STILL brown roots... sighhhh

[Legallyflying]

I am still batteling brown roots. Even with running HIGH amounts of EWC tea. I really don't know WTF is going on. At first I thought that soe of the roots were brown simply because there were lots of particles of EWC sticking to them. Well, 3 of the plants have bright white shinny roots. The others... not so much. The plants are groowing gang busters for sure (in a UC system) but there are starting to show deficiecies, and I believe that it is a function of stressed roots. looks like calium or mg. little brown spots and slightly faded leaves. the plants are probably 16" tall and even wider than that.

water temps are around 65. PPM around 500. Adding 3 gallons of tea once a week. or about every 5 days. Running around 55-60 gallons in the system.

My tea is ancient forest, myco soluable powder, molassis, and a squirt or two of sea green kelp extract. I am not getting tons of foam? The tea temps is around 70 or so..likely a little higher but not crazy. Plenty of air pumping into the system. I am at my witts end. In an attempt to nuke ALL the bacteria I just drained everything at added 12ml zone/ 5 gallon and 10 ml of h2o2/ gallon. Running really high water leveels...covring the first inch of the net pots.

Any thoughts?

 

[Capulator]

Calcium deficiency causes root dieback.....

 

[Capulator]

You do not need mycorrhizae in a UC system. too much tea as well. you only need 12 cups of tea in a 60 gallon set up bro.

have you looked in to physan? you can run this at VERY low strength to sterilize the whole system with plants in. Then start over with bennies. You should check ghettogros thread he battled rot in a DIY UC and won.

 

[MonsterRobot]

I had the same problems man... The zone made it way way worse!!! I don't know what the problem was but it wasn't lack of Ca in my system... they turned brown and then the outsides of the roots would just slide off if I gave them a tug and all that was left was the inside of the root...

 

[ZombieSlave]

IMHO that sounds like a massive amount 3 Gals? how much H20 is in your system right now?
What kind of water are you geting and what kind of filter system are you useing? my city has well water. 320ppm out the tap. I had to get an RO system that brang that down to zero.

also Zone seems to work correctly for any problem at all. I Have spoken to some people that said zone also has copper and a root exelerant in it. I toss 40ml of zone in my 75gal system about once a week. maybe less.
my temps at 1st fluctuated from 60-70, after i insulated temps stay flat 64. my roots are booming and are white almost trasnparent. I use canazyne sometimes RE and zone, not together but over a few days.

I would only use more zone more frequently until my roots got under control then cut back. if the problem keeps coming back. something keep reintroducing it back into your system.

 

[ttystikk]

I had to get my water temps down to 60-62 to finally win the war on snot. This brought up another issues for me, as well, which I'd like to share with other Farmers; my digital thermometers, those with a lil metal probe, show my water temps as being consistently 3-4 degrees lower than those cheap floating fishtank therms do. I have several of each type, and this is very consistent across brands. The probes are always in the same spot...

Anyway, I'm trusting the fishtank thermometer's readings since it shows the highest temps- and my goal is to get water temps below 62.

So here's where things get interesting in my RDWC; I run a 15' cooling coil in the head bucket of each system, and my 5 gallon buckets are currently NOT insulated- some don't even have lids. This leads to a daily temperature fluctuation of some 5-8 degrees F. They start in the 'morning' at about 60-62, then warm up over the day cycle, sometimes as high as 70. Overnight, the temp falls back to 62, although I'm not sure how quickly.

I'm thinking this relatively wide daily temperature swing is actually beneficial and here's why: when the temps get that cold, oxygenation rises and I believe it put s the brakes on anaerobic pathogens. When the temps warm up, it helps increase the plants' metabolism, so I don't experience slow growth due to low rootzone temps. This has left me with second thoughts about whether I want to insulate my buckets at all! What do you all think?

 

[ZombieSlave]

you are able to set a variance control on the waterchiller, mine is set for 65 but with a -3 variance so the water is 62.

you can probably set up that temp swing using a larger number variance if it lets you. but im not sure how easy it will be do unless you put your chiller on a timer to turn on and off. and im not sure how good that will be for it. I for one dont think it was benifishal, but I could be wrong. I feel Like i see better plants with less swing than more. but im a noob. this is all very new to me.

after i did my insulation I understand how key it truly is to have it set up right for the proper heat exchange. my chiller barley turns on now. before it was 24/7

 

[Legallyflying]

Three gallons is only 1 cup per gallon of Nute solution. That is the recommended dosage when you have problems. I may be a little high on the beni though.

So for those running such cold water temps...no issue with uptake? I thought below 65 would decrease mg uptake?

 

[St3ve]

Is it slimey and smelly brown? My roots always get a brown tint to them but are always healthy and growing.

 

[deacon1503]

I Have spoken to some people that said zone also has copper and a root exelerant in it.

the active ingredient is copper sulfate. In higher concetrations its used to clear pond vegetation on a commercial scale. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper(II)_sulfate#As_an_herbicide.2C_fungicide_and_pesticide

This brought up another issues for me, as well, which I'd like to share with other Farmers; my digital thermometers, those with a lil metal probe, show my water temps as being consistently 3-4 degrees lower than those cheap floating fishtank therms do. Anyway, I'm trusting the fish tank thermometer's readings since it shows the highest temps- and my goal is to get water temps below 62.

When the temps warm up, it helps increase the plants' metabolism, so I don't experience slow growth due to low rootzone temps. This has left me with second thoughts about whether I want to insulate my buckets at all! What do you all think?

My Hanna meter does the same thing. http://www.hannainst.com/usa/prods2.cfm?id=005003&ProdCode=HI 981504 My Bluelab Gaurdian is always right on.

I have always run temps in the low 60's and i dont think i would consider what ive experienced as slow growth.

So for those running such cold water temps...no issue with uptake? I thought below 65 would decrease mg uptake?

no issues in my experience.

 

[ZombieSlave]

My Bluelab Gaurdian win

 

[ttystikk]

I too have other suspects for my slow growth issues than water temps in the 60s. Still, it does make me wonder if daily water temp. fluctuations play a role in plant metabolism in some way?

 

[ttystikk]

My Bluelab Gaurdian win

I have more than one system, and I don't want to plunk down what it would take to have one for each. What's a good alternative? All I really need to know is which of the thermometers I already have is accurate, and then I can just use that for a baseline!

 

[ZombieSlave]

there is no substitue if you run a UC i think its a must have tool. without it its a huge crap shoot. you need to take a reading under the Air stone in the epic. above will give you a miss reading.

the system is hand sized after all..... move it....

 

[woodsmaneh]

The only time I have white roots is in the clone blubber, once I put them in the uc or jumbo they all start to turn light sandy brown and darken up as they get older. I will be taking down some plants in the next 2 days and will post some pics of my roots. Now the guys who use H2o2 have white roots because it's bleach and it keeps the roots white, it eats the dead stuff on the roots and will turn your hair blond in a flash LOL. Maybe stop the Bennie's and change the res out and hit them with H2o2, just a thought...

 

[woodsmaneh]

get a hand hel

I have more than one system, and I don't want to plunk down what it would take to have one for each. What's a good alternative? All I really need to know is which of the thermometers I already have is accurate, and then I can just use that for a baseline!

get a hand held tri-meter, I had a Hana for years still have it but I buy Nutri-dip Tri-Meter for all my res. I can tell at a glance if anything is wrong, worth the peace of mind and catching things fast before they can do harm.

 

[ttystikk]

get a hand held tri-meter, I had a Hana for years still have it but I buy Nutri-dip Tri-Meter for all my res. I can tell at a glance if anything is wrong, worth the peace of mind and catching things fast before they can do harm.

I got out of the habit of all-in-one gear after my printer/scanner/fax/copier broke back in the day and screwed me. I have a Hanna Checker, it cost me like $45 and the replaceable probes cost $20. I have a Bluelab ppm Truncheon and several digital thermometers and fishtank floaters keeping tabs on temps. Simple, cheap, and robust- and they get a workout around here, lol.

All I need to know is which thermometer is off by how much and then I can work out the rest. I just think it's funny that 5 different fishtank floaters from two different manufacturers agree with one another, and three digital thermometers, again all different brands agree with each other- and yet the two types are off between them by 3 1/2 degrees!

If it was half a degree I wouldn't care, but 3 degrees off on your water temp can easily be the difference between root rot and not. Just to tie this all back into the thread subject, lol

 

[woodsmaneh]

I put my money on the meters being wrong. I use to buy the cheep PH meters from Milwaukee but they never would read the same as my expensive meter, they would be off by .8 or so. Called the company and they gave me the run around. I kept calling till I got through to one of there designers and he told me the cheap ones could be out by as much as 1.0, that's why so cheep.

 

[Capulator]

The only time I have white roots is in the clone blubber, once I put them in the uc or jumbo they all start to turn light sandy brown and darken up as they get older. I will be taking down some plants in the next 2 days and will post some pics of my roots. Now the guys who use H2o2 have white roots because it's bleach and it keeps the roots white, it eats the dead stuff on the roots and will turn your hair blond in a flash LOL. Maybe stop the Bennie's and change the res out and hit them with H2o2, just a thought...

Just a quick correction and no offense at all bro...but h2o2 is not bleach.

roots can turn tan mid way to later in flower due to the energy they are spending on flower production as opposed to root growth. brown slime or snot algae is not tan roots.

Like I said, if ghettogro still has his thread up here, he beat the rot in his DIY UC and ended up crushing it on his last run. I would consult that thread if I were having problems.

 

[Legallyflying]

I couldn't find that thread. Is it in the UC forum?