White Slime on My Roots and Airstones

Alright I have a stealth hydro type dwc. Got some Satori (3 weeks old) goin.
About a week ago, I noticed some white slime on their roots, I think only the roots that were under water. Well I started a hydrogen peroxide run, following amounts I have seen on this board and others.

It didn't help. I even picked off some slime covered root and put it in a bowl of peroxide, just to see if it was something that was immune to it. The shit bubbled and mostly disappeared after about 20 minutes.

Just today I snipped off the visibly affected parts and added some more peroxide. I looked a few minutes ago, and happened to see on of my bubble disks had flipped over. 'Well', I think, 'perhaps it is under-aeration that is causing the growth.'

As I grab it, I recoil my hand in surprise. The side with the bubbles coming out is covered in slime! Looking closer, there are chunks floating around the res as well. Now isn't hydrogen peroxide and oxygen supposed to kill this stuff?

btw, I have my dwc triple-lined with duct tape, have some cardboard cutout's covering the netpots, and I am getting a thermometer tomorrow but am pretty sure that temps are staying more or less in the correct range (65-68 ). Also I have grown like this once before, the only difference being I am using GH nutes this time.

What kind of nuts and additives are you useing?

general hydro flora series and no add's.

I cleaned and refilled my rez with distilled water, bathed all the stones and hoses in peroxide, and added two more layers of tape all around the rez.

I also pretreated the rez water with an entire bottle (16 oz.). When I got back today I did it again.

The smell of earthy rot (rather unpleasant and not so bad at the same time) has diminished.

I had this before although not this bad at all, what i did was clean my rez with water and perioxide, and you need to change your water weekly , at least biweekly at that age... use R.O water and put a tablespoon or so of perioxide every change in your water, it will oxygenate and keep your rez from getting slimmie... Let me know how this works out.....

1puff2puff3puff said:

I had this before although not this bad at all, what i did was clean my rez with water and perioxide, and you need to change your water weekly , at least biweekly at that age... use R.O water and put a tablespoon or so of perioxide every change in your water, it will oxygenate and keep your rez from getting slimmie... Let me know how this works out.....

Click to expand...

you mix the h2o2 in the res with the nuts?
Do you test the water for ph before adding nuts?

Yes, i add with the nutes, i add everything to its own gallon of RO water makeing sure to add nutes and bloom booster first and h2o2 last.... you will notice a little burn but a very little, then i just ph my water and with using RO water only my ph is ALWAYS excellent....

Try it, research it first if you are kind leary..

Good growing

well i didnt read the whole thread, but only input i have is that the sh nutes allways gave problems like u are talking about..
switch to advanced nutrients and you problems will be gone maybe.. also the nutes have a great ph balance..+1 for advanced nutes grow bloom and micro.. cant leave out the ph down its a great product

peace

make sure your ph is 5.2 /5.6 anything higher can cause root rot

I don't think that root rot is pH related, at least the way I think about it. It's a pathogen that grows in warmer water. Keep your res temps below 75F and you'll be fine.

HTH

Thanks for all the replies.

As I said, I added an entire 16 oz bottle of peroxide for the 10 and 11, and have been going back to the suggested levels. I also picked up my ec to .5 from .2 with the rez change...recovering from some middle strength nute burn.

Doesn't seem to be any funky smells beyond the usual in a dwc, at least usual for my other grow in dro. But my roots are browned a little. I would say it was from the gh micro...but those two days of full bottles likely could have screwed em up. Either way there is new growth.

What happend with your diagnosis? ? What was the CURE??

Did it work???

This is what confuses me!!
Everyone posts advice, and there is never posted a given cure.....


We need a sticky

What works? what dosent???

I try to read between the lines when it comes to plant problems, and get at least 3 opinions before I TRY anything.
Cause and effect, are easy................
But True diagnosis, and cures never get posted!!

What actually works in any given case???
We have enough combined knowledge, board wide, to overcome any and all questions..............

This may pinch Garden Knome's DVD/book series proffits..........but I'd like to find a database that would answer ALL Diagnostic questions......
can it be done?

Ironically, I'm growing the same strain, from mandalaseeds, and in my 3 gallon 'germination tub' I have the same thing, white slimey chunks.

Also, my PH is a bear to keep down, I assume this stuff is keeping my PH from being stable.

What type of HydrogenPeroxide did you use? the normal stuff from the store, or high grade stuff. I would like to know so that I can go and buy some locally. Also, do you have a ratio of hydrogenperoxide/gallon of water?

I suspect that my res temps may be too high, I have only two sprouts so far, less than two inches each, one with 3 leaves, and one with two (sawtooth leaves, not counting the little round ones).

So far, all I have done is a reservoir change and cleaned everything, but I dont think that worked, my next step will be to try the H202 method as per your advice (pleeeeeease!), and put a frozen bottle of water into my res to lower the temp.

Anyone know what this stuff is? this is my first time with this type of grow (hydroponic) and I suspected the fox farm nutrients that I'm using, no light gets into my res, so it's not fungus amongus, well, not light related fungus anyhow.

Oh yeah, I boiled my airstones and cleaned the res out completely, then refilled with rain water, added nutrients, and PH'd it, and a couple days later, slime again. d'oh!

ancible said:

Alright I have a stealth hydro type dwc. Got some Satori (3 weeks old) goin.
About a week ago, I noticed some white slime on their roots, I think only the roots that were under water. Well I started a hydrogen peroxide run, following amounts I have seen on this board and others.

It didn't help. I even picked off some slime covered root and put it in a bowl of peroxide, just to see if it was something that was immune to it. The shit bubbled and mostly disappeared after about 20 minutes.

Just today I snipped off the visibly affected parts and added some more peroxide. I looked a few minutes ago, and happened to see on of my bubble disks had flipped over. 'Well', I think, 'perhaps it is under-aeration that is causing the growth.'

As I grab it, I recoil my hand in surprise. The side with the bubbles coming out is covered in slime! Looking closer, there are chunks floating around the res as well. Now isn't hydrogen peroxide and oxygen supposed to kill this stuff?

btw, I have my dwc triple-lined with duct tape, have some cardboard cutout's covering the netpots, and I am getting a thermometer tomorrow but am pretty sure that temps are staying more or less in the correct range (65-68 ). Also I have grown like this once before, the only difference being I am using GH nutes this time.

Click to expand...

hey pencap... calm down, man! I don't know if it has worked yet...like Mao said when asked if the American experiment had succeded, "It is still to early to tell."

I have been having very good results since I cleaned the rez, wrapped a whole nother roll of duct tape around it, and changed the nutrient solution.
I was a little worried about new root growth for a while, but then I realized it had only been two days since I pinched off all the longer roots, haha. They are really exploding now, a little brown but I am convinced it is stain from the micro part of the general hydro nutes.

and grow novice, I just have a feeling that it *was* light getting in my rez, you sure that it's completely dark...like completely? My temps/ph are staying pretty low/correct levels. I think, it has been pretty cold here and I don't usually turn on the heat.

But about the peroxide, I just got the stuff right off the shelves. 3% is what I could find, but supposedly the other stuff is better. As long as the only ingredients (active and inactive both!) are hydrogen peroxide and water you're fine. I know some places have some extra chemical that is bad. And do a search around here and search engines for amount per gallon, but honestly I was pretty liberal and it didn't hurt. Just pour about a sixth of a bottle in if you don't want to measure, you won't hurt anything...I think.

Alright, an update.

My res had dropped a bit, leaving my root bottoms out of the water. I decided to top it and within a day had some blobs forming on the submerged sections.

I decided to go hardcore and poured some storebought 3% into a bowl and submerged the entire lower third of the net pot. I had another bowl of water and would wait for a few seconds and then dip the net pot into the fresh water. The gunk is almost completely gone after a few hours and dunks.

However I decided to check my airstones and they were COVERED. My ph is never above six and is at around 5.2 or so now. (I read the gunk doesn't like low ph)

So here is what I would like to know...What kind of white snotty slime likes oxygen?

I have done searches for "white algae hydroponic aerobic", and many variations thereof. Any help appreciated!

ancible said:

Alright, an update.

My res had dropped a bit, leaving my root bottoms out of the water. I decided to top it and within a day had some blobs forming on the submerged sections.

I decided to go hardcore and poured some storebought 3% into a bowl and submerged the entire lower third of the net pot. I had another bowl of water and would wait for a few seconds and then dip the net pot into the fresh water. The gunk is almost completely gone after a few hours and dunks.

However I decided to check my airstones and they were COVERED. My ph is never above six and is at around 5.2 or so now. (I read the gunk doesn't like low ph)

So here is what I would like to know...What kind of white snotty slime likes oxygen?

I have done searches for "white algae hydroponic aerobic", and many variations thereof. Any help appreciated!

Click to expand...

Hey Ancible,

I took your advice and went to the drug store and got 4 bottles of hydrogen peroxide (the 3% variety). I put the little sprouts in the sun and went to town cleaning EVERYTHING. I also dumped a whole 16 oz bottle into the freshly cleaned res and put it all back together and under the lights, NO problems since, PH remains stable +/- a few tenths.... all is well.

I havent been able to find out what the slime is though. I'll be watching this thread for answers.

Hopefully, so will I.

Bump.

What kind of ph down are you using? I figured out my slime problem was from using ph down with citric acid in it.

Hmm, that sounds like a promising lead. I am using stealth hydro's ph down and ph up, left over from another grow. It says on the label "derived from natural sources, safe for organic application".

I will send them an email, and probably get some GH ph up/down today anyway. Even if that isn't the problem, I'll probably be paranoid about it from now on any way.

Thanks for the suggestion, Muffy D. Oh and nice avatar

edit: Dude, I just went and saw the root rot pictures in your grow journal prelude... No offense man, but I really felt my stomach turn a little. Damn how did that happen? Were you just unable to control it, or did it sneak up on you when you weren't lookin? Thanks for any info.

*shakes head in dazed amazement*

ancible said:

edit: Dude, I just went and saw the root rot pictures in your grow journal prelude... No offense man, but I really felt my stomach turn a little. Damn how did that happen? Were you just unable to control it, or did it sneak up on you when you weren't lookin? Thanks for any info.

*shakes head in dazed amazement*

Click to expand...

You felt YOUR stomach turn? How about mine when I was washing them off in the sink and realized they were filled with maggots? yeah thats a long story. Anyways, Ever since I started my DWC project it always had that brown slime everywhere. I started using hygrozyme towards the end and it helped a little. The day I realized what was wrong was when I ran out of ph down (Phosphoric acid) in my ebb and flow setup. I grabbed some left over ph down (Citric acid) and added it. The next day my water clouded up, it started to stink, and the brown slime caked the walls.

I suggest sterilizing everything and start using hygrozyme and get some ph down w/ phosphoric or hydrochloric acid in it. I even pulled off the roots covered in the slime and just waited for new white roots to pop out again. Oh and you cant use peroxide with hygrozyme or anything organic, it kills all the good organism that help keep your plants and roots healthy.

I run 2 differnt nutes. no name brand that most people use. I have one that really gets the white algae growing bad. The other nutes dont seem to promote the algae growth. I have found some Algae Destroyer Advanced at Wal Mart in the fish pet supplies. It is for fish and plants in aqariums. It has not affected my plants and has stopped the white algae. Just make sure your algae killer is for plants as well as fish.