Can someone tell me my options for running sterile dwc I have 5 gallon individual buckets bubbleponics with a better air pump,no chiller or rdwc and if anyone can give tell me what there using and maybe how much or what brand I’m gonna be running maxi give nutes thanks in advance
I also run a 5gal DWC, I add 1.5ml 5% sodium hypochlorite every 3 days(no perfume or soap) with GH flora nutes. Any generic 5% chlorine from the supermarket will do.
Happy roots.
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Can do a few ways.
8% Regular Bleach/Clorox - NO Additives
Dose at 0.2ml per gallon of reservoir water every 3 days(72 hours)
If you use RO, this dose will give 2ppm free chlorine.
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STS Poolshock
Dose at 0.2 grams per 10 gallons of reservoir water every 3 days(72 hours)
Again, if you use RO Water, this dose will give 2ppm free chlorine.
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Plants are usually good up to about 5ppm free chlorine and it’s actually a micronutrient. I usually don’t ever need to go above 3ppm and rarely go over 2ppm. If you have tap water you may not need to add anything or only after a few days after initial fill up when the water has had time for the chlorine in it to dissipate.
Note: Seedlings and clones might want a bit less, 1ppm or so.
Could also look at a chiller if your res is getting above 70 degrees. Likely wouldn’t need anything else to sterilize the water but they can be costly.
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I use HTH super shock in my reservoirs (not DWC though). Works great.
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7 in 1 has a bunch of stuff you dont want.
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I think we had this conversation before, but I run 5 gallons in the rez of my tote…what does 0.1 gram of poolshock look like. Half a teaspoon, quarter teaspoon? My Afghani plants are struggling in dwc…guess the bleach I used wasnt harsh enough to kill the pathogens from last summer.
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Technically it’s a ‘Smidgen’, like 1/32 of a tsp according to my scale.
Again, max safe is 5.5 ppm chlorine. If you use RO water you have none. May need 3-4 ppm chlorine to sterilize your water.
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1 gram of water is close enough to 1ml. The metric system is awesome.
So 0.1g is 0.1ml. Grab a 1ml pipette, 0.1ml will be about a drop or two, maybe more depending on your pipette.
Or mix up 5 gallons and dose it at 1ml separately from your res which will be 10x strong, so then add 1/10th of a gallon of this treated water back into your res at the end. You’re shooting for concentrations and there are many ways to dilute that cat.
I’m also struggling with keeping my RDWC sterile with high reservoir temps. Until I can justify buying a chiller, I’m planning on running 3% H202 at around 10 - 15ml per gallon.
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I’ve seen people complain about using h2o2…I’m willing to give it a try just to get this dwc going hard. If I burn through a few litres of peroxide, so be it. What happens if you add too much to the rez?
What happens if you go over?
I added more diluted poolshock to my rez yesterday, as my roots are still dangling just above the water, but wont go in. That’s what happened to my auto last summer…and then root rot followed once the roots finally dipped into the water.
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From what I understand excess H202 decomposes into H20 and O2 as it oxidizes things, so I guess you might see over oxygenation?
I haven’t run it yet, the H202 arrived this week and I haven’t done a res change yet. I’ll be documenting my findings in my grow thread if you wanna follow along 
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This was the exact thing I noticed with poolshock last time. Roots were exploding out of the cup but nothing really getting in the water. Over a week or two and still nothing in the water. Switched from poolshock to bleach and all those roots were in the water within a day or two.
If you go over 5.5ppm it can burn the crap out of the plants and eventually kill them if it’s too strong.You’ll start getting weird interveinal chlorosis and crispy tips.
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Only issue with the h2o2 is it can singe off the tiny root hairs so while it will sterilize everything, it causes it’s own damage to the roots that then needs to be repaired before they can grow again.
Usually if I would use H2O2 it would be in a quick bath. like ~10min soak in a h2o2/water combo.
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At what rate did you apply the bleach (clorox, right?)? I think I did 15 drops into 3 gallons of rez solution.
Good to know! Is that a function of the concentration? I don’t mind running a low concentration in my res for a week to clean things up, then switching it back out again the next week.
bleach is ~0.2ml per gallon for 2ppm. 0.3 for 3ppm, etc.
I picked up a box of different syringes off amazon for like $3
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it is a function of the concentration. You’d run more in a bath then you would in a res. i’m not familiar with the exact amounts and strengths to use off-hand though 
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Thanks for the info, sounds like some experimenting is in my near future.
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Bookmarked…
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Can I just use uc roots?
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