DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

Experiment:...

I took clones from mothers that sadly to say didn't make it even with the addition of the tea. Using Rhizhotonic as Heisenberg instructed and adding tea at the first signs of white roots I kept the 6 best clones with the best root structures and placed them in 4" rockwool cubes that I let soak and condition in a batch of tea. The rockwool blocks were set in to soak at the 24 hour mark of the brewing cycle in an attempt to allow the new bennys a place to colonize. The blocks were removed from the brewing reservoir and the left over tea was discarded.

The clones were then placed in the blocks and then placed in a 6 space N.F.T. trough scrubbed with Comit cleanser and physan 20 and rinsed with hot water. A second batch of tea was made at the same time as the one used for soaking the rockwool blocks. This tea (8-10 cups) was added to a 20 gallon reservoir filled with 16 gallons of RO water and 3 air stones were added and allowed to bubble for 5 hours. The NFT feed pump was then started and allowed to recirculate for 1/2 hour. 35ml of house and garden "A" and "B" were added very slowly giving a EC of .980 and a Ph in the low 4's with a reservoir water temp of 67 degrees. The Low Ph was not adjusted and is only a temporary thing when the food is added to RO water and will climb to 5.5 within 6 hours from my past experiences . Lighting is a sun system 8 lamp "sunblaze" florescent fixture loaded with 4 red and 4 blue bulbs

The clones are showing deep red stemming in a couple and red stemming only in sections of the stem in the others. 2 more cups of tea will be added tonight to replenish and I will post EC, Ph and water temps tomorrow. If the water temps are still in the upper 60's than I will add in a fish tank heater set to 74. The idea of this experiment is to find out if this bug that were fighting is systemic within the plant and if it gets passed on to new clones or does the new clones have the ability to rid itself of the bug

That's what happened to me zz top only now look at my roots some brown but it's nutes stain come right off I constantly inoculate net pot with turkey baster 7 days ago my roots were mostly dead

Ok what the hell is going on? Here is what i just did.

I purchased a 1500 gal tank set outside my location. I had municiple water delivered. I filled both of my 12 site undercurrent system with the outside water. I mixed nutrients to 210 ppms DM nutes and phd the water to 6.1. No plants in either system, just water and nutes.

I ran the system like this for the last 4 days. The ph has stayed stable and the the water has stayed clear. Until today, the 4th day. Today I checked both systems water and ph. The water now has a slight oily sheen to the surface and the water is slightly cloudy. The ph has also droped from 6.1 to 6.0.

I assume this is the start of the slime? And or problems? How is this possible?

Please help! Has anyone else had the slime and then brought in outside city water with no luck? Am I screwed? Uggggggg.

Okay well my plant has had the tea for a little over a day now and the pH rising problem is back.... The pH went from 5.2 to 7.0 over night... just put it back to 5.6 and added a couple cups of tea..

The roots are covered in a dark slime which i assume is the 'afterslime'........ I am going to stay the course and hope for the best... Does anyone have any insight into this crazy situation? Is all of this normal? I figured the pH would have stabilizied after the treatment but it certainly is not (5.2 to 7.0 in 24hours)

I do not see any new roots growing yet either. It has been just over 24 hours of having tea in the res. Starting to get anxious...

Have you tried cleaning with h202 first? Then run your water. Then your tea?

sprechenz said:

Ok what the hell is going on? Here is what i just did.

I purchased a 1500 gal tank set outside my location. I had municiple water delivered. I filled both of my 12 site undercurrent system with the outside water. I mixed nutrients to 210 ppms DM nutes and phd the water to 6.1. No plants in either system, just water and nutes.

I ran the system like this for the last 4 days. The ph has stayed stable and the the water has stayed clear. Until today, the 4th day. Today I checked both systems water and ph. The water now has a slight oily sheen to the surface and the water is slightly cloudy. The ph has also droped from 6.1 to 6.0.

I assume this is the start of the slime? And or problems? How is this possible?

Please help! Has anyone else had the slime and then brought in outside city water with no luck? Am I screwed? Uggggggg.

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what nutes are you using ?

Yeah, check your bottles of nutes,this can be a possible source.. old dirty bottles ..this happened to me, kept reintroducing slime after I cleaned via 1 spoilt bottle.. now I just add my aquarium bacteria an hour before introducing my new nutes... all clear with tent temps hitting 37 mostly..

Organic nutes will do it.

It was a bottle from the cyco range.

It's in all water just needs correct condition to bloom to warm water is a biggie I dought it has anything to do with nutes but I'll wait for heisenberg to chime in I'm sure early in this post he said its in all water world wide organic nutes don't cause slime it feeds it like I said its in all water just needs correct conditions to bloom warm water weak plant organic added to Rez

Your not screwed brew some tea .

Zz top the rise is Rez is due to dieing roots in water breaking down exact thing happened to me I manually strained water using coffe filter screen and I got it under control careful of adjusting water to much with up down you will kill your bacteria

I'm no expert just a handicapped guy with lots time sorry just giving my 2 cents . My experience with slime was much like spechenz new system first run cleaned well used well water what I didn't know was my Rez was running 73 74 degrees and boom slime smothered roots killed most of them now tea Rez still running 74 no slime perfect white roots I have a cooler for Rez don't use due to tea cures temerature issues

sprechenz said:

I purchased a 1500 gal tank set outside my location. I had municiple water delivered. I filled both of my 12 site undercurrent system with the outside water. I mixed nutrients to 210 ppms DM nutes and phd the water to 6.1. No plants in either system, just water and nutes.

I ran the system like this for the last 4 days.

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Sounds like you didn't use bennies. You have to run bennies constantly in DWC for maintenance and prevention... not just once you have slime.

Also not to anyone specific, but simply throwing bennies in a slimed res is not good enough... you should at a minimum drain the res, wipe it down, refill it with fresh water, and then inoculate the fresh res.

Well I do dwc in a 37 degrees Celsius tent and only had slime from what I stated.. had many great harvests before that bottle had slime in it.. minute amount..

I don't believe that slime was in bottle I think was a coincidence as I'm sure water in bottles of fert would be properly purified
I'm waiting for heisenberg to chime in . I think the slime was in your Rez the whole time something happened to trigger bloom of slime either high temerature weak plant insect attack weakening plant enough for slime to take hold just my 2 cents )

TWS said:

what nutes are you using ?

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I am using Dutch Master Gold series Grow A and B only for this test.

I think you're gonna love the DM. Been using it for cpl yrs now with excellent results. I keep res temps in the low 60's and only have to adjust PH about every 3 dys or so.
Their flower nutes are also great.

Malevolence said:

Sounds like you didn't use bennies. You have to run bennies constantly in DWC for maintenance and prevention... not just once you have slime.

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You are correct I did not. I was hoping that by removing the source of the problem, my locations well water, with treated municipal water, that I have brought in from an outside source, that I would rid myself of the slime problem.

I've had the slime before and fought it with the tea. I just want to get away from the tea if possible. There is to much margin for error when using the tea.

The reason that I made the assumption that I could bring in outside treated water with results is that I have both transferred systems, and plants from my location to other locations without having the slime occur at those locations. Therefore I thought I could safely assume that the "slime" is in the water at such a overwhelming rate at my location that the only way to fight it was with the tea.

Therefor I thought it would follow that if I brought in outside municipal, treated water, it would be just as if I were at a different location with a different water source.

I am not 100% sure that the slime is back yet. Just seeing some odd signs.

I am continuing to monitor the two different 12 site systems for both ph movement and slime build up on airstones and on rubber gaskets inside buckets. These are the two places that the slime normally attacks first.