Is my growroom CURSED? Plants stop eating.

[kallaserves]

I got the replacement Ph probe today and what a difference! The new one will get to target very fast and is very accurate. The previous one could be an amazon knockoff or it broke after a year. A working one should be very responsive and take less than 10seconds to get to target.

I checked the runoff of the rockwool and I am seeing ph of 7.1(that's with 1.7ec 5.5 going in). If that's what the rootzone is seeing, then couple elements are not able to be absorbed such as P

based on what you said earlier, don't let it go above .3 ph in 24 hours and 1.2EC. I will feed 1.2EC 5.8 and hope to see 6.1 runoff the next day. If the runoff ph is higher than 6.1, then run more solution through rockwool. Is this the way to go?

 

[Aqua Man]

I got the replacement Ph probe today and what a difference! The new one will get to target very fast and is very accurate. The previous one could be an amazon knockoff or it broke after a year. A working one should be very responsive and take less than 10seconds to get to target.

I checked the runoff of the rockwool and I am seeing ph of 7.1(that's with 1.7ec 5.5 going in). If that's what the rootzone is seeing, then couple elements are not able to be absorbed such as P

based on what you said earlier, don't let it go above .3 ph in 24 hours and 1.2EC. I will feed 1.2EC 5.8 and hope to see 6.1 runoff the next day. If the runoff ph is higher than 6.1, then run more solution through rockwool. Is this the way to go?

Well yes and no... I think it's more of an alkalinity issue. With low alkalinity you have very little buffering and the ph will swing quickly. I think you should add some buffering to the solution.

The ph I'm referring to is the res ph once that's only seeing 0.2 change in 24 hrs then you can figure out the rootzone ph. Meaning if it's low alkalinity or nutrient related or other.

What ph down are you using?

 

[kallaserves]

I see what you're saying. I was under the impression there would be some type of buffering within the dry nutrient powder. What would you recommend?

I used advanced nutrient ph down before, it is much stronger than the General hydroponics one.

But I am now using this one from my local hydro store. It is much stronger than the advance nutrient one.

 

[Aqua Man]

I see what you're saying. I was under the impression there would be some type of buffering within the dry nutrient powder. What would you recommend?

I used advanced nutrient ph down before, it is much stronger than the General hydroponics one.



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But I am now using this one from my local hydro store. It is much stronger than the advance nutrient one.

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Yeah thats better than both Gh and AN

 

[Aqua Man]

Potassium bicarbonate or potassium silicate work well as buffers.

 

[kallaserves]

I am finally on track. The problem all along was humidity. Daylight was 80F/80% and that caused plants not to drink from roots, hence lack of nutrients. Night time humidity was even higher at 80-90 and caused even more issues. Since adding a dehumidifier, I've kept the rh at 55avg 24hours. I placed one sick plant outside where it's 20%-60% rh with lots of wind, it was doing better than my indoor ones, which let me finally realize they like it dry. I guess I can ditch the VPD chart.

I want to give a big shoutout to Aquaman and PpmOver9000 for their help in diagnosing and leading me to the correct solution. This is the rockwool grow, next is to see if the NFT will still work.

3days before introducing dehumidifier

4 days after introducing dehumidifier

11 days after introducing dehumidifier

 

[Goblinkiller]

Good to see you got it back on track!

I just wanted to say your starting post was wery wholesome, with all the pics, good grammar and details.

If nothing above would work maybe a drum session with the local shaman would raise their spirits

Good read

 

[Aqua Man]

Bottom of post #17 went right over my head. I was so zoomed in on uptake issues due to root issues. I'd say @PpmOver9000 musta caught that. As I dismissed humidity from previous numbers.

Honestly I believe many don't realize the massive difference that can happen with humidity from room to in the canopy. I best almost 90% of growers will find about a 10% increase and 20% or more with a dense indica.

Sensor placement is absolutely crucial.

So glad you got this sorted brother.

 

[PpmOver9000]

Nice! Love to see the positive feedback loop of problem->input change->solved. Great rewarding feeling. Looking forward to the flower cycle!

 

[kallaserves]

In regards to the cloner, no sign of pathogen attack. They seem to be growing well, at this rate I'm pretty sure they are drinking from the roots, thus taking in nutrients and will survive. Humidity was the issue all alone.

I was going to toss these clones because they weren't rooting in 12 days, you can see the bottom of the stem is red, it was actually being attacked by the pathogen and if I had not changed the humidity, the entire bottom stem would look like that with no roots.

Normally in 7-8 days you can see the green stem start to develop white spots, that's sign that root cells are being developed. With these new results, I'm fairly confident the NFT method will work again.

 

[kallaserves]

Looks like my problem is back. However I have some ideas on how to combat this. This is the same healthy root from last post which is 4 days ago.

Aqua Mans method to cure root rot (live systems only)

So figured its about time to make a thread i can reference for those seeking a solution to root rot. First let's go over some facts. Root rot is not temperature dependent there are many different types pythium that survive and thrive at various temps. Second it is not caused by anaerobic...

www.thcfarmer.com

Upon reading Aquaman's thread, It occurs to me that I haven't been using bleach to sanitize the collars in the cloner. Now I am using 1/2 cup chlorox bleach(7.5% sodium hypochlorite) per gallon of ro to sanitize everything in the cloner, pump, pipe, collars.

Another thing I will try is putting a UV light on the end of the RO system. I have a feeling that my ro contains oomycete and that could be attacking the roots. Since I do not have this ordered yet, I will boil my ro water to kill everything inside and started another batch of clones today.

I've also decided to go sterile and will be putting 5ml/gal of uc roots in the solution. Many of the inspiration I got is from this HeisenBeans video. If this doesn't fix it, I can throw in the towel.

 

[kallaserves]

I was able to get a compound microscope and captured the 250x zoom of water dripping from a diseased stem. I am fairly sure this is a pythium or phytophthora Oomycete. A drop of sodium hypochlorite(uc roots) does kill it as well as UV light. They get around via water and can remain dormant if there's no water(such as dirty dried cloning collars). I really hope they're not airborne.

I checked the RO UV water and there were none. Now I will have to wait and see if the properly cleaned cloner with uv ro will produce non disease roots.

This is a video of the diseased root tip with a possible zoospore attached to it

 

[kallaserves]

Thought I'd give everyone an update on the situation.

Upon more research, I realized that the pathogen is systemic. Water molds(oomecyte ie pythium, phytophthora) are parasites and dig deep into the plant tissue. Even if I take a clone, it is infected and will not root well and eventually succumb and infect everything that shares the reservoir.

I believe the reason I caught this is because I used my friend's cloning machine. I suspect the Oospores(sexual reproduction offsprings of pythium/phytophthora) was hiding in his 2" cloning collars and the pump itself.

List of things I did before next run.

1. Sterilize every container in bleach(12.5%) 1/2cup/gal.

2. Toss out all the old 2-3" neoprene collars and buy new ones.

3. Tossing everything and started new from seeds.

4. heat up room to 140-150F to bake for 3 hours.

What I initially thought was pathogen ended up being parameciums(single celled organisms). They swim around, eat the dead stuff and don't harm the plants. This is a video of them in the current reservoir. 400x zoom

What was surprising was that I soaked seeds in a little container with RO water and after 2 days, there's quite the microbe environment. Which would mean the seeds themselves carries it just like how we're born with microbes in our gut. Interesting enough, they actually attack and devour the paramecium 400x zoom

It seemed running sterile by constant putting in 2ppm chlorine bleach or ucroots into solution was not going to do it. So I just let the paramecium and microbes be and see what happens. The plants are growing well, no signs of root rot. As for the clones, I haven't seen this vigor in a very long time. It's surprising because I've never had roots violently burst out of the skin like this before. But they look healthy and are growing fast. (I may not need to buy any great white or hydroguard at all)

This problem has been plaguing me for months and many lost harvests. I was ready to give up if this one still showed the plague. But I'm glad I was able to solve the issue with all the help and guidance I received. Don't give up, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You just need to be very persistent.