Root rot prevention with chlorine, hypochlorite, monochloramine...

poindexterous

Active Member
Sounds like the Great White stuff is worth a shot.

Back to the chem theme though, anyone ever try Exel LG systemic fungicide? Supposed to stop both root rot and bud rot by adding to the rez, and be fairly natural and harmless.....?

What happened to "fatman" ? Not around anymore?
 

poindexterous

Active Member
I prevent root rot the old fashioned way by keeping my reservoir at 65deg. Pythium cannot live at that temp.
My rez stays pretty cool, mid 60's, yet still get the root rot sometimes, I'm sure my containers are a bit warmer than the rez though since they're closer to the lights. My system is top feed recirculating, medium is perlite. It'd be tough to keep the roots so cool with top feed since the nutes aren't always flowing, alas. Aero would make it more plausible.
 

choempi

Well-Known Member
Sounds like the Great White stuff is worth a shot.

Back to the chem theme though, anyone ever try Exel LG systemic fungicide? Supposed to stop both root rot and bud rot by adding to the rez, and be fairly natural and harmless.....?

What happened to "fatman" ? Not around anymore?
Fatman got bounced, he was a bit of a dick, but knew hydro.
 

Heisenberg

Well-Known Member
I prevent root rot the old fashioned way by keeping my reservoir at 65deg. Pythium cannot live at that temp.
Findings from Cornell U studies
In a close examination of Pythium-infected plants submitted to plant disease clinics during recent years, we have found that of the over 120 known species of Pythium, three are consistently causing crop losses: Pythium aphanidermatum, P. irregulare and P. ultimum.

Pythium ultimum favors cool greenhouse temperatures: the minimum for growth is 41° F, maximum 95° F and optimum 77-86° F. When other organisms are inhibited by cool temperature, P. ultimum can prosper.

P. aphanidermatum has a higher minimum temperature (50° F) than P. ultimum and a very high optimum temperature at 95-104° F.

P. irregulare, is somewhat intermediate between the other two in terms of its temperature preferences, but it shares with P. ultimum an inability to grow at high temperatures. It can grow at 34° F but has a maximum of 95° F and an optimum of 86° F.

--------

Pythium is a little whimpy bug that's easy to fight and prevent. Just improving res conditions alone often goes a long way. Common products such as sm-90, Zone, physan 20 ect kill it easily. It is a joke compared to another water mold 'brown slime algae' as it's known in the hydro community. Being a cyanobacteria, it's able to completely shrug off zone and sm-90. It doesn't care about cold water and is able to make it's food by chemical conversion if light is not available. Physan 20 and bleach both kill it, but do not keep it from coming back without constantly running them in the water.

Brown slime algae is a problem that appears to be inherent to DWC. Ebb and Flow systems prevent this slime by design, as the roots sit in air most of the time.

In any case, beneficial microbes will take care of it all. They can also be sprayed on foliage to treat PM and to stimulate the stomata.
 

choempi

Well-Known Member
Findings from Cornell U studies
In a close examination of Pythium-infected plants submitted to plant disease clinics during recent years, we have found that of the over 120 known species of Pythium, three are consistently causing crop losses: Pythium aphanidermatum, P. irregulare and P. ultimum.

Pythium ultimum favors cool greenhouse temperatures: the minimum for growth is 41° F, maximum 95° F and optimum 77-86° F. When other organisms are inhibited by cool temperature, P. ultimum can prosper.

P. aphanidermatum has a higher minimum temperature (50° F) than P. ultimum and a very high optimum temperature at 95-104° F.

P. irregulare, is somewhat intermediate between the other two in terms of its temperature preferences, but it shares with P. ultimum an inability to grow at high temperatures. It can grow at 34° F but has a maximum of 95° F and an optimum of 86° F.

--------

Pythium is a little whimpy bug that's easy to fight and prevent. Just improving res conditions alone often goes a long way. Common products such as sm-90, Zone, physan 20 ect kill it easily. It is a joke compared to another water mold 'brown slime algae' as it's known in the hydro community. Being a cyanobacteria, it's able to completely shrug off zone and sm-90. It doesn't care about cold water and is able to make it's food by chemical conversion if light is not available. Physan 20 and bleach both kill it, but do not keep it from coming back without constantly running them in the water.

Brown slime algae is a problem that appears to be inherent to DWC. Ebb and Flow systems prevent this slime by design, as the roots sit in air most of the time.

In any case, beneficial microbes will take care of it all.
Fucking Heisenberg getting all down with it. Good info.:leaf:

Bleach ain't so hard to add every 3 or 4 days...;-)

Just sayin':leaf::leaf::leaf:
 

supaleeb

Active Member
1/2ml of Physan 20 per 10gal + 15ml of H2O2 (29%) per 5gal of nutrient for the most sterile reservoir disease prevention.

Been using it since I had problems with brown algae a few months ago, or the Hydro Herpes, as they call it over at ICMag..

Haven't seen any sign of root rot or brown algae since I sterilized everything and began running physan/h2o2 preventatively.

Cloner runs at exactly 70F, other units run at 65F. Anything above 70F can exacerbate the problem.
 

poindexterous

Active Member
1/2ml of Physan 20 per 10gal + 15ml of H2O2 (29%) per 5gal of nutrient for the most sterile reservoir disease prevention.

Been using it since I had problems with brown algae a few months ago, or the Hydro Herpes, as they call it over at ICMag..

Haven't seen any sign of root rot or brown algae since I sterilized everything and began running physan/h2o2 preventatively.

Cloner runs at exactly 70F, other units run at 65F. Anything above 70F can exacerbate the problem.
So you can add Physan 20 directly to the rez? I had thought it was just for "hard surfaces" as they say. Is 1/2ml per 10 gal considered strong or mild, or is there a standard range people use?
 
Hey friend. Question for you regarding the DM "Gold?" line of nutes. Do you follow their feeding schedule or do you water in down a bit (pun intended)? Just wondering because I was gonna give them a go and a cat suggested I half the company's recommended dose.

Thanks.
 
choempi-
question for ya...

i run an aeroflo2 system so my rez addbacks are significant (3-5 gallons RO water a day) Do you think at this add back rate that your 6-8 drops of clorox per gallon would still be the recommended dosage?

thanks.
 

poindexterous

Active Member
Was just trying to find the ingredients of Dutch Master Zone. Closest thing I could find is on their data sheet: "Slight blue green colored liquid with a noticeable chlorine odor."

Sounds like DMZ is a chlorine or chloramine product like Pythoff ? Anyone know?
 

lopezri

Well-Known Member
Have you considered a solid chlorine? I'm not an expert on any of this but I do remember a pool guy once telling me that the reason I couldn"t keep the ph balanced in my pool was because the previous owner was using liquid chlorine instead of solid time released tablets. If I recall correctly, the guy did say something about total chlorine and parts per million. Not sure exactly what he was talking about but when I switched to solid tablets it fixed the problem.
 

poindexterous

Active Member
Have you considered a solid chlorine? I'm not an expert on any of this but I do remember a pool guy once telling me that the reason I couldn"t keep the ph balanced in my pool was because the previous owner was using liquid chlorine instead of solid time released tablets. If I recall correctly, the guy did say something about total chlorine and parts per million. Not sure exactly what he was talking about but when I switched to solid tablets it fixed the problem.
Yes, I've mainly experimented granular calcium hypochlorite pool shock, which actually goes a lot farther than liquid bleach. I think one gram of pool shock yielded the same chlorine as 12ml of standard 6% bleach. With both though the "free/available" chlorine would be gone in just hours in a hydro system, while the "total" chlorine would stay around, thus to maintain any level of free chlorine would take regular additions of hypochlorite. So to keep the free chlorine steady it caused the total chlorine to keep rising, which concerned me, and is my main hesitation with using chlorine.
 

supaleeb

Active Member
So you can add Physan 20 directly to the rez? I had thought it was just for "hard surfaces" as they say. Is 1/2ml per 10 gal considered strong or mild, or is there a standard range people use?
Ohhh yes. You can definitely add it to the res. 1/2ml per 10gal is fairly mild. Physan 20 can be used in stronger concentrations if you need to sterilize your system or contain a bad algae problem.
 

choempi

Well-Known Member
choempi-
question for ya...

i run an aeroflo2 system so my rez addbacks are significant (3-5 gallons RO water a day) Do you think at this add back rate that your 6-8 drops of clorox per gallon would still be the recommended dosage?

thanks.
Yup, by the gallon add usual dose and if you have a significant number of gallons of the res after 4 days, then add back that number of gallons.

Probably not explained well, it is not a big deal at all.
 

pro grow

Active Member
Was just trying to find the ingredients of Dutch Master Zone. Closest thing I could find is on their data sheet: "Slight blue green colored liquid with a noticeable chlorine odor."

Sounds like DMZ is a chlorine or chloramine product like Pythoff ? Anyone know?
So am I to understand your looking for a chemical to use in hydro (aeroponics?) that only kills the mitocondria responsible for root death and not the kind responsible for root building? I dont think anything is that good. You could try suplementation of Mycorrizal fungi to improve root infostructer.
 
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