Are reservoirs supposed to stink kinda funky after a day or two?

Red1966 said:

A little late, but you can convert a cheap regular timer to a 1 minute on-5 minute off timer. Search for "growcolt" on youtube. Shows exactly how to do it. He used to sell them on Ebay, maybe still does. I use them and they work fine. I have a 6 tube 4 ft T5. It puts out a pretty fair amount of heat. It's 254 watts.

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Thanks for that. I am looking to get a 4 tube, 96W.

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Alien-T5-Fluorescent-2ft-4-Lamp-Designer-Light-propagation-not-lightwave-/201094788244?pt=UK_Baby_Baby_Feeding_Bottle_Warmers_Coolers_LE&hash=item2ed22ef494

burgertime2010 said:

Stagnation, get an airstone.

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Does that mean that the whole thing is caused by stagnating water? Thanks.

No, some nutes smell funky......but bacteria is always funky. An airstone just oxygenates and that slows down anaerobic bacteria.

If you are using Organic Nutes that could be the problem. Like was said before. Get a bubble stone in there. It might help.

you need to use beneficial microbes to fight off pathogens and slime blooms... I dose aquashield once a week in dechlorinated tap water. Also, make sure your white lid is light proof... if you pass your hand between the lid and your 600w lamp, you shouldn't be able to see a shadow of your hand through the plastic at all.

my water temp is pretty much always over 75... nothing I can do really, but the res is fine with aquashield. definitely need to run bennies in warm water. can you take a pic of the roots?

Hydroburn said:

you need to use beneficial microbes to fight off pathogens and slime blooms... I dose aquashield once a week in dechlorinated tap water. Also, make sure your white lid is light proof... if you pass your hand between the lid and your 600w lamp, you shouldn't be able to see a shadow of your hand through the plastic at all.

my water temp is pretty much always over 75... nothing I can do really, but the res is fine with aquashield. definitely need to run bennies in warm water. can you take a pic of the roots?

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My thoughts were that in a root zone, coco for instance, you are building a colony that sustains in that environment with the presence of carbohydrates. Like brewing.

depends on setup... bennies don't really thrive well suspended in water like you get with mediumless hydro... it's more like you are starving the res of all food sources by keeping the res free of debris and using only salt/mineral based nutes, so pathogens have nothing to live on... plus the bennies out compete them. but the bennies starve too, so you dose the res once a week to keep replacing them.

I really don't know much about bennies, but you can grow colonies in soil or soiless mediums and some people put koi mats or lava rock in hydro res for the bennies to colonize... some fungi will colonize mature roots apparently. But I just use them to keep the water free of slime and probably helps the roots uptake nutes too.

Hydroburn said:

can you take a pic of the roots?

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They are but a week old. Nice and white, still.

Right:

Just washed the res (everything, aparatus, etc..) in the bath tub with soapy water. Then I ran bleach water through it, and then normal water. I was worried about the plants (to dry out) while it was taking so long, so I sprayed them with highly diluted bleach on the roots, as was recommended to me in this thread; so hopefully they'll be fine.

Changed all the collars, washed the netpots, all the probes, etc. So hopefully, please god it'll work.


P.S. Had a better look at the roots in the process, and one of them is getting kinda brown.

BTW, do you keep your nutes and PHs Up and Down in the room, or in the fridge?

Not in the grown room (too warm) but not in the fridge either.

I used bleach occasionally before I got my chiller (after hot days when frozen bottles weren't enough and) during the weekly refresh. Just a cap in water flushing through the system, then refresh again with only water, they can easily take it.

Nutrient Solution Microbiology

All bodies of water possess a dynamic balance of microbiological activity. In hydroponics, we strive to keep the nutrient solution as sterile as possible [chiller...], but nonetheless, nutrient solution is by its very nature the perfect place for things to grow. Some microbes require dissolved oxygen to live (aerobic), and others do not (anaerobic). As a general rule of thumb, aerobic bacteria are "good," and anaerobic are "bad." Put simply, the by- products of anaerobic respiration are acids that wreak havoc with chemical and biological balances within the nutrient solution, which in turn harms the root system. Warm, stagnant water holds little dissolved oxygen, making it an ideal breeding ground for anaerobic bacteria, many of which (Fusarium, Pythium) cause crop failure as they take up home in the fragile root system and proliferate. The foul smells associated with warm stagnant water (sewers, swamps) is caused by these "bad" bacteria. Methane gas (swamp gas) is a highly flammable "natural" gas that is also a by- product of anaerobic bacteria. Can you see how, left unchecked, these bacteria can ruin a crop? Rampant pH swings, swampy smells, root rot and ultimately crop failure are the tell tale signs of a poorly balanced biology within your system.

Source: How-to Hydroponics (google how-to hydroponics fourth edition, download the pdf, read read read)

Sativied said:

Not in the grown room (too warm) but not in the fridge either.

I used bleach occasionally before I got my chiller (after hot days when frozen bottles weren't enough and) during the weekly refresh. Just a cap in water flushing through the system, then refresh again with only water, they can easily take it.

Nutrient Solution Microbiology

All bodies of water possess a dynamic balance of microbiological activity. In hydroponics, we strive to keep the nutrient solution as sterile as possible [chiller...], but nonetheless, nutrient solution is by its very nature the perfect place for things to grow. Some microbes require dissolved oxygen to live (aerobic), and others do not (anaerobic). As a general rule of thumb, aerobic bacteria are "good," and anaerobic are "bad." Put simply, the by- products of anaerobic respiration are acids that wreak havoc with chemical and biological balances within the nutrient solution, which in turn harms the root system. Warm, stagnant water holds little dissolved oxygen, making it an ideal breeding ground for anaerobic bacteria, many of which (Fusarium, Pythium) cause crop failure as they take up home in the fragile root system and proliferate. The foul smells associated with warm stagnant water (sewers, swamps) is caused by these "bad" bacteria. Methane gas (swamp gas) is a highly flammable "natural" gas that is also a by- product of anaerobic bacteria. Can you see how, left unchecked, these bacteria can ruin a crop? Rampant pH swings, swampy smells, root rot and ultimately crop failure are the tell tale signs of a poorly balanced biology within your system.

Source: How-to Hydroponics (google how-to hydroponics fourth edition, download the pdf, read read read)

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Excellent post!

I wonder if Dutch Pro -- Keep It Clean is something like the procducts mentioned in the thread.

A little update:

After yesterdays change and clean up the res is still immaculate. No stink. I am keeping the temps lower. Got myself an airstone today also.

BTW, the pH has been VERY stable since yesterday, as opposed a few days back when it went up a whole point over night because of (most likely) the bacteria. But I don't wanna speak to soon :\.

Btw, I am running 3 strains there: White Widow Max, White Rhino, and Northern Lights. N.L. grow like Bolt Hussein, totally shaming the other two strains. And W.W.M was my favourite horse lol



P.S. The airstone, am I supposed to be running it 24/7, or timed? Won't it warm up my water a little since it's drawing air from the room?

Keep the air running all the time!

UPDATE:

Everything was perfect and smooth till today. The pH stayed bang on 5.8 til late last night. Today it went up to 6.0, which is fine. I adjusted it to 5.5 only some hours ago. Had a look now and it has skyrocketed up to 6.5!

There is no smell in the res whatsoever, though. The water looks tiny bit cloudy when I look at the plumbing on the bottom. What's going on?

My temps are pretty good below 22, most of the time I keep em 18 ish. But it's a liitle hard with the 600w MH, my T5 is on the way btw.

I recently found that adding humic acid to my res really helped keep it clean. It's the only producted I added and it made a big difference. I throw 1/2 gal ice bottles in my res evey day or two to keep temps down. Before the addition of humic acid, the bottles would come out with a 'nutrient film' on them, nothing bad, I'm just using floranova and its a little thick/slimey. After I started using the diamond nectar(GH's humic acid product) at 3/4 strength my resevior is noticably cleaner and my ice bottles come out completely clean! I'm going to keep using it just for that benefit. I also notice less salt build up on my tables and hoses.

UPDATE ADD-ON:

It's official. Just checked the res now again and it's starting to stink again, not as much as before though. So a rapid increase in pH (0.70–1 point in several hours) is a clear sign/precursor to Algae, or whatever the fuck these cunts are lol.

My res temps do climb up to 77 at times, I admit, but mostly I keep 'em at 66. Changing a gallon of frozen bottles twice a day. I have an airstone there now, so I don't get it :\. My t5 lights are on the way so in a few days my temps will be much lower.

What should I do? Do I have to go through the super-duper cleansing again?

Beneficial Microbes really work I learned this the expensive way. I have done the super-duper cleansing only to get the stink right back. Now I inoculate from the beginning. I start my clones and seeds with azospirillum brasilense. This starts them off with an innoculant. add a strong mycorrhizae to your res. If you have emitters that are easily clogged make sure the product you choose is in a liquid form.

I use nonorganic nutes and 5ml bleach to 50l water. I use it twice a week. When is hot, my water is 24.5 'C, and nothing.