SOG growers wanted !!!

and oh yea, finally if you really dont blv


you can do the test yourself..... im willing to bet your pH and your EC will be more stable without your air pump.

i bet 500 e-bucks

alright you....wich brings us to submersible uv sterilizers.....the kind with the impeller. it moves the water around (awesome) and kills all the pathogens (this is where i must say that i dont grow with any organics so no worries bout killin the good bugs.) in the tub. now your gonna make me go read about the whole airstone thing but.....i'm intrigued. holding my comment for later. dont wanna put any bs answer to this one.

either way, thank you lb

jesus....my point was......what do you think about the uv's?

love them.....but unless your op is completely completely chemical i would not use.

i dont care if you have 90% chemical and 10% organic

when i say organic, that includes stuff that has life, imho..... i.e. Hygrozyme, Cannazym, MAYBE Rhizotonic (not sure about that yet)

having that said, i've pondered the ideal of overkill using a uv sterilizer in my main res.... but not sure if would go that far, and besides i couldnt find a low profile one that i would like to fit in the tank besides the Sunleaves UV steriziler....dont get me wrong i have ALOT of sunleaves shit, but the only reason i dont like their UV sterilizer is the extra cost for an air pump to run the damn thing.

having said that....

I've got overkill like that in my standby RO res. this is the only place i really use air pumps and stones, rods (whatever you wanna call it; forced air injection) as any pathogen trying to start would get zapped by my UV sterilizer



if you need a reference as to what all is in the white thing to the right is a float valve coming from my RO filter, the black with the blue thing sticking out is my UV sterilizer.... there are also 2- Ario Aerators v4 in there....along with a pump thas hooked to the spout to pump out water.

if you are wondering what brand of UV sterilizer it is, its a JBJ Submersible UV Sterilizer...i think i have the 9 watt version.

you also may wonder as to why I'm so freaking anal about my water, res temps, optimal on and off pump cycle times, DO (dissolved oxygen) levels and res temp status... it is last year or maybe 2 summers ago when i set off on my journal to more knowledge about our precise water.

i caught a bad case of slime mold. Yes it really looks gross as it sounds. Did you know that slime mold is present in more than 60% (i think, dont quote me) is found is US drinking water plants/ The stuff is not bad for us, as our system can break it down but it can suffocate a plant real quick.

I also learned its damn near impossible to eliminate slime mold and algae types....you can keep it at bay, but its damn near impossible to kill it







yes it really did look like someone jizzed on my roots.

the forced air injection of my hydroponic reservior and the heat in the res temps didnt help much at all either.

while all this may not be necessary...it is highly important to keep water temps right, DO levels all kinda shit.

one lack and it creates that comfort zone for them.

yuck i still get freaked out by that shit.

Damn LB, that's disgusting shit. I'll admit I've thought about jerking off in my grow room on occasion, but not directly on the plants' grow medium! Did you wind up killing all of your clone babies with that scunge on them, or what? Did your clone mothers suffer too? How do you treat something like that?

Doesn't your RO unit destroy 99% of anything as well? Not algae though?

hey bugs back to me barrying my cube instead of putting it 1-1.5in above flood line . well everything is going awsome and im still flooding 2 times per lights like you said , im in 22days flowering . is there any need to flood more or should i just leave it alone and keep it at 2 floods?

it winded up killing 2 of my plants. none of my clone mothers suffered....

i have a few different setups almost like a failsafe.... in difference stages (so if one setup fails which isnt likely...ill have backup)....this was an isolated incident

to save them...i pulled them out the hydroton...trashed that and never looked back. once i pulled out the hydroton, i had already mixed up a mild h202 soup. 35% HyOx (advanced nutes)

i swished the roots and the rapid rooter gently in the mix ..... and transplanted to coco.... coco has a trichoderma which controls pathogens and certain types of root rot...

well needless to say the slime mold got ate up by the coco.....the water dwelling slime mold had no chance in the coco

for the others i left in an aero hybrid....i used physon 20....this is some great great shit, but also some powerful dangers shit...remember less is always more. its the king of pwning rootrots and other nasty things trying to take over in a hydro ponic res.....so if you buy and use, use at a highly diluted ratio!!! work your way up

As far as the RO system question.....yes the fabric (excuse my lack of terminology, still tired just waking up really) on the reverse osmosis is so thin, so microscopic that it doesnt let just anything through... that 99% is supposed to be what it is... so its not like a WHOLE bacteria cell could get through....however like i mentioned before sometimes things you can keep at bay, but never kill.

i blv that my overly hot (over 70F) res temps, and aeration of my res is what help accelerate life back to the bacteria/mold/whatever.....

shit was always building up in my RO res when i solely had air pump injection...when i added the UV sterilizer i wasnt worried about shit building up.....i havent rinsed out my RO res since the last time it was hot (last summer)


another factor to take into account was me not using solely RO water.....as my tap water ppms out the faucet really arent bad....not bad at all...around 80ppms on a good day and average out to 150ppms on a bad day.

Anywho my RO filter would produce such PURE/raw ass water that it wouldnt buffer itself. The pH would not buffer for SHIT!

so to help my pH buffer, i would add 3 gallons RO to 1 gallon tap water to help buffer the nute soup....

well that was almost as bad...... so i just went back solely to RO and started adding Potassium Bicarbonate....it helps with highly pure/raw water to help add what it needs to buffer the pH.

tap water is easily pH'd and somewhat stable because of everything that is in it.

random tidbits

Potassium Bicarbonate is a common ingredient found in ph UP products.

it is also used in beer/wine making to lower the pH.


my pH was always dropping below 5.6 always....always always always. this is what got me using potassium bicarbonate

i also learned this bit of info from a buddy of mine and a hydroponic website

Wohjew said:

hey bugs back to me barrying my cube instead of putting it 1-1.5in above flood line . well everything is going awsome and im still flooding 2 times per lights like you said , im in 22days flowering . is there any need to flood more or should i just leave it alone and keep it at 2 floods?

Click to expand...

good to hear it man.....as long as they respond well to it then you can bump it up to 3 if needed. hell some folks go as many as 12 times. the plants will grow quite rapidly almost like a semi-dwc. now for all the tards out there. no E&F is not the same as DWC but let me tell you this. the priciples all work the same ...oxygenated nutes flood the root zone then empty out and as long as the medium maintains the proper air:water ratio and the plants are healthy they will suck it up. no different then them being in water like dwc. so play with it. now that you have your medium right the sky's almost the limit with growth. people tend to think of flood tables as inferior to other methods of hydro when in fact you can make it comparable to the others with "LESS" work and fiddling. flood tables are straight from god once you have them nailed down. i frequently blow minds with the quality and quantity of my buds, and love the opportunity to show off what is achievable in E&F. just my dollar and 32 cents worth.

oh and dont listen to that loud guy....what does he know.....did you see that grey can ???? he didnt even have anything growing in it! i mean really!!!!! some people. jk blunts

LoudBlunts said:

random tidbits

Potassium Bicarbonate is a common ingredient found in ph UP products.

it is also used in beer/wine making to lower the pH.


my pH was always dropping below 5.6 always....always always always. this is what got me using potassium bicarbonate

i also learned this bit of info from a buddy of mine and a hydroponic website

Click to expand...

cool....i think your the first guy i've ever read about having to use ph up....ro cause that you think?

Old Frog said:

Damn LB, that's disgusting shit. I'll admit I've thought about jerking off in my grow room on occasion, but not directly on the plants' grow medium! Did you wind up killing all of your clone babies with that scunge on them, or what? Did your clone mothers suffer too? How do you treat something like that?

Doesn't your RO unit destroy 99% of anything as well? Not algae though?

Click to expand...

i have rubbed out many a' load in my op.......sorry smokers
banged in there a couple of times as well.......ahhhhhh good times

Word LB, sounds like you nuked 'em proper. So you don't do anything in hydroton at all now? I used the stuff to line my E&F trays so the roots wouldn't get hit by the light, and it seems to be working fairly well. Would you recommend a coco mat instead for something like that for my trays in the future? How's the cleanup of that shit go? Easier than rinsing hydroton over and over? Is it reusable?

lol if it counts

i used to wash my RO res aka 'grey can' lol out with anti bacterial soap

i would hose that thing out just to make sure its rinsed out....

yea right

whenever i would hook it back up to get filled up....and the aeration....

man that bitch sudded up!

man....talk about 'dual action cleaning foam'

bugsrnme said:

i have rubbed out many a' load in my op.......sorry smokers
banged in there a couple of times as well.......ahhhhhh good times

Click to expand...

Fucking gross Bugs.

bugsrnme said:

cool....i think your the first guy i've ever read about having to use ph up....ro cause that you think?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've only had to use Down in my E&F. But for soil I've always had to use Up with the organics. So acidic!

HMMM thanks for the rep BUGS!!!
I peeked in my room last night and it seems my babies have some sorta mildew, powdery mildew I believe.
I got some copper soap to treat it, applied it this morning. anyone ever use this stuff before?
Hope this works out!
I was waiting for all my clones to show but about 10 never did, plus 3 or 4 I broke the roots off of.
So instead of 50 with no veg time, Im going slightly less with more veg.
Any recommendations on how long I should veg for? I have about 30 in a 4x4 tray, too stoned to go count them exactly
The strain is Skunk #1, under 3 400 watt lamp

one of the youngs ones at about 3 days from showing roots

LB, would you say the RO system was worth it, or would you just hit your tap water with a UV device before mixing nutes? My water comes out of the tap at no more than 0027ppm. I let it sit for a day before putting into the res. for chlorine evap. I know it's not pure pure, but the plants don't seem locked out or anything...

bugsrnme said:

cool....i think your the first guy i've ever read about having to use ph up....ro cause that you think?

Click to expand...

on the contrary my friend....

dont minus the slime mold out the equation


any time you have a dropping pH it is indicative of anaerobic bacteria and other pathogens

the potassium bicarbonate is what raises the pH, kills the bacteria/whatever lowering it (as they cannot thrive in high pH....they will bring down the pH to their level of comfort and start working even more when its optimal) as it also helps stable my RO water more

0027??? wow thats low for tap right!?
I run at about 200 ppm, no chlorine probs here.
Good ol' mountain spring water

GreenGold said:

The strain is Skunk #1, under 3 400 watt lamp

Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, why three 400s instead of one 1000 or two 600s? Are they HPS or MH?