"Recharge" nutrient in RDWC

This is not a pitch. Currently I run sterile, but I have a question about using this product instead of buying all of the ingredients to make "Tea" as combined they cost a lot more than this product I found that has everything (molasses as well) included in one product.

Is anyone here using "Recharge" nutrient as a tea base in their RDWC/UC/DWC setups? I've read that you can use it, you just add it to a bucket and bubble it then add it to your reservoir. I'm looking at it as a last resort as I've read that res temps in the 80's work better with bennies than sterile, and I don't want to shell out for a chiller if the weather changes.

Before I go throwing this gunk in my system I'm wondering if anyone has tried it in soil-less recirculating applications and if it works similar to the tea. I don't want to gunk up my pumps and lines and stuff if it isn't going to work for the application. And if I can continue sterile, I will...


This is it:

https://www.realgrowers.com/product/recharge/

I have a really bad history with the "rot" and was completely unsuccessful running sterile even with res temps in the 60's. So I use Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide and just add about 1/2 ml to my DWC buckets every other day and I have incredibly healthy plants. Recharge appears to be an even better product and I was considering switching but am hesitant to mess with what works. Bennies works so much better for me. My buckets get acidotic fast though so I have to keep a close eye on that, but have gone a month without changing my res water without any problems. And I haven't had a problem with my air stones getting gunked up but I just do simple DWC buckets. I too would like to hear about other's success with recharge.

Rooster802 said:

I have a really bad history with the "rot" and was completely unsuccessful running sterile even with res temps in the 60's. So I use Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide and just add about 1/2 ml to my DWC buckets every other day and I have incredibly healthy plants. Recharge appears to be an even better product and I was considering switching but am hesitant to mess with what works. Bennies works so much better for me. My buckets get acidotic fast though so I have to keep a close eye on that, but have gone a month without changing my res water without any problems. And I haven't had a problem with my air stones getting gunked up but I just do simple DWC buckets. I too would like to hear about other's success with recharge.

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I'm doing a test right now with a clone I have in a 5 gallon bucket RDWC waterfall no airstone. I may add an airstone but there is already a ton of foaming in the bucket from the recharge. I only have 2.75 gallons or so of water in the bucket and I have full sized netpot, so the foaming is not a big deal. If I add an airstone that might be an issue though. Currently my RDWC 12 bucket system has airstones and recirculates so that might be a big issue if the foaming doesn't get under control. From the Heisenberg thread though dude said that you first bubble 5 gallons of it and then add that to like a 100G reservoir (paraphrasing and extrapolating here). So I might try that at some point depending on how this bucket does. It's a side by side test with my 12 bucket sterile run.

stick with sterile.

rkymtnman said:

stick with sterile.

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Less than convincing argument. Sterile failed me horribly. Bennies make an incredible positive difference and make the plant tough, hard to stress. So why is sterile better? I'm not arguing or being shitty, just relating my personal experience and for the life of me don't understand why the harder and just as expensive (more expensive if you invest in RO machine) method is preferred. I feel like I'm missing some information here because in my experience the majority of people don't prefer to do something the hard and expensive way, but that is what seems to be the case for hydro pot growers.

Rooster802 said:

Less than convincing argument. Sterile failed me horribly. Bennies make an incredible positive difference and make the plant tough, hard to stress. So why is sterile better? I'm not arguing or being shitty, just relating my personal experience and for the life of me don't understand why the harder and just as expensive (more expensive if you invest in RO machine) method is preferred. I feel like I'm missing some information here because in my experience the majority of people don't prefer to do something the hard and expensive way, but that is what seems to be the case for hydro pot growers.

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sterile has been all i've used for many years now. right now in hempy buckets that get up to room temps of mid 80's.

how can you get easier or cheaper than pool shock? $4 bucks a LB and i use 0.30 grams per 10 gallons. so maybe a decade for $4bucks of poolshock.

and chlorine is a nutrient that is used by the plant.

Rooster802 said:

make the plant tough, hard to stress

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use a Silica additive for that. helps resist heat stress and strengthens cell walls of the plant, thick sturdy stalks.

rkymtnman said:

sterile has been all i've used for many years now. right now in hempy buckets that get up to room temps of mid 80's.

how can you get easier or cheaper than pool shock? $4 bucks a LB and i use 0.30 grams per 10 gallons. so maybe a decade for $4bucks of poolshock.

and chlorine is a nutrient that is used by the plant.

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Ok, so it works for you and has for many years, but you don't counter why running bennies is worse (have you ever tried?). And for you its cheaper but for me it would cost more as I'm a personal use grower and I run tap water, as would most personal use hobby growers starting out. So not cheaper for everyone else except you, and you still have done nothing to say why running bennies is less effective. In addition, although some believe choline is a nutrient, most will find it kills plants and studies have found it stunts growth. So... still curious why sterile is preferable. "I do it that way" isn't an effective argument, although if it works for you, great! Oh, and I don't have to use a silica additive either.... Still, thank you for your response.

Rooster802 said:

why running bennies is worse (have you ever tried?).

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didn't say it was worse. definitely more work than dumping less than a gram of pool shock into a res isn't it?

Rooster802 said:

I run tap water

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i run either RO or well. your tap if from a muni source has chloramine in it which is not good for plants unlike chlorine

Rooster802 said:

although some believe choline is a nutrient,

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it's not a belief, its a fact

you haven't said why you failed at running sterile.

i already said why i think its better: cheaper and easier and just as effective.

you should try silica. it's a great additive to any nute regimen.

My tap water has chlorine in it, not chloramine. Also, although chlorine may be in fact a nutrient, using it as such stunts growth per a quick literature review. I failed at running sterile because root rot won every time. Probably my basement where tent is located is a brilliant breeding ground for pithium? I don't know. What I do know is beneficial bacteria protects the plant and encourages explosive growth. Just like protecting the bio-dome of the human gut prevents most kinds of disease... by running bennies in your human diet you can effectively fire your Doctor and cancel your medical insurance (but keep just in case some drunk fuck hits you with his car coming home from the bar). Many growers get so frustrated with DWC they give up and just become dirt farmers, I feel confident that if they had tried running bennies and work in harmony with nature instead of against it they would have been successful. Obviously sterile works great for you and is cost effective, therefore it makes no sense for you to do anything different. However, you haven't made a single argument why sterile is preferable to running bennies, and in my case trying to do your method failed. My question was why is sterile better?

Rooster802 said:

Obviously sterile works great for you and is cost effective

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Rooster802 said:

My question was why is sterile better?

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you answered it! works great, less cost, equal results of no rot. you still didn't answer why sterile didn't work other than getting rot. were you using chlorine, h2o2, sm90? were you using the correct amounts?

in the end, it's personal choice.

and chlorine does not stunt plant growth if used at less than 5ppm. safe for humans and plants. it's a tertiary nutrient for cannabis

if your tap has chlorine in it, it's killing your bennies. do you test your water for zero ppm of chlorine before you add bennies?

soil has beneficial bacteria which keeps the roots healthy. makes no sense to me to try to mimic conditions in soil for a hydro grow.

Rooster802 said:

My tap water has chlorine in it, not chloramine. Also, although chlorine may be in fact a nutrient, using it as such stunts growth per a quick literature review. I failed at running sterile because root rot won every time. Probably my basement where tent is located is a brilliant breeding ground for pithium? I don't know. What I do know is beneficial bacteria protects the plant and encourages explosive growth. Just like protecting the bio-dome of the human gut prevents most kinds of disease... by running bennies in your human diet you can effectively fire your Doctor and cancel your medical insurance (but keep just in case some drunk fuck hits you with his car coming home from the bar). Many growers get so frustrated with DWC they give up and just become dirt farmers, I feel confident that if they had tried running bennies and work in harmony with nature instead of against it they would have been successful. Obviously sterile works great for you and is cost effective, therefore it makes no sense for you to do anything different. However, you haven't made a single argument why sterile is preferable to running bennies, and in my case trying to do your method failed. My question was why is sterile better?

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Not going to comment on the better not better point, but I think sterile is simpler. What could be simpler than throwing some solution in your tub that you don't have to bubble and keep in the fridge, gunks up your gear etc etc.

I'm thinking sterile fails for some folks because they are using airstones and pumping in pythium and other bacteria from the air into their water. Combine that with improper temps or wrong amounts of chlorine and you will get the rot. Disclosure - I had the rot but chlorine and SM-90 killed it, so I won the rot battle, at least for now. One thing I am doing tonight is removing the airpump and installing a T connector into my waterpump outlet line with a 6 port manifold. Then running lines out to each pot. After that I'll have a RDWC waterfall setup with no airpump. My system is already a recirculating UC type system with a reservoir connected to 6 pots. But now instead of an airstone as well in each bucket there will be a waterfall instead. Water gets top fed into the pot via the manifold but the same pump also pumps water from the bottom of each bucket to the overflow where it drains back into the tub. So with this setup I will have optimum aeration I think, and less chance of rot. Also lower reservoir temps since I won't be pumping hot air into my tubs (edit: and bubbling out my chlorine .)

I grow in dirt, so can't comment on dwc, but I do use recharge and my water ends up looking like chocolate milk when I add it. I can't imagine that stuff would do anything good for your plumbing and/or air supplies.

Here are some pictures about what I am talking about with regards to removing air stones and creating waterfalls in each 5 gallon pot and I just removed my airpump and my room is sooo quiet. The benefits are great and I see no drawbacks. Works more awesomer than frig. The other pic is the flow rate out of a 700GPH pump after 6 (1/4 inch) split manifold on the closest pot. Flow rate doesn't really decrease on the last pot much.

Here is an update with regards to the one pot clone (tiny tiny barely rooted clone) I had added to a 1 bucket RDWC with recharge and mineral nutrients (GH Flora 3 part) as a test. I have to say, the thing has been in there 2 weeks, I have not changed (or had to add cause it is still small) solution, and it has doubled in size (keep in mind it was tiny and barely rooted). I didn't even check PH in 2 weeks until just now and it is within range (6.2)! Anyways there is a bit of foaming still but no big deal. The pics show that anything above the red streak on the clone stem (paler green growth) is new. Plant looks happy and all I do is add the recharge powder whenever I remember which is usually when I am watering my soil plants around every 3-5 days. It also has had little direct light.


Wild. If it works like this till the end of flower I know how I will be running my 2x6 RDWC!!! pots next run.

HerbalRelief said:

Here is an update with regards to the one pot clone (tiny tiny barely rooted clone) I had added to a 1 bucket RDWC with recharge and mineral nutrients (GH Flora 3 part) as a test. I have to say, the thing has been in there 2 weeks, I have not changed (or had to add cause it is still small) solution, and it has doubled in size (keep in mind it was tiny and barely rooted). I didn't even check PH in 2 weeks until just now and it is within range (6.2)! Anyways there is a bit of foaming still but no big deal. The pics show that anything above the red streak on the clone stem (paler green growth) is new. Plant looks happy and all I do is add the recharge powder whenever I remember which is usually when I am watering my soil plants around every 3-5 days. It also has had little direct light.


Wild. If it works like this till the end of flower I know how I will be running my 2x6 RDWC!!!View attachment 3915330 View attachment 3915331 View attachment 3915332 pots next run.

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Aha! Thanks brother. I had similar results with running the Texas AG. Its like turning on a lightbulb. I think Recharge is better even, and its got a great price tag!

rkymtnman said:

sterile has been all i've used for many years now. right now in hempy buckets that get up to room temps of mid 80's.

how can you get easier or cheaper than pool shock? $4 bucks a LB and i use 0.30 grams per 10 gallons. so maybe a decade for $4bucks of poolshock.

and chlorine is a nutrient that is used by the plant.

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I know this comment is old but (necro-posting)
But how did you find the correct amount of chlorine per gl to keep you sterile without over doing it

Why don't you extend the tubing around the plant, seal the end and drill a few holes in the tubing so all the hydroton gets wet? Surly you don't expect the roots to grow into the dry hydroton seeking water that isn't there.....

HerbalRelief said:

This is not a pitch. Currently I run sterile, but I have a question about using this product instead of buying all of the ingredients to make "Tea" as combined they cost a lot more than this product I found that has everything (molasses as well) included in one product.

Is anyone here using "Recharge" nutrient as a tea base in their RDWC/UC/DWC setups? I've read that you can use it, you just add it to a bucket and bubble it then add it to your reservoir. I'm looking at it as a last resort as I've read that res temps in the 80's work better with bennies than sterile, and I don't want to shell out for a chiller if the weather changes.

Before I go throwing this gunk in my system I'm wondering if anyone has tried it in soil-less recirculating applications and if it works similar to the tea. I don't want to gunk up my pumps and lines and stuff if it isn't going to work for the application. And if I can continue sterile, I will...


This is it:

https://www.realgrowers.com/product/recharge/

Click to expand...

So I had a huge slime issue that I couldn’t resolve for the longest time. I tried sterilizing everything and it never slowed it down. I did some research and found out this does work. I have one flowering right now and it’s beautiful. The only thing I do is add recharge after the nutrients. I stopped using hydroguard. I haven’t changed the water, just add new nutes and recharge.

KropKing420 said:

So I had a huge slime issue that I couldn’t resolve for the longest time. I tried sterilizing everything and it never slowed it down. I did some research and found out this does work. I have one flowering right now and it’s beautiful. The only thing I do is add recharge after the nutrients. I stopped using hydroguard. I haven’t changed the water, just add new nutes and recharge. View attachment 5354596View attachment 5354597

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How do you mix in the recharge into the res?Do you do whats on the package? 1/2 Teaspoon per gallon?