I think that the brown root rot has been throwing me off - a lot.
At first, I assumed the browning was because the top of the roots was not getting enough water. That initial - wrong - assumption has kept me from letting the roots dry out much, and resulted in too wet roots - especially towards the lower sections. Even after I found the light leaks/air leaks, I was still thinking along the lines of it being too dry at the top.
Then, I decided, screw it, I want to see what happens when I start increasing the OFF time. I had established that the 0.4 seconds was a good ON time, but had not gone over about 55 seconds OFF. So, the last two days I have been slowly increasing the OFF time. Im now up to 80 seconds OFF time - and the roots look better every day.
That gives me an on/off ratio of .005. Earlier, I was at .0125. At .0125, the flow rate was aprox 0.7 gallons per day or a bit more. The flow rate now is about 0.28 gallons per day. I did not expect to get to that low a number, so I am very happy.
The root rot has slowed down, but not stopped. I lowered the temp in the chamber to 68 max, and Ive added more chlorine twice, in the last three days. First at 3PPM, then the last time was at 6PPM, which is pretty hi. I even did a direct spray bottle application on the roots with some chlorine at around 70 PPM, but none of that has killed it. The plant seemed to droop a tiny bit, but I saw no other effects.
From what I have read, this is not unusual. Root rot can be very difficult to kill once its established. I dont feel like pulling the plant, cutting off all the brown, and dunking the roots in a hi concentration of chlorine. Im too close to ending this part of the experiment to go to that much trouble.
So, earlier today I decided to try some of my Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide. Its the same stuff as Hydro Guard, but about 1 million times more concentrated. I doubt this initial treatment will do much. I think there is still too much bleach in the system for it to live very long. I will re-treat again tomorrow and the next day, and see if it helps or not.
In the mean time, here are some pics of the roots from two days ago, and tonight. The roots had looked pretty much the same for several days, but once I got over 60 seconds of OFF time, they really started to branch out to the sides, and have slowed way down as far as going to the bottom of the chamber.
From the looks of things, Im sure I can extend the OFF time a good bit more.
And the fuzzies are doing great.
The plant seems to be happy with the situation too. Its growing well, the color is good, and the leaves are getting big. The older leaves that were badly yellowed are even looking a lot better. The stems were pretty purple, but I started adding a bit more CalMag and the stems on the new growth is looking pretty good.
I wish I knew what strain this was. There isnt much stretch at all, but I cant tell if thats normal or not.
Still, this is a long ways from perfect. I was looking through my notes and ran across the root pic I copied from an old HPA thread on another forum. His roots look much better than mine as far as the amount of fuzzy hairs, and the over all look, but this pic is late in his grow, after he had worked through several major issues. Not unlike I have been doing 
Other than waiting to see how the Southern Ag GFF does, and seeing how far I can push the OFF times, Im pretty much done with this baby.
I went ahead and started the C99 seed.
I soaked one seed for 12 hours in tap water, then stuck it in a damp paper towel, and put that in a zip-lock and stuck it in the tent. I just checked it, and it has popped already - after just 11 hours in the paper towel. Ive never had one pop that fast. I will probably start it in a small hempy bucket of perlite tomorrow if the root is sticking out enough.
As soon as this new victim, er ah new baby, gets big enough, I will put it in the system. Im guessing another week or so for that.
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