Surfactant/Wetting Agent Increases Chlorine Effectiveness

In my quest to solve root infection/slime I became interested in the beneficial properties of wetting agents/surfactants to increase nutrient uptake and wondered if it would conflict with my chlorine additive in any way. I found this document from UC Davis that says it helps the chlorine get to more surface area of the plant material. The text seems to be referring to post production handling but, for me, this alleviates the concern of a chlorine/wetting agent conflict. Comments?


From Chlorination_of_fruits_and_veggies.PDF, page 8:

Improving Chlorination Efficacy: Surfactants

The efficacy of chlorination on water disinfection and microbial load reduction on product
surfaces may be enhanced by the use of surfactants (44, 52, 53). Typically the extent of
microbial population reduction on plant surfaces is limited to a 10 to 100 fold reduction,
dependent on many factors (10). Water films that form on very small contours on plant surfaces
may prevent the chlorinated water from directly contacting target microorganisms. To increase
the penetration of hypochlorous acid into plant contours and natural openings, approved
detergents are added to the process water reducing water surface tension and increasing the
effectiveness of chlorination in some situations. Recently, further enhancement of disinfection
has been achieved by using ultrasound equipment attached to wash tanks.

What kind of soap would you use?

Just be certain not to use an amine-bearing wetting agent. cn

It must be the truth it's his first post since 2007.. guess he was in the basement while mom's brought him down meatloaf sandwiches while he researched?!

redi jedi said:

What kind of soap would you use?

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Wet Betty is the first product that comes to mind. I'll find the cheapest source of a wetting agent.

BigBuddahCheese said:

It must be the truth it's his first post since 2007.. guess he was in the basement while mom's brought him down meatloaf sandwiches while he researched?!

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Gee thanks.

cannabineer said:

Just be certain not to use an amine-bearing wetting agent. cn

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I cannot figure out why. Can you help?

Here's a list of surfactants/wetting agents and ingredients:

Nutrilife SM-90
Ingredients:
1% coriander oil
94% sulphonated canola oil solution
5% triethanolamine

Wet Betty
Ingredients:
Potassium Sulfate
Saponin
Yucca Extract

Earth Juice Assist wetting agent
n/a

Sticky - Wetting Agent
Ingredients:
Total Nitrogen (N)..0.5%
0.5% Ammonical Nitrogen
Derived From: Ammonium Nitrate
ALSO CONTAINS NON-PLANT FOOD INGREDIENTS
3% Organic saponins (derived from Yucca schidigera)

Simple Path On Target
Ingredients:
.58% Saponin.

Coco-Wet
Active Ingredient:
Modified Cocodiethanolamide ..... 90.00%
Other Ingredients ..... 10.0%

Top Surf Nonionic 80/20 Surfactant
Ingredients:
alkylpolyethoxyalkylene ethers 80%

Organic Labs Herbex Surfactant
Ingredients:
Sulfated Fish Oils: 100.0%

Red River 90
Ingredients:
Active Ingredients: Alkylarypolyoxethylene glycols free fatty acid 90%
Inert Ingredients: components ineffective as adjuvant 10%
Total: 100%

Surf-King Plus
Ingredients:
Nonylphenol polyethylene glycol ether, free fatty acids, organic phosphatic acids, dimethylpolysiloxane 95%
Constituents inefective as spray adjuvant 5%
Total 100%

Here's a link to a bigger list:

Non-ionic Surfactants

dr. bronners...

cheap, natural, effective.

Done

My roots have just about turned the corner and if these plants get back to the regular growth rate I'll be ready to flower in three or four days. This is a fresh start from seeds since I lost my last strain to neglect and then infection. My system ran from 2007 over and over without a hitch. I refreshed the tank once every harvest. I grew my clones in a plastic file box in stagnant water. I smoked the best weed ever. Nonstop. Sometimes during late stages of flowering I'd leave it for weeks without a peek. The last time I tried to kick my plants back into vegetative growth and came back a month or so later to find they were all dead. I'm guessing to infection but I figured it was the heat and extreme stress.
I started these seeds in the same, junky file box without even rinsing. They sprouted fine but when transferred to the tank the black was there.

Now I think i have a protocol that will work for my system. I've gone back from Nova to three part. I first saw some blackness a harvest or two back after switching to Nova. I thought it was just the gunky, black Nova Bloom that was catching on my roots. Turns out that Nova contains Humic Acid which inhibits the plant's ability to fight infection:

[SIZE=-1]"Indications are that surface applications of humic acid or humate can significantly reduce the effectiveness of systemic pesticides by reducing their absorption by plant roots and soil-borne pathogens and insects."[/SIZE]

That and the fact that humic acid is organic and breaks the "no organics in a sterile tank" rule led me to go back to GH three part. I saw improvement in root growth after going back to three part. I run Lucas bloom all the way.

Now my infection fighting protocol is about 1 ppm Chlorine every two days. I have a meter on order so I'll be able to monitor the ppm and adjust. I'm targeting .5 ppm as advised.

If the plants continue to thrive I'd like to introduce the wetting agent in a week or so. I'll probably go with Top Surf from Tractor Supply. $17 will get me a year's worth if I use it at the .5 pint/100gal rate. It has alkylpolyethoxyalkylene ethers 80% in it. I'll use a gallon jug to test ph and ppm before adding to production.
hopefully add value to the effort.

Can you tell me where you ordered your chlorine meter from?

te5ter said:

I cannot figure out why. Can you help?

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Some wetting agents contain amines which will react to form chloramines. Worst of both worlds ... toxic and no longer a good bacteriostat. cn

legallyflying said:

Can you tell me where you ordered your chlorine meter from?

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I jumped the gun a bit and ordered the HF Scientific for $20. It seems to be a very good deal for that meter. I found later that they don't include the reagent but then I found it here for a reasonable price.

Thanks a bunch bro. I saw that chlorine pens were around $180 bucks.
I'm still a little nervous about going the bleach route only because I had a little bennies and a lot of slime and I added 1ppm of chlorine and when I came back an hour later it was the worst slime I had ever witnessed!!!

I think having a tester would really help though. Like h2o2, the chlorie oxidiIZes an the concentration lowers

Not telling you anything you don't know but others probably dot know what the hell is up.

Thanks again. Refreshing to find someone that knows why the hell thu are doing

Thinking about getting a meter also and noticed they measure either free or total chlorine. I'm assuming we're just checking free chlorine levels but I'm not sure, is this right? Any reason to keep track of total chlorine levels? Can someone educate me on this a little bit? Thanks in advance.

tallen said:

Thinking about getting a meter also and noticed they measure either free or total chlorine. I'm assuming we're just checking free chlorine levels but I'm not sure, is this right? Any reason to keep track of total chlorine levels? Can someone educate me on this a little bit? Thanks in advance.

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FREE CHLORINE – When chlorine is first added to your pool or spa, it is available as free chlorine which acts as a disinfectant.
COMBINED CHLORINE – When the free chlorine attacks germs and dirt in your pool or spa, it becomes combined chlorine and is no longer available as a disinfectant.
TOTAL CHLORINE – Free chlorine plus combined chlorine.

I'm just wondering if the Combined Chlorine will build up between nutrient refreshes and cause problems. I went ahead and bought both the free and total chlorine reagents from that vendor. They charged $12.70 for tax and shipping, BTW.