Root rot / brown slime - Chiller? Microbe Tea? Sterile Res? what works for you?

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GreySeer

GreySeer

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Its expired. Aug 4, 2018 it was made. Aug 4 2020 expired

ah hell :D I assumed from reading that copy/paste that was the born on date.... Rereading that, it is what it says. Are you sure?

I'll have a bottle of Great White to try out on Friday, I'll have to make sure that's not expired as well...

EDIT: Now the water level is a little more than an inch below the netpot, for a while I was having struggles with getting the roots into the water and had the level closer to .5" I'm certain this was at least part of the problem.
 
Zoneshityee

Zoneshityee

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So looking at the pics, looks like you had zinc deficiency, but that is actually phosphoric toxicity, and that was start of problems. Do not use ph down and use my other advice, then post pics tonight 👍
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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So looking at the pics, looks like you had zinc deficiency, but that is actually phosphoric toxicity, and that was start of problems. Do not use ph down and use my other advice, then post pics tonight 👍
Its not a zink deficiency
.... zink is a MOBILE nutrient and will show in new growth not old growth. I cannot state how wrong this info is. Its not phosphorus toxicity.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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ah hell :D I assumed from reading that copy/paste that was the born on date.... Rereading that, it is what it says. Are you sure?

I'll have a bottle of Great White to try out on Friday, I'll have to make sure that's not expired as well...

EDIT: Now the water level is a little more than an inch below the netpot, for a while I was having struggles with getting the roots into the water and had the level closer to .5" I'm certain this was at least part of the problem.
Do you have airstones in them?

Your water level was and is fine.
 
Zoneshityee

Zoneshityee

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*zinc, that was the new growth, then when the h202 came and unlock and new nutes, all good
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Also remove those old leaves they are dead and damaged leaves will not recover. The plants not in bad shape. It looks like old damage from transplant or previous issues.

Not gonna waste my time correcting other info.
 
GreySeer

GreySeer

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So looking at the pics, looks like you had zinc deficiency, but that is actually phosphoric toxicity, and that was start of problems. Do not use ph down and use my other advice, then post pics tonight 👍

After I mix a batch of nutrients with my tap water the PH is always around 6.8 - 7.5 not the ideal range at all for hydro. I've never read this advice anywhere else in my research... So I have to admit, I'm a little skeptical.

Are you proposing NOT adjusting the PH and just letting it ride, or should I look into some other method to bring the PH down between 5.5 - 6.5ph?

When I make a batch of water:
  • I leave out the water for 24 hours in a 5g jug
  • I add the HydroGuard 2ml/gal and wait 30-45 min
  • I add the trio in equal amounts, flora micro first, half the seedling dose on the rdwc feeding schedule (1.25ml/gal iirc)
  • I add CaliMagic 1.25ml/gal
  • Shake Bottle and try not to throw out my back in the process
  • add PH down in .25ml increments and shaking to dial the PH down to 5.5
When I check PH mid week and find it's risen above 6.2:
  • I pull 2 gal out of the res into a bucket
  • use PH down to bring it's PH down to a little below the desired level
  • Pump it back into the res and check res PH after 30 min
I have been having problems with the PH rising so I have had to adjust the PH midweek more than once. I hear this brown slime stuff tends to cause PH to rise, I wonder if there's some credence to what you're saying. I was chasing the PH dragon and using too much PH down when it was really Algae in my res spiking the PH.

I know for a while there I had at best 1-2 strands in the water and PH was rising every day and PPM was staying still. I suspected it was me top watering trying to get the roots down to the waterline and washing dust off the hydroton and causing the PH to spike but maybe it was algae all along.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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After I mix a batch of nutrients with my tap water the PH is always around 6.8 - 7.5 not the ideal range at all for hydro. I've never read this advice anywhere else in my research... So I have to admit, I'm a little skeptical.

Are you proposing NOT adjusting the PH and just letting it ride, or should I look into some other method to bring the PH down between 5.5 - 6.5ph?

When I make a batch of water:
  • I leave out the water for 24 hours in a 5g jug
  • I add the HydroGuard 2ml/gal and wait 30-45 min
  • I add the trio in equal amounts, flora micro first, half the seedling dose on the rdwc feeding schedule (1.25ml/gal iirc)
  • I add CaliMagic 1.25ml/gal
  • Shake Bottle and try not to throw out my back in the process
  • add PH down in .25ml increments and shaking to dial the PH down to 5.5
When I check PH mid week and find it's risen above 6.2:
  • I pull 2 gal out of the res into a bucket
  • use PH down to bring it's PH down to a little below the desired level
  • Pump it back into the res and check res PH after 30 min
I have been having problems with the PH rising so I have had to adjust the PH midweek more than once. I hear this brown slime stuff tends to cause PH to rise, I wonder if there's some credence to what you're saying. I was chasing the PH dragon and using too much PH down when it was really Algae in my res spiking the PH.

I know for a while there I had at best 1-2 strands in the water and PH was rising every day and PPM was staying still. I suspected it was me top watering trying to get the roots down to the waterline and washing dust off the hydroton and causing the PH to spike but maybe it was algae all along.

Alkalinity
 
GreySeer

GreySeer

14
3
Do you have airstones in them?

Your water level was and is fine.

Yup I currently have two medium airstones 1.5x3 in the bucket below the plants. On the next res clean/refill I'll start using two of the large cylinder air stones 2x4" along with the higher flow pump.

I don't think I will try out not PH'ing the water. It seems counter intuitive to me and goes against what I've read in several reputable guides. I will however try to minimize how much I'm using it and if I find myself adjusting multiple times a week I'll consider more frequent res changes.

EDIT:

I'll trim those dead leaves at lights on, I'd been hesitant to but I think you're right, there's probably 25% of a single green leaf between all 6 of those leaves. 🤣

That leaf damage is in fact old damage, I had some early light burn and the browning all appeared around when I discovered the slime in the bucket. I think it was stressed when it didn't get good water or nutrients for a few days due to the slime choking it out so the light being at 80% cooked the leaves. Then it was just downhill from there.

After I cleaned out the bucket the green came back into the remainder of the dying leaves and the top nodes started throwing out leaves again.
 
Last edited:
GreySeer

GreySeer

14
3
Alkalinity

Quality post. Thanks for linking that. I'm still reading through the rest of the comments in the thread but your post was top notch.

So my water comes out of the tap at around 40ppm and looking at my town water report:

4.5 ppm of chlorine
0.05 ppm copper
2 ppb of lead

Then there's something about total organic carbon ratio being 1.1

I don't see info about the other 35ppm on the site as it seems the water report is focused on contaminants and disinfectants. Nothing related to buffers added. Any idea where I'd find that info or search terms to look for? You think it's safe-ish to assume 50-75% of that 35ppm is calcium carbonate?

I am now curious about adding alkalinity to my water as a buffer. One of my most time consuming tasks thus far has been adjusting PH so if adding 50-60 ppm of an alkaline to my water will stabilize my PH over the week between water changes so I can set it to 5.5 on Friday and dump and refill at 6.5 the following Friday... well lets just say I would be very happy.

I'll do some more research on my own but if you have another link explaining what to buy and how to apply it I'd appreciate it.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

26,480
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Quality post. Thanks for linking that. I'm still reading through the rest of the comments in the thread but your post was top notch.

So my water comes out of the tap at around 40ppm and looking at my town water report:

4.5 ppm of chlorine
0.05 ppm copper
2 ppb of lead

Then there's something about total organic carbon ratio being 1.1

I don't see info about the other 35ppm on the site as it seems the water report is focused on contaminants and disinfectants. Nothing related to buffers added. Any idea where I'd find that info or search terms to look for? You think it's safe-ish to assume 50-75% of that 35ppm is calcium carbonate?

I am now curious about adding alkalinity to my water as a buffer. One of my most time consuming tasks thus far has been adjusting PH so if adding 50-60 ppm of an alkaline to my water will stabilize my PH over the week between water changes so I can set it to 5.5 on Friday and dump and refill at 6.5 the following Friday... well lets just say I would be very happy.

I'll do some more research on my own but if you have another link explaining what to buy and how to apply it I'd appreciate it.
Ph up (potassium bicarbonate) or IMO the best would be potassium silicate.

At 40 ppm there is no doubt you dont have enough alkalinity and thats why the ph is swinging so much.

You will need more acid to bring the ph down but it will be much more stable.

And honestly forget that nonsense about p tox from ph down... its absolutely absurd
 
TheBioMaster

TheBioMaster

450
93
You for sure shouldn't be seeing any type of slime at all, same for smells.....no fish tank smells.

That's a for sure sign of bad bacteria which is the creator of those smells, and slime.

Drop the calmag as it should not be needed.
 
TheBioMaster

TheBioMaster

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93
I would drop all but just your base nutrients for about 10 days....ph if needed to 6.0 and don't adjust for 10 days unless it goes above 6.6 or below 5.2

Best way to eliminate problems is to start at the base and work your way up. Don't add Hydro guard or anything but the base nutrients for about 7 to 10 days, then add Hydro guard.

Ppm set to 300-350
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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638
I would drop all but just your base nutrients for about 10 days....ph if needed to 6.0 and don't adjust for 10 days unless it goes above 6.6 or below 5.2

Best way to eliminate problems is to start at the base and work your way up. Don't add Hydro guard or anything but the base nutrients for about 7 to 10 days, then add Hydro guard.

Ppm set to 300-350
All bacteria create a smell not just bad. The slime is a mass of bacteria and the reason it smells is the dead decaying bacteria as normal life cycles occur.

Have to disagree here about doing nothing but base nutes. How does that get rid of a bacterial root infection? I would agree if it were a nutrient issue but it's a pathogen... kinda like saying use only base nutes to get rid of powdery mildew.

I linked a cure to root rot. I know a few ppl still around who have used it and beat it.

The key is to get the slime off the roots causing a little damage as possible. Rinsing daily and dosing something with bacillus amyloliquefaciens. I have seen some try doing the same with h202 but the success rate goes from almost 100% to maybe 50% but that's based on only my observations.
 
GreySeer

GreySeer

14
3
Ph up (potassium bicarbonate) or IMO the best would be potassium silicate.

At 40 ppm there is no doubt you dont have enough alkalinity and thats why the ph is swinging so much.

You will need more acid to bring the ph down but it will be much more stable.

And honestly forget that nonsense about p tox from ph down... its absolutely absurd

Yeah I think so too.

The volume of work out there as far as guides seems to suggest ph up/down is safe to use in the amounts I'm using it.

I'm measuring how much I use with small dispensing syringes and only using JUST enough to get it to the right PH. I'm talking like ~1ml in the whole 5 gallon batch and I'm tweaking it .25ml at a time trying to get it right on the money.

I have some PH Up on hand already, I'll look around for potassium silicate as well, I've wanted to add some silica to the mix anyway.

Would you add the PH Up to the water before mixing nutrients in, get the water ppm up to ~75 by adding PH up and then add nutrients and additives and PH down to get it back to 5.5? I'm assuming for the buffer I should ignore the PH while adding it and focus on the PPM, then work to drop the PH once the nutrients have been added.

It's odd but I'd read in a couple places you should never use PH up/down at the same time.

Looking back to see where I read that I see articles talking about not mixing the concentrates together (duh) and then people going on to say any combination of the two in the res are death for your plants. Finally someone came along and pointed out what you did above, that many fertilizers include both the chemicals in PH up and PH down intended to be used together and they work well and do not kill plants...

I kinda suspected buffers we involved in PH somehow when I was trying to PH some water to soak media in. It's SOOO easy to overshoot your intended PH when there's no nutrients in the water. By the same token I could run a gallon of plain tap water down to 4ph and then add it to a higher PPM nutrient solution and the PH of the nutrients barely flinches! However if I PH a gallon of nutrients at 200ppm and add it to a bucket of similar ppm nutrients it will predictably drop the PH

Anyway I really appreciate you taking the time to teach me a few things here. I'm planning to try out adding a buffer to my next refill + great white. Do a serious cleaning of my res and all tools again, run new air hoses and use the new pump and air stones.
 
GreySeer

GreySeer

14
3
All bacteria create a smell not just bad. The slime is a mass of bacteria and the reason it smells is the dead decaying bacteria as normal life cycles occur.

Have to disagree here about doing nothing but base nutes. How does that get rid of a bacterial root infection? I would agree if it were a nutrient issue but it's a pathogen... kinda like saying use only base nutes to get rid of powdery mildew.

I linked a cure to root rot. I know a few ppl still around who have used it and beat it.

The key is to get the slime off the roots causing a little damage as possible. Rinsing daily and dosing something with bacillus amyloliquefaciens. I have seen some try doing the same with h202 but the success rate goes from almost 100% to maybe 50% but that's based on only my observations.

I'm planning to follow that guide, it's similar to what I tried before but I didn't do the daily rinses and I was using h2o2 to rinse. I'll try it out with the great white this time and see how it goes.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

26,480
638
Yeah I think so too.

The volume of work out there as far as guides seems to suggest ph up/down is safe to use in the amounts I'm using it.

I'm measuring how much I use with small dispensing syringes and only using JUST enough to get it to the right PH. I'm talking like ~1ml in the whole 5 gallon batch and I'm tweaking it .25ml at a time trying to get it right on the money.

I have some PH Up on hand already, I'll look around for potassium silicate as well, I've wanted to add some silica to the mix anyway.

Would you add the PH Up to the water before mixing nutrients in, get the water ppm up to ~75 by adding PH up and then add nutrients and additives and PH down to get it back to 5.5? I'm assuming for the buffer I should ignore the PH while adding it and focus on the PPM, then work to drop the PH once the nutrients have been added.

It's odd but I'd read in a couple places you should never use PH up/down at the same time.

Looking back to see where I read that I see articles talking about not mixing the concentrates together (duh) and then people going on to say any combination of the two in the res are death for your plants. Finally someone came along and pointed out what you did above, that many fertilizers include both the chemicals in PH up and PH down intended to be used together and they work well and do not kill plants...

I kinda suspected buffers we involved in PH somehow when I was trying to PH some water to soak media in. It's SOOO easy to overshoot your intended PH when there's no nutrients in the water. By the same token I could run a gallon of plain tap water down to 4ph and then add it to a higher PPM nutrient solution and the PH of the nutrients barely flinches! However if I PH a gallon of nutrients at 200ppm and add it to a bucket of similar ppm nutrients it will predictably drop the PH

Anyway I really appreciate you taking the time to teach me a few things here. I'm planning to try out adding a buffer to my next refill + great white. Do a serious cleaning of my res and all tools again, run new air hoses and use the new pump and air stones.
In a pinch you can us baking soda in the meantime but don't reccomended it long term as there are much better options. 1 would start at about 1/2tsp per 5 gal ow water. Better to start to low. Then add nutrients and ph down to 5.5. Then check ph in an hr or 2 and adjust if needed. Check the ph drift over 24 hrs. 0.2 increase is a good place to be.

Since you have the ph up i would use that. I always buy mine in the pure form of potassium bicarbonate and used about 1/1-1 tsp per 5 gal to get a nice buffer. I would try 0.5 to 1 ml per gal to start? I'm a bit unsure but that sounds like a nice low place to start.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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638
Add the ph up first then nutrients then ph down... you will find you use more acid but this is part of making a stable ph.
 
Zoneshityee

Zoneshityee

214
28
Dont even wastenyour money to keep it lit on the ph up and down.....
If you want to raise ph use somthing like armor si, and ot will also help protect against pathogens as well..
If you want to lower, use humid or folic acidninstead.....

This way, you are giving your plants nutrients needed as well ass controlling ph 👍👍👍 cant believe no one else does this..
 
GreySeer

GreySeer

14
3
Dont even wastenyour money to keep it lit on the ph up and down.....
If you want to raise ph use somthing like armor si, and ot will also help protect against pathogens as well..
If you want to lower, use humid or folic acidninstead.....

This way, you are giving your plants nutrients needed as well ass controlling ph 👍👍👍 cant believe no one else does this..

I've done some research... and you're literally the only person I've seen so concerned about using PH up/down. Anywhere, in any thread I've read looking into sickly plants. Even looking specifically for evidence or discussion around p toxicity I'm finding nothing but suggestions that this is NOT my issue.

This even says plainly P isn't absorbed much by the plant unless the PH is between 6.5 and 7.5

.

This says P Toxicity is unlikely if you keep your PH between the usual hydro PH 5.5 - 6.5. I can say with absolute confidence the water has never gone above 6.5.


The wealth of knowledge out there seems to point to you being wrong about this and you're not providing any sources for your assertions. I'm doing essentially the opposite of what you suggested. I added PH up and then MUCH more PH down in this water batch to create a nice buffered solution so the PH doesn't swing around. I've read several articles discussing doing this exactly in commercial grows.

Looking at the previous pics I have, things started going poorly around the time I topped the plant and then found the algae and cleaned it. I have not changed my use of ph up/down in that time so I'm not sure why you think this is the issue. Maybe you can explain what you're seeing that makes you so sure it's p toxicity.

Last night I made up a water change with a ph up buffer like Aqua Man suggested. I used great white in the water and also made up an inoculation with distilled. I rinsed the roots with tap water throughly making sure to get any slime and dead root bits off. Then put it back in the bucket and rinsed the hydroton with the inoculation as well.

The whole tent smells of shrooms! Not a bad thing just thought it was funny. Guess there really is some fungi in that Great White!

Checking the roots after the rinse I do still have brown spots on the roots but after inspecting them closely it looks like old damage or discoloration rather than something growing on the roots themselves. They weren't slimy at all really. I can also see more new white root tips starting to poke out of the netpot and the existing brownish roots. The bucket had some brown crud stuck to the waterline, hoses and the tops of my air stones. The water had sort of an oily sheen on the top, I could tell it was being washed off the roots because the temporary pail I put the plant in had it on the water. But it was MUCH cleaner than when I cleaned it last week.

I'm going to continue the treatments for the next 4 days and see how it does.
 

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