Help - It Smells like Shit!

This morning my grow room has started to stink like a cross between something rotting and shit!

I have 4 plants in the last week of veg and 2 seedlings about 2 weeks old running two different systems but all showing the same symptoms. All started showing patchy yellow leaves starting from the base up with a number of leaves being dead since last checking yesterday. 4 in Veg are in 15L hempies 50% coco 50% perlite last watered 2L each 2 days ago at 700ppm after being flushed with 3L each @PH6.0. 2 Seedlings are running on a seperate 25L res on 100% perlite watering 4 times daily @ around 450ppm ph5.8. All in the same room under 2 125w cfl 2 250w mh. We have had a massive heat wave with the av temps in the room the last week being 35c+

Any advice would be great as I dont want to lose all the hard work!!

whats the ph and tds of the run off? need pics, with no pics its hard to say. whats the rh? stinks? mildew maby, when I had pm my room stank. high temps in the room cause root rot maby?
we need more info and pics

It is probably root rot. I've had the same problem before and it smells like rotten eggs. Water over 22c is no good and bacteria gets out of control. If you are running synthetic fertilizers i.e. bottled fertilizer then you can use a little bit of Calcium Hypochlorite. Calcium Hypochlorite is basically swimming pool shock treatment product. You can find recipes online and it will clear you up. I used it with success years ago.

I used something like 5ml per gallon, or less. I can't remember so you'll have to research.

Cheers for the quick replies. Run off read between 500-600 ph 6.3. Have stuck my nose into everythjng i can and cannot locate a source for the smell which makes me think it may be something dead in the wall or roof. Still strange that all the plants have been hit with similar issues at the same time. The coco was very dry on the 4 in veg so watered with full nutes. There is also a very small section of green algae looking stuff in the perlite under the watering rings. Have photos now. As youll see the little ones are not so badly affected.

You should be using an enzyme based product all throughout to help decompose dying material in your rootzone. Hitting your plants with some Roots Excellurator would really be beneficial at this point. Let your plants dry out and don't water them while they are wet.

Your plants have root rot, and if you don't take care of the underlying issue which is causing the root rot (overwatering is usually the biggest culprit) your plants are in serious trouble (poor yields, susceptible to infections, death even).

Im using a rooting hormone root 79 along with a 2 part nute mix and have done from the start. Have always waited until dry to water only used extra as i had to flush, last weeks run off was 1300-1700. Wouldnt the run off water or hempy bucket smell if it was root rot?

JohnnyCypher said:

Im using a rooting hormone root 79 along with a 2 part nute mix and have done from the start. Have always waited until dry to water only used extra as i had to flush, last weeks run off was 1300-1700. Wouldnt the run off water or hempy bucket smell if it was root rot?

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Oh, well yeah. If you had root rot, you should be able to smell it coming from the media/pot, and likely the run off water.

What do you irrigate with? I notice "rotten egg smell" when I first turn my pump driven hose on to water. There is lot's of water built up in the hose, with nutrients, that sits and builds bacteria (likely anaerobic, hence the smell) and sticks like hell. I just run the first couple seconds of my hose into the tray rather than into a plant to get rid of that "stale" water.

Your situation could be entirely different, but if you pump water from a reservoir through a hose, then smell your water coming out of your hose the first time you use it.

Your watering habits are on point. Just keeping doing what you're doing.


Quick FYI, there's a difference between rooting hormone and root inoculant type products such as H&G Roots Excel, Canna Rhizotonic, etc. They are usually kelp based with beneficial bacteria. They do wonders for your root zone, sick or not. Use them next time you've got seedlings or clones, you will love the results. I hope you don't use a rooting hormone throughout the plants cycle, that would be silly.

run phyoff in the solution and solve all your problems, phytoff is chloramine pay attention to the dosages. for even better results you can use propamocarb hydrochloride 66% solution or metalaxyl-m dose 0.3ml / l. in this way you definitely solve the problem. with the root rot, delicate approaches are useless

Fra91 said:

run phyoff in the solution and solve all your problems, phytoff is chloramine pay attention to the dosages. for even better results you can use propamocarb hydrochloride 66% solution or metalaxyl-m dose 0.3ml / l. in this way you definitely solve the problem. with the root rot, delicate approaches are useless

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I'm not sure now this is relevant to the OP's issue, as he's saying he doesn't smell anything coming from the runoff/media/pot.

Interesting to hear this though as I've never heard of the practice or the product. Couldn't one accomplish a similar effect by just running city tap water? My municipality has decent chloramine levels. I use my tape water straight with a dechlorinator, but to my understanding it doesn't remove chloramines. Interesting...

I had problems with the root rot for years, I tried a thousand ways, filters uvc ozonizers, beneficial bacteria, the, I just had a similar situation I had no bad smells but the situation was not in perfect health, I run phytoff and the situation has been resolved, in the past I have also used propamocarb is a systemic fungicide that acts on the reproduction of the fungus also has a great effect on vegetative development I also use it in coco and soil. when it concerns tap water it contains chlorine and not chloramine and therefore evaporates

also looking at the photos you can see perfectly that has a fungus in the substrate

Fra91 said:

I had problems with the root rot for years, I tried a thousand ways, filters uvc ozonizers, beneficial bacteria, the, I just had a similar situation I had no bad smells but the situation was not in perfect health, I run phytoff and the situation has been resolved, in the past I have also used propamocarb is a systemic fungicide that acts on the reproduction of the fungus also has a great effect on vegetative development I also use it in coconut and earth. when it concerns tap water it contains chlorine and not chloramine and therefore evaporates

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Tap water does contain chloramine just FYI. Just look up any water quality report and it shows it right on the chart.

The info you've shared is interesting, I'll be doing some reading.

fn217 said:

Tap water does contain chloramine just FYI. Just look up any water quality report and it shows it right on the chart.

The info you've shared is interesting, I'll be doing some reading.

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where I live the water contains chlorine and not chloramine but I believe because given that we live in different places, there are other products that counteract any development in the substrate use colloidal silver, even these are effective but not on a par with those I listed above. I know what it means to have problems at the roots and so I'm happy if I can help someone with these problems. those who grow in hydro, dwc, should always have a line of defense like this because then it may be too late

Roots die in coco thats allowed to dry out. You should feed your coco everyday to 20% run off. That will help keep the media salt build up free. Run off should be no more than 200ppm more than whats going in. Ph 6.3 is a bit high but not to crazy 5.8 going in is the ideal i dont let run off get over 6.1. I to think the dredded rot is your problem.

Thanks heaps guys. Seems like the smell is stronger with the watering so it could be from the pipes sitting stagnant. Will rip the drains apart this weekend and redo so they dont sit in the pipes and have direct flow back to res. Still strange that ive had the issues in the coco ones if the smell is from the perlite. Could the leaf issues be heat or nutrient related and just coincidentally timed?

Will order some phytoff for them however dont want to lose them in the meantime. Any advice what to do till it arrives? Also will that take care of the algae in the perlite?

I was always told to water only on demand for coco running 15% overflow. Ive have found that in the colder weather they last 4-6 days hotter weather 2-3. Runoff ppm got high last week so i flushed with straight phd water then fed after that the problems started

nope feed every day in coco. never flush coco with just water that may be ware the deficiency came from. flush coco by running your nutrient solution through the media untill tds is within 2ooppm of what is going in. here is a link to a step by step coco run.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/dynamos-emerald-harvest-coco-run.947061/

I believe your supposed to give weaker nutrient solutions, not plain water. If you water at 700ppm and runoff is 1000ppm, next time water at 400ppm.
Runoff(1000ppm) - feed(700ppm) = 300ppm so 700ppm - 300ppm = next feed (400ppm).
Plain water can cause osmotic(osmossis) stress on roots. I THINK!?! I am by no means an expert, but it's what I've heard and personally it works for me. Think of it like a see saw with your feed number or target number in the center. All about finding the balance.

Okay so it sounds like the flush is what has caused the coco ones to deteriorate. Will they come good again now they are back to regular feeds or will i need to use the phytoff stuff? Any advice on the green algae in the perlite? Thanks again guys, this is my first grow and just trying to get my head around it. Will be running the perlite system permanently plus thats good good genes (critical mass fem) where the coco was inherited and is bag seed i think. So i guess making sure that the perlite is right is top priority

i was getting similar issues without the stank but i believe it came from a root zone pathogen and or rot. here are a couple shots of how the roots looked. i was adding beneficial bacteria, enzymes etc and nothing helped until i said fuck it all and went DEAD RES. wont go back anymore. now i just foliar the beneficials. most clones had to be killed but a few that i hit with the bleach mixed into the res made a full recovery and are now full productive members of society

i believe mine started because of over watering or at least watering too often and not letting the roots breathe enough in between. look up a dead res technique but the one ive been running is 1 ml per 10gal for maintenance and 2ml per 10gal for an active issue. bleach deteriorates quite quickly so i treat my main res weekly and have added a circulation pump to keep everything well mixed.

i now add bleach to all of my reservoirs and cloners weekly. more so in the cloner when i remember since it aerates and breaks down quickly. nothing but healthy roots ever since implementing that and fine tuning my watering schedule.

JohnnyCypher said:

Any advice on the green algae in the perlite

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Cover with some plastic cut outs to guard from light. Algae won't have any negative effects (as far as I know) but it is visually unpleasant to some. Water+nutrients+light=great place for algae. Your media (perlite, coco) needs water and nutrients, but your media doesn't need light. So cover them up to stop algae. A top layer.