bennies 'v' sterile 'v' nothing

gand3r

gand3r

Active Member
Ok success...............

After serval failed attemps, redisgnes of system and using tea and sterilizing agents. I found the culprit..

The rockwall was staying too wet, the clones were slowly growing roots but they were rotting, thats why they left the rockwall wet. I had the rockwall cubes too low in the hydroten whilst water level too high "about an inch or two above bottom of netpot".

I moved the cube up to the top quarter of the netpot, kept water level bottom to half inch about netpot and top fed enuf to keep the stones and rockwall dam. I also started to use the EWC tea.

Finally, pristine white roots, and lots of them from all out of every side of the netpot. a year of failure :D
 
AlphaPhase

AlphaPhase

Well-Known Member
AlphaPhase said:
Good tip twerkle, I had that problem too. Getting the water level right is crucial. The roots will dry out and die in the hydroton if not getting enough water (causing dead roots to rot) and the plug can be too wet causing rot as well. Always start the water level 1/2" above the hydroton until roots start growing out. Also, plant the plug 3/4 of the way up the net pot to avoid over watering it. Seems to have helped me doing it this way.
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@gand3r I tried to tell ya this 3 weeks ago ;)
 
M

mainliner

Well-Known Member
lol me too :)

your water was too high , the bubbles popping on the surface of the water will be enough to wet the roots :)

1 year old problem solved !!! Good for you mister :)
 
gand3r

gand3r

Active Member
Cheers guys,

I had focused so much on the system proprieties, the size of pumps, light proofing and chillers that i had not payed attention on the basics. I believe that one of the the cases of rot was from high temps, a chiller solved that.

Also i didnt mention, i never had a humidifier so what was happening also was that the cubes were drying out too much on one of my runs. As the lights at low humidity was causing the rockwall to dry too fast, so i was raising the water level but in doing so was drowning them.

Adding a humidifier and keeping humidity at 70%, along with lowing water level solved the issue.

Thanks for the advice in this thread, solved me a great deal of headache and confusion.
 
legallyflying

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Just popped in and was reading. Ummmm fuck hydroton. Fuck it all to hell. Those little bastards get everywhere and then you step on them and they hurt like a mother fucker.

Chunky perlite for the win.
 
hydroMD

hydroMD

Well-Known Member
StinkBud said:
Interesting topic and something I'm exploring now. It's been a long time but I remember my mentor telling me not to put anything in the res like bleach or H2O2 because it will kill all the natural bacteria. At the same time he never added any bennies either.

Just so we are on the right track here what is the goal of using bennies? Does it increase your harvest amount? Will it keep the funk from growing in your res? Will it make your buds better, bigger, more flavor? What's the whole point. I'm thinking the real benefit of running bennies in hydro is that it will help keep the bad bacteria in check.

When I think of bennies I naturally tend to think of soil. With soil, many of the nutrients the plants need are in the soil but in a form unavailable to the plant. Rock Phosphate is a perfect example. It's a fucking rock! The bacteria help break down the nutrients for the plant and in return the plant feeds the bacteria in what's referred to as a symbiotic relationship. So when growers use bennies in soil it's to help increase nutrient uptake. Of course there are other benefits (duh) but let's keep this shorter than a book.

With hydro we have the pleasure of using nutrients already in a form available to the plant. All the plant has to do is suck'em up. We can give them synthetic nutes or a tea-like organic based nutes. It's all the same to the plant. Do we really need bennies? I've been growing the kill for so many years I'm thinking no but maybe I'm missing something. I was just looking at some Hydroguard...Should I drop the coin?
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Added bacteria compete with back bacteria which doesnt allow it the necessities it needs to fully colonize.

Bacteria are beneficial in hydro. Fungus is as well if your rolling organic. Synthetic ferts will void most benefits
 
hydroMD

hydroMD

Well-Known Member
Tonborderingt: 11429526 said:
I use hydroguard never had any problems with roots at temps 75 -78 is this because of hydroguard or just keeping my plants happy with correct temps and balanced nutes . Dunno I mean everyone said you needed a watt of air per gallon and tha isn't ture at all scents I grew two 6 foot tall plants in 15 gallon totes sharing a 7 watt air pump . I have started to tone out the noise and just go with the flow . G/l .
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Its called boardering disaster ;)

Your temps are perfect for pathogens as well as the temp of your water not allowing the oxygen to hold optimal aeration.

If you think your girls are happy now, keep your reservoir at a constant 68F and I promise you'll see a he'll of a difference
 
Darth Vapour

Darth Vapour

Well-Known Member
Wow got lots of growers on both sides of the fence ;) from looking at most of the forums people tend to have issues with living bac in the res ,, from what i can gather ..
This is why i believe in closed loop in reality is the only way to go in DWC sterile environment period .
I am in process of building 34 site under current set up with 528 active gallon closed loop fully automatic dosers everything, including chlorine monitored with also the Aqua UV classic 25 watts
I guess rule of thumb is 30 watts of UV per 1000 gallons sterilization so i really only needed 15 watts but thought better be above then not enough.
Anyways its a Greenhouse grow 25,000 watts , just waiting on modules that are held up at customs presently might post a journal on here yet unsure .. Enjoy

..
 

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stinkyjoe

Well-Known Member
Darth Vapour said:
Wow got lots of growers on both sides of the fence ;) from looking at most of the forums people tend to have issues with living bac in the res ,, from what i can gather ..
This is why i believe in closed loop in reality is the only way to go in DWC sterile environment period .
I am in process of building 34 site under current set up with 528 active gallon closed loop fully automatic dosers everything, including chlorine monitored with also the Aqua UV classic 25 watts
I guess rule of thumb is 30 watts of UV per 1000 gallons sterilization so i really only needed 15 watts but thought better be above then not enough.
Anyways its a Greenhouse grow 25,000 watts , just waiting on modules that are held up at customs presently might post a journal on here yet unsure .. Enjoy

..
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q ... Why have you got uv lights aswell as chlorine?

i thought the uv just kills the surface bacteria which the chlorine has already killed ??

why both ?
 
S

stinkyjoe

Well-Known Member
edit: hydroponics was designed to be sterile , the inventor wanted this, Dutch masters think people are mad to use bennies !!!

crazy but true:)
 
gand3r

gand3r

Active Member
AlphaPhase said:
Cheers gand3r, sending good vibes to a smooth sailing grow for ya
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Hey man,

All was going well after i lowered the water level,

then i did a res change and killed the plants, i was leaving the water in the water butt for too long and it was going stagnant causing slime as soon as i added it into the system.

Im trying again soon, only using fresh RO water and will see how it goes. here goes atempt at DWC (1million) with fingers crossed i dont get pythium again.
 
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