so I'm contemplating a total change in my methods.
I see. If I got the cyanobacteria now, I'd probably change the rezes and add the tea for a couple of weeks to wipe it out, then go back to the h2o2 afterward. I've used everything trying to get rid of it and keep a sterile rez (physan 20, sm-90, h2o2 and bleach, etc.) nothing worked for me but the tea in those instances...
 

facestabber

Active Member
Exactly. The general consensus says "Heis-tea" is the only cure. You guys have no idea just how bad I want to find a sterile cure.
Root rot is a reoccurring topic on every cannabis forum I've ever been on. Hard for me to believe there's not a sterilizer/magic sauce that can be added to rez water that will kill EVERYTHING except our trees.
Products like Zone, H2O2, and bleach are SUPPOSED to do just that but don't.

NUTRIENT/ADDITIVE COMPANIES: You have a niche to fill and lot's of farmers lined up to give you their money for a product that works ALL of the time. Killing and controlling everything EXCEPT cyanobacteria brown slime isn't good enough.
 

ilikecheetoes

Well-Known Member
interesting. I havent dealt with the slime since dumping RDWC for ebb/flow. I remember that crap though. physan seemed to kill it but at levels that did noticeable damage to the plants as well. I run sterile rez with bleach now but if I was to get hit with the slime I'd dump the bleach and run some Great White for a 2 week cycle along with a normal dose of H2O2 (i called them they said normal doses wont kill the benes). And then switch back to sterile as was mentioned above.
 

tenthirty

Well-Known Member
Been there done that......
I ran a Heath Robinson flooded tube for about a year.
The only thing that would keep the slime at bay was the tea, or
UV sterilizer and H2O2 and even at that, if the slime got started on the roots, it could not be stopped, though you could drink from my rez.
Lota consolation in that.

So I went to the Fuct method, lets say half fuct once a month harvests in 4" rockwool block and haven't looked back.
 

hellraizer30

Rebel From The North
Most if not all my exp with brown/slime involved a ebb&grow system! Sinse i have moved to the fuct/tables,
the slime hasnt come back! Something about tables is almost slime proof! Although i still take steps I.E
brewing tea and testing pondzyme. H202 will work but its not a cure! Its more like puting it in time out!

now root rot is a complete different beast! I have fount with growdan its best to mix the loose fill with 20%
perlite or hydrotron to add to the drainage. Aiding in the ability to flood more and replace old water with
new and more oxygenated water. Thus solving most root rot for me
 

tallen

Well-Known Member
Most if not all my exp with brown/slime involved a ebb&grow system! Sinse i have moved to the fuct/tables,
the slime hasnt come back! Something about tables is almost slime proof! Although i still take steps I.E
brewing tea and testing pondzyme. H202 will work but its not a cure! Its more like puting it in time out!

now root rot is a complete different beast! I have fount with growdan its best to mix the loose fill with 20%
perlite or hydrotron to add to the drainage. Aiding in the ability to flood more and replace old water with
new and more oxygenated water. Thus solving most root rot for me
Good to hear, I'm switching from rdwc to tables because of repeated slimings. Almost got the titan but decided to go with the tables instead. Now I'm glad I did!!
 

Dtv211

Member
WOW! Just got done reading all 156 pages of this thread... Keep the info coming, wanting to learn more! Thanks for the info!!
 

tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
anyone here know how often you would flood medium grade perlite?
I use Krum course grade perlite, and it's the consistency of parking lot gravel. I use an inch of grodan rockwool mini cubes on the bottom of the pots to keep the perlite from falling out. For all plants under 6 weeks I water every 3 days, for plants older than that I flood every 2 days. I'd like to find a medium that I could water my 5.5 inch square pots every day (no hydroton, please), but with perlite it takes that long for the pots to get light enough to water again. When I try to water more often I've seen overwatering symptoms, so this works best for me. Good luck...
 

ringlead3r

Active Member
have you tried just putting hydroton on the bottom maybe than you'd be able to flood more due to the fact rockwool holds so much water
 

tyler.durden

Well-Known Member
have you tried just putting hydroton on the bottom maybe than you'd be able to flood more due to the fact rockwool holds so much water
I tried that but the perlite kept coming through the hydroton, it got messy. Perlite holds a lot more water than people think...

one last question is how many inches do you flood your perlite than
One and a half inches, perlite really wicks the water up!
 

ilikecheetoes

Well-Known Member
i flood every hour for about 4 minutes. Its about 2 or 3 inches up the 6inch pots. Straight perlite. I was using the Course stuff. Went to get more and they only had the small stuff. I actually like the small stuff better. but I havent gone to bud with it yet. i never had a problme with stuff coming out the holes in the bottom. Who cares about a few crumbs in the res anyway.
 

ringlead3r

Active Member
ok, im getting ready to throw a batch into the flower room, ive been watering 4 times a day 2-3 inch on a 6inch pot for 10mins so I'm thinking im going to knock it down to 1-2 times, however I cant even imagine only doing it 1 time every other day. Im watering 4 times a day right now and see no visual signs of overwatering. But I'm also runing straight krum grade perlite no rockwool to hold any water.

Thank You Both for your suggestions everything helps and of course I'll have to experiment a little on my own.

Seeing how I have 2 different totally different suggestions above does anyone else have another opinion. I know Al has this info somewhere on one of these threads it just takes soooo long to find it.
 
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