Pythium/Fusarium is not the same as Cyanobacteria (slime-snot covered stems and ends) Find out how I learned what this is and what to do

Post edited unnecessary to OP’s thread.

A little food for thought…

I tried running sterile with RO water and pool shock. Sadly I added to much shock then I added to little and got the rot. This was on full grown plants.

I found it easier to just run a live rez and cloner. You would have to let your tap water sit out for a day or two to help get the chlorine out then add beneficial bacteria . I use southern ag. Ever since no more rot problems. I also use a sprayer in my cloner and run it 24/7 with a humidity dome until healthy good roots appear.

Good luck no matter what you choose but sterile was not for me.

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Thanks for sharing what’s worked. Well I did a clean out last night, and added 5 drops of Oxine. Later today as I read your post I looked up Southern AG to see if there’s a differences. It is bacillus and I do have Hydroguard. I imagine the Oxine had already diminished, so I added 10ml in.

However Cyanobacteria aren’t active from temperature, it’s cracks/holes in collars or lid, and if light is too close or too intense, this will be enough to activate it. Im getting more convinced light is a growers enemy with Cyanobacteria issues. I don’t believe Pythium has a connection to light in water. I ran a cooler res in Aug and the brown appeared, but I know why now and it’s because I had the light bars direct over the dome and a bit brighter. Im not even thinking it’s too close and getting in the water, but I’ll bet light breaching any crack or the outline of the hole on the lid is why. Keeping light further away, less intense and even refracting it is going to stop Cyanobacteria from being active.

This is WHY it can’t be treated as Pythium. Im using a 65w clip 3 head led at its lowest setting. Perhaps 20w fluorescent light won’t be affected but that’s not my option, and because it’s a tight space and the clip on hangs low and doesn’t balance I need to space them and angle those bars. The dome will also diffuse light. Different situations will call for creative solutions to light cuttings enough but keeping it weak enough not to activate Cyanobacteria waiting inside cloners/reservoir with those growers who have it in their municipal water supply.

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Yeah I’m not sure man. I can tell you I have left the lid off my rez more times then, well a lot of times and once you have the bacillus established it’s smooth sailing. Hydroguard seems to be the same thing so all good there.

Oxine looks to be chlorine. If you want your BA to live I would not use this product unless it’s to clean your system. I actually put some lava rock maybe 10 pieces or so in my rez to give the BA a home, not sure that it helps but other then my dance with chlorine it has worked.

Cyanobacteria should not be in your drinking water…

What is the pH and ppm of the water you are using, I assume it’s not RO

Ahh but that’s the difference, having established BA. If not, then it’s a different matter. I can understand what you’re saying about already having colonization, then it becomes irrelevant. I tried using it w normal top offs and still the cuts got tan and then mush, and even small gelatin roots under 68 most times. So I gotta say it didn’t colonize in my conditions, and this is before @George convinced me to use any hydrogen peroxide as treatment. The res never had any harsh sterilizing introduced so the BA could live. I’m trying again though as suggested, so we’ll see :crossed_fingers: That is interesting to know about the BA using lava rocks (hydrotron) Perhaps I didn’t have anything for it to colonize on. I’ll see if that makes the difference. Thanks for the tip

As for the Cyanobacteria, that’s the slime on cuttings. I think I’ll just take a cut and put in an open cup of water, under light and within 48-72 hrs it will be active. This will prove light is the activator. I should note this mostly pertains to cuttings. Full grown plants from what I understand have defenses against it. You can’t compare treating grown plants with roots opposed to cuttings without.

Ph 8.5
Ppm 200

Im assuming you’re going from EZcloner to DWC?

I honestly see EZcloner as a gimmick.
In Humboldt, I was having to do 500 clones and run a crew to pull tarp and transplant. And what Ive learned is EZcloners have too much crop loss.
Sticking cuts straight into a tray of peat (for soil) or oasis (for hydro) is the quickest and most consistent.
Cut branch, plug into a frond of aloe, stick into oasis/peat. Voila - roots in 5-7 days. The aloe is both a rooting hormone and antibacterial.
Inoculate cuts with EM-1 once roots form. And no humidity dome - it stagnates the cut and breed microbes. Having the dome off forces the cut to make roots quicker.

I was able to get facilities to have roots in 5-7 days doen from 10-15 days from their old tek (ez cloner and rockwool)

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It’s actually Turboklone 24 model. Hmmm so just get a live aloe Vera plant and use that as a combo rooting/antimicrobial agent ? Might be worth a shot trying out. Yeah, the plugs/cubes method is far too dry here. For me rapid rooters dry out fast and I can’t keep them hydrated. In fact one dried out near rooting so I had to pull 2 and let the cloner get ‘em a bit more before I planted in soil mix cups. They seem to be going thankfully, but I’m am 0-2 on rooter cubes :expressionless:

So after nearly 48 hrs the test cut end under light has turned tan…

@CosmoNut Do you top off having BA or complete change out ? How long do you wait to do it, if you change out. I’m trying to gradually change the chemistry. Looks a little more frothier w the aeration. You could be right about the BA. Perhaps a brief initial sterilizing and then switching over to BA could be a solution. It could be cuts do better being sterilized first then BA is introduced for the remaining time to root.

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I think I see where your going.

How long are you going to wait between the start of sterilization and introducing the BA? Edit* so you want to run the clones in the sterile water…I guess you could but I don’t. I think having the BA in the water and established will only help the clones. I was thinking you wanted to sterilize your water give it a day or two then introduce the BA then add the clones.

So I only change out when switching from veg to flower. Now my rez is 80 gallons but even in the cloner no rez change unless the is a problem. Normally takes 7 to 12 dayish but sometimes I leave it in longer and just add water. Cloner is 2-3 gallons.

So that once the BA gets going it stays.

Is your water well or city?

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Yes this is in reference to cloner rez’s. So once BA is colonized, the rez becomes static, and is only topped off. Since standard change out is per week, I’ve cut it in half to 4 days, then I gradually kept adding BA to change over the minor chlorine content, which is from clear to cloudy and bubbly. Can’t smell any. So yes you have the right idea.Yes it is city tap water. I’m thinking of pre-bubbling in a 5 gall bucket before using it. I think perhaps if a rez needs to be changed/cleaned, those first cuts need to be sterile and then after that change out or switch over to BA can keep the rez stable, which Ph seems to be staying. I think 1-4 days are the critical times. The test cut is starting to get a clear film on its end so I think it’s beginning to grow. I even felt it, it’s starting to feel slimy…

Well BA didn’t work long. I thought I was safe to use higher temps, but it’s not too long after the water is so cloudy and has a funk to it. Maybe it’s too old. It does have particulates when held up to light. I don’t know if that’s normal for Hydroguard. Stems still develop the discoloration brown areas. I akin it to how celery can look, but it’s not mush or soft at first, but eventually it gets there…harder woody cuttings don’t develop as fast as softer do… anyway back to the cooler sterile chlorine Oxine route w addition of 6 drops of Physan 20 to the res. I’m hoping Physan 20 can clear whatever is in the water once and for all. I will say it’s like it incubates trying to increase temps to 77-80 and frequent sprays. 1min on every 10 or 15 mins seems to be too much. So now I’ll do 30 seconds every 20 mins. Seems to be always dripping lifting the lid, that’s why I’ve reduced it and because the pump is large it can heat up fast in a short amount of time. Heat and too much water seem to be factors, yet the cloner has undergone extensive sterilizing steps, new pump, new bubble curtain and even new collars. Also seems like when I get brave and keep the dome off things go to hell quickly, faster wilting. This algal bacteria is the worst and it’s so weird that it keeps happening. I don’t know what to do beyond Physan 20. Hope none of you ever deal with something like this.

You can see the beginning of the brown algae circled

And here it is…classic white goo. I’ve been reading H2O2 seems to accelerate growth, and yesterday I tried adding 50 ml before I found that out. So everyone saying to TREAT Cyanobacteria this way is complete misinformation. STOP doing it because w this particular pathogen, you will make things worse for whoever you’re trying to advise and help. Ironically it seems nothing should be added for a week, then the Bennies, which I got TPS Billions to see if that’s potent enough…. The OP at ICMG said this bacterial algae has put people out of growing and I believe it :cry: I’ve got to do test runs w throw away cuts to find out what will work. Trying to root clones I want for a crop/mother is fruitless until a solution actually works

Here even better example

Can you post your sources? Not what I found … :expressionless:

Here is a thread where a grower said they used H2O2 and 48 hrs later he had slime build up. Precisely what I saw…

Richyrich at ICMAG has done very extensive discussion and thread about this, and they say brown algae can’t be treated like root rot. I agree wholeheartedly. This can’t be generalized

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Yup, I enjoy the “scientific” approach… :roll_eyes:

Yes it isn’t scientific research. It’s anecdotal, still you told me treat the infected cuts/root in diluted H202 per chart and because I had to do a make shift bubbler to quarantine them in, seals weren’t light proof and 48-72 hrs after I saw the slime on the ends. This is TWO instances of using H202 that has produced slime…

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Lights produced that slime, not the peroxide, perhaps your dose wasn’t strong enough or you didn’t repeat the treatment…

No of course the H202 didn’t CAUSE solely, but in conjunction FEEDS and ACCELERATED growth once present, so perhaps that’s a factor to be considered. I think any kind of nutrient feed present in the water combined w any leaks light can get through does activate. BBP told me hypochlorous acid is used in as a root canal disinfectant, so I’m running nothing but that for the next week after a brief Physan 20 rinse cycle. Once I can’t smell chlorine, I’m adding the bennies… It’s very clear to me adding concoctions of nutes as normal when I start cuts isn’t the right way to prevent what’s happening. It’s definitely something to do w initial water quality, though I wasn’t growing last year summer so I don’t know if I can factor seasonal change. One factor that does seem to connect is chlorine concentration reading about one grower testing two sources of water where they were growing at, and the previous one being higher ppm chlorine than his current location.

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This is madness…chlorine dissipated in about 3 days so I have been adding a quart of pre-bubbled bennies w Mag pro trace elements to slowly change chemistry. I tried to keep the done off overnight trying to run the pump longer to warm internal temp, and this morning I found another damped off. Then I start pulling out others out, and viola the white shit cum stuck on the end :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: There is no end.

The only thing left I can think of since RO bottled lacks trace elements, is to boil tap water and then add it in after cooled. I can’t think of any way this pathogen survives that step to be active in the cloner. I am going to find out my “free chlorine” content in the tap, so I know what I’m dealing w. Adding water pre bubbled w the bennies isn’t going to work.

Back to crystal clear treated water, but I’m going to run it warmer and longer, add 2-3 test cuts in until I get a viable root. It’s impossible to root cuts wanted for mother/crop purposes while this keeps happening, so now it’s going to be about testing EVERY aspect of rooting clones.

The first test will be ordinary bleach 2 drops per gall, ph’d water. No hormones/power/gel/additives used. I’ll only cut underwater. If after 2 weeks or slimed/damped off I’ll move to the next up, Oxine, Rez Clear, UC roots, Physan 20, gel only, powder only, hormone solution only, lights far away and dim, lights close and brighter, hotter and colder temp zones, dome on always and no dome. This will be a process of elimination to find out what keeps the res stable to root.

Every test will use boiled water/cooled ph’d. I will not fill from tap, bubble or treat water used that isn’t boiled, but I will do one for RO/bottled only. My baseline for all of this is using boiled water, and eliminating each product/method/aspect that isn’t a cause or finding what is the source… I can see why aero cloners are thrown on a shelf in disgust now…already thinking 1.5” wrapped RW cubes here I come after wasting 250 :smirk: Could’ve bought a thousand of those for that much :roll_eyes: