Light leak did not help one bit. I am 100% positive that algae growth was concentrated at the white bulkhead fittings. But then again, shit grew in the airlines too, and they were in black buckets, with reflectix over top of them, so really blacked out to boot.
The pH never got above 6.2-6.3. Whereas not ideal, should not have caused a growth that bad. Plus I was doing h2o2 regularly.
The nutrient I cannot blame, because there was a brief comeback of slime after I flushed it out. Although it could have been just dead slime getting caught in the roots, suffocating them.
Overall, I guess Iād say light leaks and not sterile enough. Maybe if I ran bennies they would have taken care of it.
Another thought - the feed was upped to about ec1.8 when that happened. Maybe too hot? Iām running ec 1.0 - 1.1 now and the plants look better
Hello HappyHemper, i have experienced this exact problem in my rdwc when trying to run sterile. After a few lost crops i started running a beneficial tea & have not had a problem since. Hydrogaurd ,greatwhite or ogbiwar should help. Check out hiesenburg teas they hhave bbeen a game changer for me.
@HappyHemper, Iāve been using HydroGuard in my grows for about a year and a half. Iāve had NO root problems since. I use it with every feeding. It is a beneficial bacteria, bacillus amyloiquefaciens, and is referred to as a root inoculant by Botanicare.
@Cobra50, are you in dwc? what are your rez temps with hydroguard?
Iāve been away from home since Friday, so will be curious to see how they did. If this effort at sterile fails, I will be trying bennies.
@Magicm2, thanks, I will look into the tea too. I did ask my local hydro store about bennies, and they do not carry any popular beneficial that you listed. They had Orca at $300/quartā¦ thatās right, because apparently in Canada itās hard to get them. Tbh I did not look into it much further, because I really want to exhaust the sterile route, but they seem to be right as even amazon Canada are stupidly priced.
Im in B C Canada and everything here is stupid expensive & very hard to get but you can buy direct from ogbiowar or get great white from amazon. Get the biowar root & foliar packs, they have everything you need. They will last a long time. Well worth the money.
That makes sense, I had to lower my EC after I changed the pump/stones. Not half, more like from 1.6 to 1.0 in my case, that is a near perfect equilibrium here.
Just find the sweet spot when they start to drink water/nutes in a balanced way
In Dwc you can / should keep pH much lowerā¦ around 5.2/5.4 gives the best nutes intake.
Ill try to find the original paperwork that back this up in the vintage backup disks as it was on OG1
DS
Yeah thatās the unit of measurement that UC uses. Pump is rated in litres per minute, we divide that into the capacity of the system.
My pump is 1700ci per minute, so 28-ish L to a roughly 60L/15gal system capacity. They call it hyperoxygenated.
So yes,
trimmed the roots of all the slime
1a. Scrubbed the system of all the slime and sanitized with dilute bleach
Shocked the system with 0.5g/60L of 48% chlorine shock on a fresh nute change, about 3.6ppm free chlorine. Maintenance dose every 4 days is half that so far.
Dropped EC down to 1.0-1.1 from 1.3-1.4. Will be dropping further
Used aluminium tape to block the white PVC fittings
@Dee.S73, that sounds hella lowā¦ you sure? Curious to try but dont want to stun them for another two weeksā¦ everywhere Iāve read so far has been either between 5.8 and 6
I was about to ask the same thing. In your system does the ph drift up or down? Whichever direction you are drifting should determine your starting point so that you arenāt having to micromanage your ph.
Thereās plenty of these charts around but hereās a good one showing what ph is good for which nute and can help identify what youāre missing if you arenāt āriding the driftā.
I find myself referring back to these charts all the time as I make changes to my system and things react differently. Nine times out of ten any issues Iāve had in hydro have been solved by simply flushing and resetting my ph based on the drift.
Sure didnāt. But after 20 years of hydro I also donāt agree with it entirely.
While the FAQ is correct, 5.2 - 5.8 is what hydro needs ā Iāve never had a system that didnāt drift up or down at least a bit over the course of a few days. So while 5.5 does allow the most nutrient uptake it doesnāt cover everything. For example, if you stay as low as you suggested (5.2 - 5.4) then your plants will not be able to take in mag. You need to hit 5.8 for that to be an available nutrient. So for me, riding the drift has always been critical.
in my experience ,started back in September 2000 the best pH value with the nutes I do use (advanced hydroponics of Holland) works best @ 5.4 , when I let pH drift over 5.8 problems startsā¦
in the nutrient uptake chart Iām using the 5.4/5.6 is the most complete areaā¦
anyway, you asked if I was sure of the low values I gaveā¦ I am, the FAQ isā¦ starting a discussion on the ārightnessā of the FAQ or comparing our findings is offtopic IMHO
Better start a different threadā¦
DS
I dont think its off topic at all. He is having issues that may well be PH related, so any discussion about the ācorrect PH levelsā is on topic, and potentially valuable to the OP - and everyone following along.
Its not possible to stay 100% ON TOPIC when the subject matter is a complex subject that has many different, highly interactive, and inter-related parts.
Sorry but I have to courtesily dissent hereā¦on topic is what is related with his rootsā¦ Not if 5.2 is better of 5.8ā¦
My suggestion is 5.2/5.4, yours is higherā¦ he will choose what to tryā¦ There we are on topicā¦ But if we start a discussion on the merits of different pH levels Vs growing media Vs nutes, we are cluttering the threadā¦ thatās not gonna help himā¦
For that, letās open a dedicated thread, if thatās important to you guys and we can go on thereā¦
DS
@Dee.S73, @anon32470837, I truly do value all input from experienced growers, especially in a medium that I have less than 6 weeks experience in, so thank you for bringing both points of view to this discussion.
I did a res change today and went halfway - 5.6. If the plants seem better, I will lower, if not, I will resume my course of 5.8. I will update the grow log once kid is in bed and link here.
The chart from UC says higher kn veg and lower in bloom, they may have a reason, but that is for their own nutrient line.
The root rot has not been back, and the roots growing out are pearly white with excellent branching.
I shave also lowered feed down to EC0.66, 0.06 of which is mag sulf, since I had to cut calmag down to 1/4 dose to keep the feed proportion at this low of an EC.
Also started dropping the hypochlorite dose; last time I dosed with 0.3g/66L, this time only 0.18g/66L.
this is a little more work than i thought dialing in lol
