Possible disaster in the making, help!

So yesterday I transplanted into my 5 gallon DWC buckets. All individual buckets, no central res. I thought I would have temps under control, and after 10 hours of light (and somehow my grow room temps getting up to 85) the res peaked at about 75 degrees. With lights off it's under 70.

Anyway, today I woke up and checked them and every bucket has a layer of white bubbly foam on top. Not too thick, just about 1/2" to an inch around the sides away from the boiling bubbles.

Airflow is good. I have a 45lpm pump running 6 stones pushing through 3 gallons of solution in each. 20 watt pump / 18 gallons of solution = decent air.

I also noticed a little odor. Not sewage, or rotten eggs. More like a damp towel left in the hamper.

I plan to pick up some H202 today just in case but I don't see any sign of root rot. Roots aren't in the water yet because I waited too long to transplant and had to manually place 6"+ of roots into netpots and hydroton (managed to do this on 6 plants without breaking a single root!), but they are pearly white where they are are starting to come out of the pot.

I am using Lucas formula in tapwater. My tap comes out 8.5 pH and takes quite a bit of pH down to stabilize. I wonder if this is causing the foam? pH also rose from 5.6 to 6.2 overnight. I'm not going to swing it back until after the dark cycle and see if it's just the usual fluctuation.

Anyway.. does anyone have any ideas? Besides "lower rez temps" I can't run a chiller or anything and 75 peak during lights should be fine with decent airflow.

that ph swing is fine...normal....throw so h2o2 in the mix....also get some...insulating/reflective material to wrap around those buckets....hardware store pipe covers....the silver ones work great and are cheapish...use bungee cords to secure them...so you can pop them off and clean underneathe or whatever good luck! also...consider freezing some small bottles of water....be carefull no to overcool with those bottles in a small res.....I think you will find the reflectors helpfull.
good luck!

My buckets are the silver ones from lowes, completely light proof. Although the net pots do have those little slits and the hydroton may not be covering the top row of them well enough. Going to pick up some aquarium gravel to top off the pots and add some 3% H2O2 at 1 tsp. per gallon of solution and see if that helps.

I'm just worried about the foam and slight 'damp' smell coming from the hydroton.

Everything was pretreatred, hydroton, stones, airline, etc. The system ran for a day before I put the plants in and there was no foam. After one light cycle of having plants the problems showed up. I just am afraid I need to do a whole new batch of soup already. If necessary I will, but if this is just part of dialing it in then I can wait it out.

6 5 gallon DWC buckets with 3 gallons of nutes in each with a 45lpm 6 outlet pump powering 1 4-5" stone in each bucket. Bubbles and water are moving great in each.
PPMs: 910-950 in each bucket with Lucas Forumla, tapwater - pH adjusted
pH: started at 5.6, 12 hours later is 6.1.
Res temps: peaks at 75, drops to 68 or so in dark
Ambient temps: got warm last night, peak of 85.. usually low 80s during lights on and low 70s at "night"

I would change the solution...just to be sure....mix up the new batch with 5ml per gal.h2o2 19%..

I'm debating it. I'm going to pick up some H2O2 this morning and add it in during the dark cycle today and fill up my net pots completely to eliminate any chance of light leaks. Think it would be safe to give it a day or two and see if the foam dies down? The water isn't too cloudy, but it's brownish anyway thanks to GH nutes.

My real worry is the foam and "earthy" smell. This would be fine in an organic grow, but I'm not doing organic.. at least not intentionally!

I just checked the roots in the netpots and they are all clean and white at the bottom. None are in the water yet but some have grown 1/2" or so towards the water after just one night so it can't be root rot. It has to be an algae of some sort.

I'm not seeing any slime either. just creamy white foam, like soap in a washing machine.

Bleh don't want to dump 18 gallons of nutes the first day!

Doing a lot of googling seems to suggest this isn't an uncommon problem. Has anyone else faced white foam in a res early in a grow? Like the first day? I let the nutes run for a day with no plants in the dark and had no issues.

My only thought is light getting in around the top of the hydroton. There isn't any real brown foam or slime. The roots in the netpots are white as can be. There is a slight 'damp' or 'earthy' smell, almost like mildew. It's not strong but it's there.

pH rose half a point overnight as well.

Just need any and all advice before my plants die! The bottom leaves are yellowing a bit but the tops are green and growing. They were under 4x 23W CFLs but now they are under a 400W HPS. It was about 2 feet above them last night, just to adjust them to it. The green leaves are firm and were slightly raised toward the light like they are responding and reaching to it. Will lower it a few inches a day until I get it about a foot above them.

Man that foam is just your nutrient solution reacting more seeing as you have a smaller space with more bubbles. It happens man. Chill out LOL

Also about PH swings: if you use distilled water at 7.0 ph chances are the swing will go down and stabilize. For some reason plants seem to maintain a 6.5-7.0 ph for me.

Yeah, I'm not super panicked yet as the roots are still healthy.. I just didn't have this problem when I ran the buckets without plants and then the first light cycle with them, boom! White foam. Kind of scary.

That shit ain't disaster... you want to hear disaster? Using your backback sprayer to spray 18 large plants in their 6th week of flower. Each plant averaging about 5oz of pretty dank bud... and getting danker.

Then finding out that your hydro wash product apparently has some kind of emulsifier in it that activated the herbacide that you had in the sprayer weeks before. Now the plants are not dying, their stems are like exploding and becoming mutated, bud growth has stopped, the entire mother fucking crop is gone. I'll maybe salvage 4 oz out of here.

There is a huge pile of mature plants and fucked up buds on my basement floor just sitting there rotting.

Now THAT is a fucking disaster.

Your foam is biological activity. Your playing with fire at those rez temps. You better get yourself some benificial tea pronto.

Ok that IS a huge disaster.. but mine has potential to be!

I don't think 75 peak is too hot, and that's not going to happen a lot. It just got warm in the room last night (86) since someone turned the damn AC off the first night the shit was going! Ideally it will be closer to 70 most of the time.

I'm going to try some H2O2 when lights come on. The foam is still there, but the smell isn't nearly as bad. Have to stick your nose in the res to smell it. It's not rotten, just kind of earthy, mildewy still.

What's the proper dosage per gallon when using 3% peroxide? All they had available and 97% is just purified water anyway.

Well the good news is that pH is stable at 6.1. PPMs are all near starting level, 920-950 in each bucket. So it's not something that has bloomed and eaten all the nutes or anything. It's not throwing pH out of whack anymore. Lights have been out for over 6 hours though. I went ahead and added roughly 2 tsp. per gallon, or 30ish ml per 5 gallon bucket (with 3 gals of soup), of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide. The foam was still there but the odor is much less. Have to stick my face in the bucket or my nose on the hydroton to smell it now. The foam is white white like soap suds and it's freaking me out lol... plants are still yellow on bottom but the stems are firm and the top leaves are green and stretched out wide.

Dude. I would highly highly suggest you check out the brew your own beneficial microbes thread. Super cheap and works like magic!

Or maybe even check your heat levels. Sounds like it might be heat stress. Possible zinc deficiency. If your rez is below 80, I'd say it's cool (lol.) My rez's stay above that and I have no rot/mildew/mold. Just nute build up.. damn those sticky Earth Juice nutes!

Also lower node leafs just.. die.. They yellow and die on their own. Clip those hos.

ULMResearch said:

What's the proper dosage per gallon when using 3% peroxide? All they had available and 97% is just purified water anyway.

Click to expand...

Metric
10*L/C= Ml per day

C= % concentration of H2O2
L= Number of liters in reservoir
G= Number of Gallons in reservoir

I should note, that I use 35% Food Grade H202 and all it at 2ml per gallon at every res change. About every 2-3 days I add about 1ml gallon.

I love H202 and would not grow without it.

Man I would check out the guys growing DWC in 5 and 10 gal rubbermaid water coolers, they are able to maintain steady res temps and have considerably less problems when running sterile reservoirs. I recommend using a solution of H2O2 or Dutch Master Zone in your res. The H2O2 can be had for cheap if you look for it away from your hydro shops. Some of the local chemical supplies have it for cheap and you can buy it in bulk. KnB