Sealed room problems: phantom deficiencies, leaf necrosis; offgassing/outgassing

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Resinable

Resinable

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So as the thread title suggests I'm having problems with a new sealed room. Every new healthy plant I bring into this room goes down hill fast; the leaves turn pail, rust, and yellow from the outside in. The roots look relatively healthy. I believe I may be dealing with some sort of off gassing issue (but I'm not 100% sure). I am trying to narrow down a possible source so I can remove it; changing this room to a fresh air recirculator posses many problems.

Background: new room, new location; totally sealed room with Co2 burners (propane) and Mitsubishi mini splits. Floor is concrete with pond liner. We built the walls and ceiling with plywood and covered them with reflectix insulation and taped with reflectix tape. I was running a hydroffogger; first using tap water and then switched to AC condensate and recently I've turned it off (no difference either way). I had panda plastic up but tore it down. I have a water line made of pvc in the room. I have some outdoor type semi hard 1/2 irrigation line (for AC condensate) in the room. This room is very well sealed with no air intake or outake fans. I've run sealed rooms with great success in the past. Temps, PH, nutrients and EC are dialed. Medium is coco/perlite. I am starting suspect the reflectix could be the problem.

Anybody have similar issues in the past? Any constructive thoughts or questions would be most welcome.
 
Papa

Papa

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"I have some outdoor type semi hard 1/2 irrigation line (for AC condensate) in the room."

start there. have a pic?
 
Resinable

Resinable

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"I have some outdoor type semi hard 1/2 irrigation line (for AC condensate) in the room."

start there. have a pic?

I have some pics but they are not the greatest quality, I'll try to post them and get some better ones tomorrow.

The irrigation line is the standard type they use in vineyards and landscaping; shouldn't be too hard to replace. I'll do it. I have used it before without issues though.
 
dankworth

dankworth

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I almost was bankrupted by NGW 1/2" tubing. Craig Hargreaves go ahead and die of a disease that makes him bleed out his ass. I have stronger words about this, but I am going to exercise some restraint and sugarcoat things today.
 
Resinable

Resinable

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Thanks Papa and Dankworth, I've read about the problems with NGW hosing in the past so I always avoid it. I do have one AC condensate line made from 3/4 hydrofarm tubing; the other two I have hooked to the harder landscaping type stuff which I will swap out. Incidentally my plants look very similar to the ones in the threads about NGW tube offgassing.
 
Papa

Papa

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here's the thread i couldn't find before . . . great pics, N-G-W tubing, and reflectix galore.
 
dankworth

dankworth

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New NGW 1/2" hose is food grade and legit. I still have reservations about giving them any money, but they are one of the only games in town.
 
dankworth

dankworth

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could be the pond liner

True! Good eye, SweetTooth. I use epdm rubber pond liner. It is legit. The pvc based stuff, though, sure seems like the type of material that would offgas. Especially with HIDs shining on it. That is exactly what it made me think when I handled it at home depot.
I just paid 118.04 for a 10x15 foot sheet of epdm rubber pond liner for a res liner. I will frame in a box and make a custom 300+ gallon res, with a sump.
I heart epdm rubber pond liner.
 
Papa

Papa

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here's that missing link:



the really disturbing thing to me is that some of this stuff may be unmarked, and when you add that to the possibility of old inventory at some stores, we have to be very careful.

plywood, btw, will offgas for about 3 months (i've read). 'one of the reasons why it's good to drywall over it. but it sounds as if you're pretty well sealed up between that material and the room . . . . so if it's not the tubing, the pondliner would be my second thing to look at . . . . if it is an offgas issue. do your plants look like TrichromeFan's?
 
purpleberry

purpleberry

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Ive seen these problems in a few sealed rooms. Ive fixed it wth runing fresh air once per hour. I know many people run completly sealed rooms, But i really do think a sealed room can cause wierd issues, esp when plants are first brought in, And lumun shock maybe a issue also if the plants were under t5s that were run far away.
If at all possible i would get frsh air hooked up so you have the option to run it, the only problem with this is if you do have something off gassing, you may just mask the problem enough for the plants to do ok, but not really good.
 
Resinable

Resinable

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SweetTooth: I have considered the pond liner (it is epdm not pvc). But I've used it before in sealed and unsealed rooms without problems so unless the manufacturer changed their processes it would seem unlikely to be the culprit.

Papa: Yes my plants looked like trichomes at first now they look worse (will probably end up tossing them). Different strains varied to some degree in their symptoms but they all look terrible. Some look like the ones in this thread:

Purpleberry: I may end up having to go the fresh air route but I'm trying to avoid it; I hear you about masking the problem "ok" plants are unacceptable.

The thing that is so strange is that I've used most of these materials (reflectix, pondliner, ect.) successfully before in sealed rooms. The reasons that I continue to focus on offgassing as the source of my issues is that all other inputs appear to be spot on and my plants look like many of the pics I have seen of plants sick from offgassing.
 
Capulator

Capulator

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Fuck. Sorry to hear about your run of bad luck bro. First RA's and now this.

I used brand new pond liner and reflectex in a sealed room. no problems. I really don't think its that but you never know. Maybe just run fresh air for a cycle and then try sealed again.
 
cemchris

cemchris

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Have you tried turning your burner off? When I put plants in my room I usually leave it off for a week or two. They get the claw bad even with the burner at 400 ppm. after they get groovin I crank it with no ill effects.
 
Resinable

Resinable

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Capulator: Trying to keep a positive attitude but this shit is driving me insane.

Cemchris: I've had the Co2 off for about a week now but these plants are so far gone it probably doesn't matter. Initially I had the Co2 set for about 600 ppm but if even one person is in the room for any length of time it shoots way up and stays up since the plants are not photosynthesizing and thus are not absorbing any CO2. Hard to believe that this could cause the dramatic damage that these plant have suffered though.

Come to think of it, I brought ten healthy "test" plants in about a week ago at which point I switched to an RO water source and turned off the humidifier and CO2. No visible difference in the old plants; the new ones are paling, rusting, and yellowing from the outside in.
 
dankworth

dankworth

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Non-hdpe containers maybe? Just throwing that out as a guess. Are there combustion byproducts from burners, maybe burner not completely igniting gases? I only have used tanks myself. I am keeping my fingers crossed for you, best of luck.
 
Resinable

Resinable

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Here are some pics; they are not the best, i'll try to get some better one's up later.
 
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Resinable

Resinable

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Dankworth: I've wonder about the propane combustion too; as far as I remember from chemistry propane combusts with oxygen to form only water and CO2. Don't think I have any non HDPE containers. Even my irrigation tubing that I'm using for the condensate drains is PE, which I've read should be ok?
 
Resinable

Resinable

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I just had a bit of a light bulb moment I hope. Please tell me what you guys think of this. One difference between this room and my last is that inside this room I have two pvc lines and faucets. One is for fresh water. The other runs to a pump in a nutrient tank in another room. To each of these faucets I have garden hoses hooked up so I can water by hand when needed. These are green garden hoses. Flexogen by Gilmore if I remember correctly. I've tried to do a google search to find out what these hoses are made of but have not had any luck yet. One site did say garden hoses in general are often made of, at least in part, flexible pvc and or vinyl.

Again, in my previous room I did have rigid pvc pipe for irrigation lines but not garden hoses. What do you guys think, could these hoses be the problem?
 
Capulator

Capulator

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Ive got three hoses coiled up in my room.
 

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