Hypochlorous Acid......a Deep Dive

Sick Plants & Problems
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So unfortunately I’ve had reason to experiment with hocl to treat early root rot in hydro…

I recently started a new small DWC/aero run with clones. They are still on the smaller side, not a ton of root growth yet. But I noticed the brown crap starting to grow on the roots. I was already running 30ml of 500ppm hocl in about 12 gallons of water when the root rot started, which I thought would be sufficient but it wasn’t. I think a small amount of light was getting into the reservoir though (which I have since corrected).

So I pulled each plant, washed off the brown crap from the roots as best I could (thankfully no dead roots yet) then sprayed the roots with pure 3% h2o2, then dipped/soaked each plant in a treatment of general hydroponics Flora Shield, changed the water in the reservoir + added one full shot glass of 500ppm hocl (so roughly 35-40ml) and returned the plants to the system.

I did start seeing new white root growth the next day but it still didn’t fully take care of the problem, so I began adding a full shot glass of 500ppm hocl once per day. Did that for about 4 days straight.
That was allowing a bit more new white root growth, and I didn’t see nearly as much brown crap on the roots but some of the roots still didn’t look fully healthy (slight brown color), there was still some brown stuff hanging out on the side of the reservoir and I still wasn’t getting the new root growth I should be.

Then about 3 days ago I decided to up the dose of hocl to 2 full shot glasses (70-80ml). The next day I noticed much better new white root growth and almost all the brown crap on the reservoir wall was gone, so yesterday I added another 2 full shot glasses to the reservoir again. Today things look about the same as yesterday. Maybe a bit more plant growth but the roots look about the same.

They still don’t look 100% right. No dead roots, and I don’t see the brown gunk on the roots but still not fully gone I don’t think. I am a bit surprised at this higher dose it still didn’t fully wipe out the root rot fungi.

I am thinking of trying 3 shot glasses today.

I know I could wipe out the root rot with a different treatment method (I have h2o2, flora shield and physan-20) but I wanted to experiment with HOCL. Plus, I really don’t care if I have to scrap this hydro run and start over. I’ve actually been debating doing a full soil run this time anyway (instead of 1/2 soil and 1/2 hydro) so I can pop more of the new seeds I recently acquired.

Just for reference -

I am using BrioTech 500ppm pure HOCL bought from Amazon. The bottle doesn’t have any manufacture or expiration date that I could find. But Amazon says they sell 200+ bottles per month, and the Brio brand is targeted at the medical industry, so I’m hoping it’s relatively fresh (I know hocl has a shelf life. About 6 months iirc).
So I can’t 100% confirm how fresh this hocl is.

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265

Just a guess,
But it sounds as if you might not have enough oxygenation in your nutrient solution…
With a lack of oxygenation, you possibly get a lot of anaerobic bacterial growth in your nutrient solution.
This will often give you the brownish slime and offish odor you might be experiencing.
Once anaerobic bacteria become established, they do reproduce at an expounding rate…

Jut a consideration for you, Bob

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266

Thanks for the suggestion!

I am running six 4” air stones using an EcoPlus commercial (18w) air pump in that 12-15 gallons of water. The entire surface of the water churns with bubbles. I’ve been running it this way for years without issue. I even used to run it with 4 air stones and a smaller ecoplus pump.

The only difference this run is a new more powerful LED light above it, which is why I suspected the light leak into the reservoir. I am using clear air lines and saw some green algae growth at the bottom of the reservoir next to the 1 air stone right below where the air lines enter the reservoir. So I figured light had to be reaching that area to see the green algae growth. I covered the area where the lines enter the res and that took care of the algae.

The root rot fungi was actually more on the roots not even in the water, which I thought was a bit weird.
Because of that, At first I was worried it was that damn “slime” (Cyanobacteria) I’ve dealt with in my aeroflo’s in the past but now I’m 99% sure its root rot.

I was surprised to see it with how much air is running in the res. That’s why I figured it was maybe light getting in.

The only other thing I can think of that may have caused it is maybe there was some root rot fungi hiding in one of the rockwool cubes. One of the cubes a clone died in before it rooted and I just stuck another clone in the cube, never intending to use it in the hydro machine (I was out of rockwool and had 1 more cut to root. Usually I’d never even think of reusing a cube). But then it ended up being the healthiest clone of the batch and had tons of white root growth so I used it in the hydro machine (against my better judgement).

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267

What type of DWC, does it recirculate? What is the water temp., do you use a chiller?

When I day dream of running rdwc again, and think of the water “treatment” part, I always think of wanting an ORP meter, so I’m not blindly adding whatever it is I’m adding (hocl, or similar). Because I think the active ingredients, if you will, of the hocl (or ozone for example) are essentially “used up” when they “neutralize” or “kill” something. If that makes sense.

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268

Yup, you’re absolutely correct.!
Your HOCl attacks any pathogens it comes in contact with. In that process, the HOCL is ‘reduced’ if you will. So, if you’re treating a large bacteria/fungi population it is reduced pretty quickly…FWIW

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269

It’s just an old General Hydroponics rainforest 66 (with vortex sprayer). It’s all self contained. The 6” baskets are sprayed with mist by the vortex sprayer and the roots eventually grow down into the water with the air stones.

Yes I figure the hocl is getting used up. That’s why I’ve been adding it daily and slowly increasing the dose to see what happens.

I do want to pick up an ORP meter eventually. I priced them about a month ago but it seemed like all the cheaper ones had mixed reviews (at best) and I didn’t feel like spending the money for a decent one. lol

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@BudBusterPro - thanks for all the knowledge here. In terms of cleaning up a room after PM, does the HOCL have an effect on the non-germinated spores? Does it neutralize them and preventing germination?

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Absolutely! HOCl will even kill viruses on contact ( I should explain that once you hava a virus in your plant tissue or in seeds…you’re screwed !) However, HOCl is used in grafting and tissue culture to sterilize/disinfect plant materials…

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272

Yo @Tlander have you made a 5 gallon batch yet? Any recommendations?

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Does anyone have an opinion on thermal versus ULV foggers? I am specifically going after old PM mold spores.

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Yobros, sorry for the delay. I have made 2 x 5 gallon batches now. I had some issues with the quality of my water supply. Having experienced them, I’ll point out that it is really worth the time to make sure your starting water is as PURE as possible! I got leaf damage that I can’t tell if it’s from ‘contamination’ or if it is just the result of it ‘finding’ already infected tissues and ‘neutralizing’ them?

Bob has recommended I first sort out my water purity, then switch from my shitty 5% vinegar to glacial acetic acid to see if I can clean up any contaminants from that source. He mentioned that; “it’s about 3-4X as strong as any white vinegar you could find…”.

I’m gonna have to go ‘get’ 19 liters of ‘clean’ R/O water and then will make another batch using the Glacial Acetic Acid and test it out. I’m having issues w/One & Done as well (? maybe?) which sucks, as having more variables just confuses things!

The new NaturChlor-Max unit is great, I just gotta work out the ‘bugs’!
:call_me_hand:

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275

Just wanted to update. I ended the HOCL “experiment” (in quotes because it really wasn’t a proper experiment. I mainly just wanted to see how the hocl worked to treat an active root rot infection and at what dose I could run it at in my res without damaging the roots).

After my last post I upped the dose to about 120ml into about 10gal. of water. Then 2 days later did a 150ml dose into 9-10gal of water (same water, no water change in between) and left it for about 48hrs.

Even at that strength it did not damage the plant roots.
So I’d say it’s pretty safe to run higher doses if necessary.

The roots were not getting worse, and did not have any active root rot growing on them. But they still had a brownish stain and not the white look they should. Plus while I was getting a bit of new white root growth it wasn’t the proper amount.

At that point I decided to end the hocl treatment and do a water change. When doing the change I found some of the brownish root rot gunk growing on the bottom of the reservoir between the air stones (i figure because the air stones sit on the bottom of the reservoir and send the bubbles straight up, the very bottom of the reservoir must not get the same amount of bubbles), and in the center tube on the rainforest (the center tube is what the vortex sprayer pump sits in. It’s a 12-15” long 3” diameter pvc pipe that creates a column of water the vortex pump sucks it’s water up through, and it is protected from the bubbling water of the air stones).

So, I’d say for me, the hocl wasn’t the right job to treat an active root rot infection in my rainforest system. Or, more specifically, the “BrioTech” brand wasn’t. Again, there was no manufacture or expiration date on the bottle (I thought about returning it for that reason alone) so I don’t know if it’s past it’s 6 month shelf life. As I mentioned previously, the Amazon product page shows they sell over 200+ in the last month so I’m hoping that means it was relatively fresh but without a date on the bottle who knows, right?

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you could clone them and start over fresh. if it’s something you’ve done a while and are just now having problems i’d get that worked out first.

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Still the best thing going for this, lol just imho!

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Hello All! Does anyone know if this product is legit? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QGYD4PC?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

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Hey @GrouchyOldMan How is this brand of Hypochlorous Acid? Have you been happy with it?

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Greetings @Proud_Heretic,
That is a good question and one I am a little reluctant to answer because I don’t think I understand the results I have observed.

To summarize, I have had mixed experiences with the commercial AquaCleanse Hypochlorus Acid pictured and I cannot recommend it.

Straight from the bottle is is pH 2.6 and the label says it is “Ready for Use.” I found that even after diluting 1:1 with distilled water it burned cannabis foliage to a crisp! Here’s a pic of the damage:

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I next tried the 1:1 dilution on an innocent tomato plant and had the same results. Only the burned leaf was sprayed.

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In an effort to understand what was going on I purchased an ORP (Oxygen Reduction Potential) meter in order to look deeper than pH for the issue. I discovered that the ORP out of the bottle was over 900. For comparison, my chlorinated tap water measured ORP 560.

I then tried various dilutions of the HOCl until I found that 4:1 water/HOCl brought the pH up to around 7 and the ORP down to about 600. That mix didn’t burn the leaves, but I couldn’t tell if it is still effective on mold and fungus. I tried it extensively on a bad case of Bud Rot and it didn’t help.

The whole experiment was inconclusive and frustrating. As a result I’ve pretty much stopped using HOCl all together.

For the record, @BudBusterPro worked the problem with me and was very helpful, but the only conclusion we reached was that the HOCl he makes with a generator doesn’t have the problems I experienced.

That’s my Hypochlorous Acid story, maybe someone else can get to the bottom of this?
-Grouchy :v: :green_heart:

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Thanks for the info. The reason I asked is because I bought some of this brand because it was much cheaper than the Athena Cleanse I had used previously in my RDWC system. The first thing I noticed when I bought this brand (AquaCleanse) was the INTENSE smell of chlorine when I opened the bottle. Granted, this stuff is supposed to be 0.05% compared to Athena Cleanse 0.028% The Athena Cleanse had a very mild smell of chlorine whereas this AquaCleanse stuff literally burned my nose and left a funny taste in my mouth (no I did not try drinking it). Even with AquaCleanse being a little less than twice the strength of Athena Cleanse, the smell of chlorine should NOT be that strong. Since there is no label information on the bottle, I have to conclude that this product is NOT truly Hypochlorous acid like they advertise. Furthermore, I have contacted the supposed manufacturer (Aqua Science Inc out of Columbus, Ohio) to see if they truly are the makers of this product as claimed by the Amazon seller. I’m 99% sure they are not because I scoured their website and found ZERO references to AquaCleanse. Will update when I hear back, but whoever is making this stuff should put a warning on the label about the potential danger of the smell when you open the bottle.

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Does anyone have experience with 500ppm HOCI? Is it normal to have such a strong chlorine smell coming out of the bottle? Or does anyone have experience with the CCH2O product called Clear Line which is 1500ppm? Just trying to determine what is normal.

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I use a generator and i’d say that smell is normal for 500ppm.

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