Hello,

I read both of the AG guides and couldn't seem to find anything about my current situation. I am using General Hydroponics pH up/down. Current pH is at 5.7-5.9. Right now I am using no nutrients and the plants are about 6 days old. Since I've turned the pump off and turned the airstones on (2 6" ceramic) it started to foam and it has a strange odor. The light schedule I am on is 20/4. I am also using 4 cfl's + the AG hood. I hope I gave enough info on my setup.

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Does it smell kind of like plastic? It might just be the air from the pump. I'm not really sure on this one. Maybe change your res so we can narrow it down a bit farther.

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I had some res problems when i first started up. First it started to foam, then an orange/brownish slime appeared in my res. I picked up some 35% H2O2 and added some to my water during res change (2ml H2O2 for 4L res) and I never had a problem after that. Hope this helps.

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Sounds like a good idea. Prevention is the best route.

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Thanks for the help! I changed my res with distilled water. I was using brita filtered water that sat for 24 hours. Maybe this was the problem? We'll see... fresh out of the gallon the distilled water pH was 5.6- BeavTek did you order your h2o2 online?

H202 is Hydrogen Peroxide. It's less than a dollar for a decent size bottle at any department store.

Have you ever actually cleaned (e.g. scrubbed) the res before? Maybe there was buildup of some sort in there when you got it.

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I know it's just he mentioned 35% (food grade) and I'm not sure where to buy that. Would regular 3% work? If so how much would I add? I scrubbed it and also bleached it going off of the manual on the aerogarden website. I didn't have a choice but to clean it heavily because the person I bought it from off ebay sent it to me absolutely filthy.

I used the 3% pretty effectively. Just a couple cap fulls in your res will be sufficient.

I still don't know about the foam. Had you used the airstones before?

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Nope. I had the pump on without the airstones for the first few days until the roots hit the water. Once they hit the water I changed the res and added the airstones.

Here's a little more information about H2O2 and plants...(if you want the source, I got it, lol)

H2O2

If any substance is interesting, it's hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide should really be called hydrogen dioxide. Its chemical formula is H2O2. It contains one more atom of oxygen that does water (H20). By now everyone's aware of the ozone layer that surrounds the earth. Ozone consists of three atoms of oxygen (03). This protective layer of ozone is created when ultraviolet light from the sun splits an atmospheric oxygen molecule (02) into two single, unstable oxygen atoms. These single molecules combine with others to form ozone (03). Ozone isn't very stable. In fact, it will quickly give up that extra atom of oxygen to falling rainwater to form hydrogen peroxide (H202). (Bear with me: all this chemistry mumbo jumbo I'm going through actually will help you understand the importance of hydrogen peroxide.)

H2O2 Helps Plants
It is this hydrogen peroxide in rainwater that makes it so much more effective than tap water when given to plants. With the increased levels of atmospheric pollution, however, greater amounts of H202 react with air-borne toxins and never reach the ground. To compensate for this, many farmers have been increasing crop yields by spraying them with diluted hydrogen peroxide (5 to 16 ounces of 35% mixed with 20 gallons of water per acre). You can achieve the same beneficial effect with your house plants by adding 1 ounce of 3% hydrogen peroxide (or 16 drops of 35% solution) to every quart of water you give your plants. (It can also be made into an excellent safe insecticide. Simply spray your plants with 8 ounces of 3% peroxide mixed with 8 ounces of white sugar and one gallon of water.)

About the airstones, you may want to take them out and rinse them down and let them soak in some tap water for a few hours or so to make sure that wasn't where the foam was coming from.

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