just completed my first hydro grow with hydroton, with dank results of course. Simple question, how the hell do you clean this shit? i hear that you can clean and reuse hydroton, but the rootmass is holding it together quite well. It seems almost impossible to get all of the root matter off the hydroton unless you go rock by rock, in which case its not worth doing. Will some dead roots in the hydroton affect the next grow? what is its starlized with H202?
Thanks in advance

I reuse my hydroton and all I do is the following:

1. Remove the rootmass (with the hydroton) from the pot(s) and shake vigorously over an open garbage bag until most of the hydroton has fallen off. You may have a 20 or 30 balls left in the rootmass, just throw them out, not worth the trouble.
2. If you haven't already got a good spaghetti strainer, get one. Now run the water in the bath tub on full (both hot and cold), fill up the strainer about 2/3 the way up with some of the hydroton in your garbage bag.
3. Take the strainer filled with hydroton and put it under the flowing water and shake and roll the hydroton around for about a minute. You should see a bunch of root pieces falling through the strainer.

It's a pain in the ass, and it's laborious but it gets the job done. I don't even bother to sterilize and I haven't had any problems (and it saves me a shit load of time and energy), unless you have insect or pathogen problems. I just put the wet hydroton right back into pots and I'm done with it. If you wanted to, you could put the wet hydroton in the oven for an hour or so to dry them out for storage or sterilization if needed.