Dwc woes - constant failure

[hm7]

Yes that is true. I feel like I am confusing the point here, but if you pour it on something that it can react with, it "burns up" faster than if you just pour it in a clean glass.

If you have 12 gallons, that is 45L.
1ml/l = 1000 PPM
1000 ppm / 12% = 83PPM up when you add 1ml/L

x/.12 = 5, solve for x = .6ml/L to raise to 5PPM

so 45L (your system) needs 27 mL of H2O2 to raise 5PPM. Less if there is already H2O2 to start with in the system.

There are 3785 mL/Gal, so you have 140 doses. Only 52 weeks to dose. The rest you use for cleaning.

And to your point, as the peroxide ages, you might have to add more per dose as time goes on.



PH after adding peroxide and well stirred, last step in any nute regimen is PH check.

This is awesome, thank you. I'm absolutely worthless when it comes to the most absolute basic of math. I have trouble adding 1 and 2, don't even get me started on trying to do division and multiplication. I will try to go H2O2 this round.

Im going to say this. . once u figure out how to prevent it. The rest is gravy. My shit can go unattended for a week if needed. Im sloppy. . i dont use any corrosives ever, just put the parts in the tub and scrub them with the lufa, hott water and whatever bottle of shampoo or body wash is close. . rinse good so the smell is gone. Basically. . im sloppy, messy, im lazy, and I enter my grow room about once a week. I get some issues up top from running them outta nutrients. . or adding to much. . but as for root rot. . even as care free as I am. . i still havnt seen it in over a year. I use microbes. . aka hydro guard and only add it at the start. Somehow my colonies stay active the entire grow. . plus i do 0 res changes. . only top offs. . anyways ive learned alot on what not to do. . still dont know how to do it perfect. . but i will soon enough. Good luck bud, your in good hands at the farm

That's been my goal throughout all of this with this system - I've been trying to design and build a fairly automated system that requires minimal amount of work, and just let it do it's thing. The 5gal bucket I limped through on round one "worked" but ... it was a nightmare of constant instability. I was always having to deal with adding water, mixing nutes, adjusting the ph, etc etc etc etc.

After dealing with that, a larger RDWC system seemed like it would solve the majority of my problems, and so far with things like PH, nutes, drain/refil - it has! I just have to figure out how to get past this damn root rot in the netpot issue. It still blows my mind people are able to get through grows with zero or minimal res changes. This system was designed to the best of my ability, but it's too rigid. Lesson learned - I already want to tear it apart and make a new one, but ... I've got too much invested in it and need to at least see a grow through it at this point before I work on the next design, but ... I absolutely do want to make the next one more modular and able to be better dissembled to clean. I was so worried about potential leaks this time, I went overboard with trying to make everything as 'one-piece' as possible. Seemed like a great idea at the time to not flood my floor - however now, it's had the inverse problem of being difficult to clean.


Hopefully I'll get there eventually. I'm sure once I do, I'll undoubtedly run into a whole new batch of problems revolving around nutrient related issues, overfeeding, underfeeding, deficiencies, light being too bright/close/too far, etc etc etc.... but, I have to get the plants beyond 2 weeks before I have to worry about those problems.

 

[hm7]

Peroxide breaks down fast… its used to knock back the populations as often as needed. It wont last more than 24hrs. You can super charge it with UV light. Temps play a big role but typically you use it every 2-3 days. Even chlorine breaks down and off gasses fast, usually within 24 hrs. Chloramine can last weeks.

Yeah, I was wanting to try to find a way to intentionally add chloramine to the system to keep the levels more consistent but ... can't seem to find a good solution anymore. I ran across a lot of people praising something called 'Dutch Master Zone' which, supposedly was exactly this - however, it doesn't seem to be made anymore, and I haven't found anyone recommending a direct replacement.

 

[hm7]

Yes that is true. I feel like I am confusing the point here, but if you pour it on something that it can react with, it "burns up" faster than if you just pour it in a clean glass.

If you have 12 gallons, that is 45L.
1ml/l = 1000 PPM
1000 ppm / 12% = 83PPM up when you add 1ml/L

x/.12 = 5, solve for x = .6ml/L to raise to 5PPM

so 45L (your system) needs 27 mL of H2O2 to raise 5PPM. Less if there is already H2O2 to start with in the system.

There are 3785 mL/Gal, so you have 140 doses. Only 52 weeks to dose. The rest you use for cleaning.

And to your point, as the peroxide ages, you might have to add more per dose as time goes on.



PH after adding peroxide and well stirred, last step in any nute regimen is PH check.

Out of curiosity, just so I know when using those strips - what ppm of H2O2 is too much / do I start to harm the plants/roots?

 

[Bluebuddha]

"And this is another thing I can't seem to find an answer to and I've wondered myself - was that brown snot/slime crap I "battled" actually root rot/bad bacteria, or was it the good bacteria?"

I can't tell but sure would like to know as well. It literally went from a little clear snot to gobs of shit in 8 hours.

"I'd really like to know more about this. Are you saying that the slime cleared up on it's own, without you doing anything else other than just letting the slime continue to thrive and do its thing? How long did it take? Once it left, it never came back?"

I rinsed the roots off and changed out one res and left the other full. They both had the slime.

One was fresh the other old, I put 2-ml of S AG, 10ml of Orca and about 50 ml of hydroguard in both. 15gal res's.

The slime has not come back in either so far. It took 3-4 days to start to see a tiny bit of improvement and then a steady rate getting better daily.

I hope to God I don't have this cycle repeat.

I've been adding normal maintenance dose every couple of days. I believe the colony prob takes time to build up and overcome whatever that crud is.

I also wrapped everything in mylar bubble wrap just in case of light leaks. I also don't have a chiller and the res temps bounce between 68-70. This is DWC for now.

I am very glad we are talking about this because it really is an unknown variable and boggles my mind how it got in there. Makes me wonder if this shit lives in the airstones or even the pores on the plastic. I wanted to go sterile as I had no problems before. It's just weird.


PS. I'm watching The Rings of Power and after writing about all this gunk, the answer came to me! Mithral! We need some motherfkin magic Mithral!

PSS And it's real... Colloidal silver in the res works as an antifungal and antibacterial. Or maybe just drop a sterling silver spoon in the res...huh

 

[Aqua Man]

"And this is another thing I can't seem to find an answer to and I've wondered myself - was that brown snot/slime crap I "battled" actually root rot/bad bacteria, or was it the good bacteria?"

I can't tell but sure would like to know as well. It literally went from a little clear snot to gobs of shit in 8 hours.

"I'd really like to know more about this. Are you saying that the slime cleared up on it's own, without you doing anything else other than just letting the slime continue to thrive and do its thing? How long did it take? Once it left, it never came back?"

I rinsed the roots off and changed out one res and left the other full. They both had the slime.

One was fresh the other old, I put 2-ml of S AG, 10ml of Orca and about 50 ml of hydroguard in both. 15gal res's.

The slime has not come back in either so far. It took 3-4 days to start to see a tiny bit of improvement and then a steady rate getting better daily.

I hope to God I don't have this cycle repeat.

I've been adding normal maintenance dose every couple of days. I believe the colony prob takes time to build up and overcome whatever that crud is.

I also wrapped everything in mylar bubble wrap just in case of light leaks. I also don't have a chiller and the res temps bounce between 68-70. This is DWC for now.

I am very glad we are talking about this because it really is an unknown variable and boggles my mind how it got in there. Makes me wonder if this shit lives in the airstones or even the pores on the plastic. I wanted to go sterile as I had no problems before. It's just weird.


PS. I'm watching The Rings of Power and after writing about all this gunk, the answer came to me! Mithral! We need some motherfkin magic Mithral!

PSS And it's real... Colloidal silver in the res works as an antifungal and antibacterial. Or maybe just drop a sterling silver spoon in the res...huh

Yeah the populations fluctuate with the food source. Thats why in my root rot thread you rinse for 3 days no matter what. The slime IS the bacteria. Generally speaking the clear stuff is good but you still want to rinse it off the roots until it clears up. Anytime you see a lot of slime its because of high amounts of bacteria. Once the decay or food source has been consumed or significantly reduced then you will get a small healthy population that keeps things in check.


When you have decay or a buildup of organics its only a matter of time before the tiny unseen battle of bacteria will happen and the victor will explode in population…

this is why when you have root rot and treat with a known strong species you will often see an explosion of clear slime so you must rinse daily with to remove it and the loose decay. Then inoculate again each day.

If you inoculate at the beginning of the grow you should never see that. But decay of roots will almost always follow with a boom in bacteria and the snot you seen.

 

[Frostie069]

just me again with my two cents, another thing I've tried to adapt this grow is trying to keep it simple and not touch things if things are going well (seeking more vigorous growth)

just trying to keep things a bit basic, I am only going to make single changes at a time as I noticed last grow, if I make changes to multiple things at once, then I have multiplied my amount of answers to problems by 20 or more, which change was the bad one? was it all of them? and then the big one, did I cause a chain reaction by making too much change at once? In trying to fix the problem did I just freak the plants out because I've just turned their world upside down?

At the moment a lot of plans I have are on the back burner, I need to sort out my issues before I add more complexities trying to achieve better when I'll probably just add to confusion if things go pear shaped.

Always learn, plan and ask questions, but know when is the right time to make the change, at the moment I'd focus on cutting things out to simplify everything, not add.

 

[hm7]

"And this is another thing I can't seem to find an answer to and I've wondered myself - was that brown snot/slime crap I "battled" actually root rot/bad bacteria, or was it the good bacteria?"

I can't tell but sure would like to know as well. It literally went from a little clear snot to gobs of shit in 8 hours.

"I'd really like to know more about this. Are you saying that the slime cleared up on it's own, without you doing anything else other than just letting the slime continue to thrive and do its thing? How long did it take? Once it left, it never came back?"

I rinsed the roots off and changed out one res and left the other full. They both had the slime.

One was fresh the other old, I put 2-ml of S AG, 10ml of Orca and about 50 ml of hydroguard in both. 15gal res's.

The slime has not come back in either so far. It took 3-4 days to start to see a tiny bit of improvement and then a steady rate getting better daily.

I hope to God I don't have this cycle repeat.

I've been adding normal maintenance dose every couple of days. I believe the colony prob takes time to build up and overcome whatever that crud is.

I also wrapped everything in mylar bubble wrap just in case of light leaks. I also don't have a chiller and the res temps bounce between 68-70. This is DWC for now.

I am very glad we are talking about this because it really is an unknown variable and boggles my mind how it got in there. Makes me wonder if this shit lives in the airstones or even the pores on the plastic. I wanted to go sterile as I had no problems before. It's just weird.


PS. I'm watching The Rings of Power and after writing about all this gunk, the answer came to me! Mithral! We need some motherfkin magic Mithral!

PSS And it's real... Colloidal silver in the res works as an antifungal and antibacterial. Or maybe just drop a sterling silver spoon in the res...huh

Very interesting. I'm glad it cleared up for you, and I hope it doesn't come back, but definitely still leaves a lot of questions, especially on my end. I'm just not experienced enough to know what is good/bad at this point, or what is considered to be normal/they will grow out of it vs not. My only frame of reference is a really crap limp through in that bucket, and ... whatever else I've found on the net.

Yeah the populations fluctuate with the food source. Thats why in my root rot thread you rinse for 3 days no matter what. The slime IS the bacteria. Generally speaking the clear stuff is good but you still want to rinse it off the roots until it clears up. Anytime you see a lot of slime its because of high amounts of bacteria. Once the decay or food source has been consumed or significantly reduced then you will get a small healthy population that keeps things in check.


When you have decay or a buildup of organics its only a matter of time before the tiny unseen battle of bacteria will happen and the victor will explode in population…

this is why when you have root rot and treat with a known strong species you will often see an explosion of clear slime so you must rinse daily with to remove it and the loose decay. Then inoculate again each day.

If you inoculate at the beginning of the grow you should never see that. But decay of roots will almost always follow with a boom in bacteria and the snot you seen.

Yeah, I did innoculate in the beining of my solo bucket with hydroguard. However ..... I later found out (once I switched to Orca) that the Hydroguard I was using was like 8 months expired once I found out how to decode their date code on the back. I don't know if that was the source of my failure with trying to run live on the last system, and by the time I added Orca, it was already too late or what. I do know the Orca I got looks *super* cloudy when I put it in a glass of water. So, it's definitely active. The hydroguard might as well have been water.... certainly looked like it.


Side note Aqua Man - I went searching and stumbled upon 2 pictures from my solo bucket run. It won't do any good here for this grow, but I still wanted to show what I was battling. Even after 4 months of veg - this is as big as the roots ever got. Very lackluster. Very discolored, and they always had this nasty slime crap everywhere. This was actually no where near as bad as they got.


I don't know what I could have done to improve them, but I'm still shocked she made it across the line. I was hand washing them every couple days. As you can see, every time I washed them, they would fall off too...

This was using both hydroguard and Orca.


----------

I'm still left wondering - should you properly innoculate in the begining, or ... let's say you get an issue like this under control, and you rinse it off daily, once everything is innoculated properly, does this 'clear slime' completely go away, or ... are the roots/system still coated in a layer of this clear slime (that's the good bacteria) - and that's just something you deal with throughout the grow? If that clear slime remains, I'm assuming it coats everything - stones, buckets, res, tubes, pumps, chiller?

 

[Aqua Man]

Very interesting. I'm glad it cleared up for you, and I hope it doesn't come back, but definitely still leaves a lot of questions, especially on my end. I'm just not experienced enough to know what is good/bad at this point, or what is considered to be normal/they will grow out of it vs not. My only frame of reference is a really crap limp through in that bucket, and ... whatever else I've found on the net.




Yeah, I did innoculate in the beining of my solo bucket with hydroguard. However ..... I later found out (once I switched to Orca) that the Hydroguard I was using was like 8 months expired once I found out how to decode their date code on the back. I don't know if that was the source of my failure with trying to run live on the last system, and by the time I added Orca, it was already too late or what. I do know the Orca I got looks *super* cloudy when I put it in a glass of water. So, it's definitely active. The hydroguard might as well have been water.... certainly looked like it.


Side note Aqua Man - I went searching and stumbled upon 2 pictures from my solo bucket run. It won't do any good here for this grow, but I still wanted to show what I was battling. Even after 4 months of veg - this is as big as the roots ever got. Very lackluster. Very discolored, and they always had this nasty slime crap everywhere. This was actually no where near as bad as they got.


I don't know what I could have done to improve them, but I'm still shocked she made it across the line. I was hand washing them every couple days. As you can see, every time I washed them, they would fall off too...

This was using both hydroguard and Orca.


----------

I'm still left wondering - should you properly innoculate in the begining, or ... let's say you get an issue like this under control, and you rinse it off daily, once everything is innoculated properly, does this 'clear slime' completely go away, or ... are the roots/system still coated in a layer of this clear slime (that's the good bacteria) - and that's just something you deal with throughout the grow? If that clear slime remains, I'm assuming it coats everything - stones, buckets, res, tubes, pumps, chiller?

Yeah looks to me like they may have had issues from the start that never cleared up

 

[beluga]

Some before and 6-days-afters from my treatment.
Chlorine-sanitized equipment.
Thorough rinse/Southern AG root drench.

To ease your concerns about chlorine a bit.

 

[hm7]

Some before and 6-days-afters from my treatment.
Chlorine-sanitized equipment.
Thorough rinse/Southern AG root drench.

To ease your concerns about chlorine a bit.

Yeah, I was looking at this earlier when you linked to it. Reminded me a lot of what I went through with my solo bucket, although mine just continued coming back with a vengeance every couple days. I could never stop it, only managed to keep it somewhat under control - but it was still bad.

I don't have any concerns with chlorine, it's what I tried running this last time. I was just wanting to actually test to see how long sufficient levels of free chlorine (the amount of actual chlorine that is still unbound/usable) remained in the system. That's really what matters with chlorine. I'm left wondering if this time, my free cholorine levels either dropped too low, or ... it off gassed before it could truly do any good, due either too excessive aeration, or reactions due to either ammonia / phosphoric acid.

 

[hm7]

Well, tomorrow I will be changing some stuff up.

I've been wanted to move my 2 submersible pumps out my res to keep things both a bit cooler, and also give 'bad stuff' one less place to hide/grow - but ... I've always been reluctant to do so given that they are mechanically driven pumps. Didn't want to risk a leak with a failed seal. Finally bit the bullet, and am switching both my chiller and res circulation pumps over to larger mag drive pumps - so, hopefully I won't have to worry about leaks like I do with my current ones. Both of these will be going outside of the res, so should also be a little easier on the chiller.


Once that's done... I'm going to clean and sanitize everything and let it cycle for a few days. the new Strawberry is already is almost popped up. I can't see Bannana yet, but ... hopefully she'll be popping up in a day or two too. Again, going with no rooters, germinating straight in solo cups filled with perlite. I plan to let them stay in there for at least a week, maybe two if need be and just top feed them by hand until Aqua Man / you guys can deem them 'large and safe enough to put in the netpots'. I'm not sure how often to top feed, but ... before I was doing twice a day, and they seemed okay with that.

I've also got some soaker tubing which I will make some rings out of and combine with a programmable timer to ensure regular/routine top feedings once they are placed in the netpot, which should help keep the root zone sanitized.


We'll see if this strategy plays out any better.... one can only hope.

 

[geemonty]

Fantastic! Thank you!



Wow, interesting. I was under the assumption H2O2 broke down very quickly - basically in a matter of 2-3 days max. How often are you doing res changes, and how much are you adding? This was my concern going H2O2 - how long is 1gal really going to last me?

I'm new to growing so someone else like @Moe.Red might know the science and also might say I'm doing it wrong. I probably am lol. I add it just on the initial res change my thought was it will just kind of make sure stuff is dead. I change res differently depending on the stage of the plant or how lazy I get, so about 7-14 days. I will add h202 if needed in between res changes as well.

 

[MIAquaFire]

Well, tomorrow I will be changing some stuff up.

I've been wanted to move my 2 submersible pumps out my res to keep things both a bit cooler, and also give 'bad stuff' one less place to hide/grow - but ... I've always been reluctant to do so given that they are mechanically driven pumps. Didn't want to risk a leak with a failed seal. Finally bit the bullet, and am switching both my chiller and res circulation pumps over to larger mag drive pumps - so, hopefully I won't have to worry about leaks like I do with my current ones. Both of these will be going outside of the res, so should also be a little easier on the chiller.


Once that's done... I'm going to clean and sanitize everything and let it cycle for a few days. the new Strawberry is already is almost popped up. I can't see Bannana yet, but ... hopefully she'll be popping up in a day or two too. Again, going with no rooters, germinating straight in solo cups filled with perlite. I plan to let them stay in there for at least a week, maybe two if need be and just top feed them by hand until Aqua Man / you guys can deem them 'large and safe enough to put in the netpots'. I'm not sure how often to top feed, but ... before I was doing twice a day, and they seemed okay with that.

I've also got some soaker tubing which I will make some rings out of and combine with a programmable timer to ensure regular/routine top feedings once they are placed in the netpot, which should help keep the root zone sanitized.


We'll see if this strategy plays out any better.... one can only hope.

8-12" roots and 3+ nodes is safe transplant. Less than that yoi run the risk of shock and death

 

[Moe.Red]

Peroxide breaks down fast… its used to knock back the populations as often as needed. It wont last more than 24hrs. You can super charge it with UV light. Temps play a big role but typically you use it every 2-3 days. Even chlorine breaks down and off gasses fast, usually within 24 hrs. Chloramine can last weeks.

This is contrary to my personal experience.

Either my strips are not truly measuring H2O2 concentrations, or it lasts much longer than people think.

I have personally done this - but happy to document if necessary

Add H2O2 in a system I want to clean up - if you don't add enough, it is gone in hours.

Add too much, and it plummets at first, and then (I assume) once the biologic load is gone that triggers the break down, it starts to hang around.

If I get the system up to 100PPM and sterile, then just give it time to get to 0 so I can add biologics, weeks can go by and it is still measurable (50PPM+) in the system. Seriously. I always end up draining the system and even sucking out the last bits of water with a shop vac to get back to zero PPM so I can add the biologics.

Where am I going wrong?

 

[Aqua Man]

This is contrary to my personal experience.

Either my strips are not truly measuring H2O2 concentrations, or it lasts much longer than people think.

I have personally done this - but happy to document if necessary

Add H2O2 in a system I want to clean up - if you don't add enough, it is gone in hours.

Add too much, and it plummets at first, and then (I assume) once the biologic load is gone that triggers the break down, it starts to hang around.

If I get the system up to 100PPM and sterile, then just give it time to get to 0 so I can add biologics, weeks can go by and it is still measurable (50PPM+) in the system. Seriously. I always end up draining the system and even sucking out the last bits of water with a shop vac to get back to zero PPM so I can add the biologics.

Where am I going wrong?

Ppm is not necessarily completely h2o2 but simply a measure of dissolved solids

 

[Aqua Man]

I havent read this but im sure it has info pertaining to it.

https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/cleared_reviews/csr_PC-000595_12-Jul-07_a.pdf

 

[Moe.Red]

I'm new to growing so someone else like @Moe.Red might know the science and also might say I'm doing it wrong. I probably am lol. I add it just on the initial res change my thought was it will just kind of make sure stuff is dead. I change res differently depending on the stage of the plant or how lazy I get, so about 7-14 days. I will add h202 if needed in between res changes as well.

No you are not doing anything wrong. Here is the way I see it, but I could be wrong:

Add H2O2 into a system that is pretty much clean - add just a little once a week to kill off any emerging colonies then let the H2O2 go down to 0. Add 5PPM more in a week, and any new stuff will be beat back. Rinse and repeat, adding only what is needed to keep colonies at bay. The lower the better, and it is not necessary to keep them carpet bombed continually.

Now where things get different is if you have a large colony already you are trying to kill. Stuff like slime coats by large colonies are there to protect it from things like H2O2. So it takes a lot more to actually get to the source and break it up. This larger amount does not correct the damaged roots, and in fact attacks them as well. So it's like Chemotherapy - sure it kills the baddies, but also takes out some goodies.

Starting with a sterile system, and maintaining that with weekly low doses is what I would do if running sterile.

 

[Moe.Red]

I havent read this but im sure it has info pertaining to it.

https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/cleared_reviews/csr_PC-000595_12-Jul-07_a.pdf

Yes, that report is saying exactly what I am saying.

If the res is sterile, 80H hours half life. So in 160 hours, you still have 1/4 of the added H2O2.

If the res is not sterile, half life is reduced to 1.1 - 5.3 hours.

This is EXACTLY what I am seeing in my experimentation as referenced above.

 

[Aqua Man]

Yeah seems the

Yes, that report is saying exactly what I am saying.

View attachment 1290715

If the res is sterile, 80H hours half life. So in 160 hours, you still have 1/4 of the added H2O2.

If the res is not sterile, half life is reduced to 1.1 - 5.3 hours.

This is EXACTLY what I am seeing in my experimentation as referenced above.

no you are confusing sterile with a name we use… they are talking sterile like medical

 

[Aqua Man]

Yes, that report is saying exactly what I am saying.

View attachment 1290715

If the res is sterile, 80H hours half life. So in 160 hours, you still have 1/4 of the added H2O2.

If the res is not sterile, half life is reduced to 1.1 - 5.3 hours.

This is EXACTLY what I am seeing in my experimentation as referenced above.

Here let me read it