New Loft Grow Room - Input Appreciated

Roger A. Shrubber said:

just a thought but you are in an old dusty attic, perhaps its something in the woodwork, is there any way you could spray an antifungl or something like that all over the attic walls and floor? where is your air supply from? is there a duct its drawing through or just ambient air in the attic? if theres some kind of duct it may need to be vacuumed out and spray some antifungal in it maybe. seems strange that it keeps coming back with all the cleaning you're doing of the set up itself, sounds like theres something in your environment thats causing it

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I think more likely the slime was just on the roots. All it would take is 1 little spore and I'd get reinfected. I think I'm unlikely to get rid of it completely from this grow now... but I'll try anyway

verticalgrow said:

G'day Lofty,

Are u gunna use coco for mothers?
Also have u seen Air pots?
heres a link for air pot systems: http://www.progrow.co.uk/acatalog/air_pot_systems.html

Cheers VG

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I'd not paid them much attention before. Look interesting.

I was planning on using Autopots: http://www.autopot.co.uk/watering-systems/easy2grow-kits

Just load up the reservoir once a week and it'll water itself. Sounds ideal for small mums.


Good news I guess. I just had a look at the girls and they're no longer droopy. The slime seems to be disappearing with the lack of nutes and chlorinated water. I'll add nutes back in tomorrow and do another res change.

If you have more of that white tubing you're using to connect your buckets. Hold a piece up to the light. If light is penetrating the white tubing algae will grow.
I also noticed some clear tubing coming from your chiller. When light hits water algae grows.
The good news is you're on the right track. Small amounts of bleach or H2O2 will keep things running smoothly. The only down side is it kills any beneficial bacteria and can mess with certain nutrients. Like organic nutrients, but most hydro nutes will work just fine.

Good thought but the white tubing is actually double layer black/white iceline.

http://agradehydroponics.com/products/ice-line-30m

Definitely not that causing light leaks wish it were... Easy fix!

Chiller has clear tubing yes. It has a separate closed loop. So there's a stainless steel cooling coil in the reservoir which exchanges heat with the nutrient solution. That way the chiller stays completely clean and I don't have to worry about blockages or bad bugs getting inside. The water in that clear tubing doesn't mix with the nutrient soln.

Have done a res change today and scrubbed the system again. Flushed through with RO water and then reloaded with RO water, Hypochlorite 2ppm and 1/4 nutes. Actually only took me an hour this time. I could probably cope with cleaning out the system once a week if I had to. Daily maintainance is usually only about 30 mins anyway.

Minimal snot on the roots now. Only a slight brown tinge and most of the droopyness has gone. Hopefully I've caught this early!

Well your definitely on the right track. That chlorine will help.

Good luck.

Lofly maybe you should try out some Pythoff? It's esentially chloramine and Flairform (the company) also makes these test kits that will allow you to determine how much of the stuff to use to properly get rid of root rot.

You also use it at a 0.1ml/l rate, so you won't have to buy the stuff every month.

Well at the moment there's no more slime in the system. Roots are looking slightly brown tinged but not too bad and there's white growth from the tips.

So I think the slime is on the back foot for now.

I've gone to 1/2 strength nutes and added 1ppm chlorine again.

I've been reading about slime on pool sites and think I have a grasp of how they control it. Free chlorine reacts with bugs and becomes bound. When that happens it looses its power to disinfect. So in a pool you need to monitor free and total chlorine levels to keep it clear. You can do an overnight free chlorine loss test to check whether the free chlorine is being used up fighting slime. You can also monitor ORP which is linked to pH and free chlorine levels. To keep things simple I'm going to try adding 1ppm chlorine daily and then every 7 days do a complete res change. I'll also keep an eye on ORP levels.

Fingers crossed!

HEY! Time for an update, i know you brits are used to shows with 6 episodes a season, but us yanks need weekly updates, with christmas specials

Been busy with other stuff, sorry for lack of updates.

I've overcome the root rot but it took a few days. Went something like this:
Day 1: 2ppm hypochlorite + plain RO water, no nutes
Day 2: Added 1ppm hypochlorite + 1/4 nutes in RO water
Day 3: Added 1ppm hypochlorite + topped up to 1/2 nutes
Day 4: Drained the system, filled with RO water added nutes to 600ppm + added 10ml Real Growers Recharge powder (basically a mix of bennies)
Day 5: Nothing
Day 6: Nothing
Day 7: Drained system to check for slime and found none yay! Filled with RO water added nutes to 600ppm + added 5ml Real Growers Recharge powder

We have beautiful roots growing again and no signs of slime. Obviously the previously infected roots are brown and stringy but there's no snot anywhere. I've taken some pics but don't have my SD card with me so I'll try and post them when I can.

To be honest although I know I can fix the slime now this is getting a little tiresome. To top it off I'd previously tested the big RDWC system with plain RO water. There was about 2cm of standing water in the res (no nutes as it was just a leak test) which had been there for about a week. I went to check on the system and found a layer of slime growing on the bottom of the res! There were no nutes, no lights, no roots... nothing in that system and slime managed to grow It's obviously in my environment and could pop up at any time. Sux!

So... I'm considering maybe moving to hempy buckets. I won't transplant this current crop but it's likely the clones I take will end up in a different, less rot prone, system.

you know, theres a school of brewing where they put the raw beer in the attic and let the yeast in the air grow in it. thats what i've been thinking about the whole slime saga. is your air coming in from outside? can you run it through something like a hepafilter or an ionizer? i'd be willing to wager that its not something in your attic, its something thats in the air. any chance you live close to a microbrewery or one of your neighbors brews his own?

Roger A. Shrubber said:

you know, theres a school of brewing where they put the raw beer in the attic and let the yeast in the air grow in it. thats what i've been thinking about the whole slime saga. is your air coming in from outside? can you run it through something like a hepafilter or an ionizer? i'd be willing to wager that its not something in your attic, its something thats in the air. any chance you live close to a microbrewery or one of your neighbors brews his own?

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Yeah I have a 5 inch fan (approx 60cfm) intracting air to the loft. The end of the duct is covered with a pre-filter but this is not a HEPA filter. So it's possible air is contaminated.

I doubt my immediate neighbours brew and that side of the house is quite a way from the next building. I dunno?

I could put a HEPA filter on the end of the duct I guess...

Since you believe it to be an enviromental problem, how about just continuously running a sterelizing agent to keep the water dead? That way root rot will never have a chance to infect.

There are few cures I can think of:
-Pythoff,
-Pool Shock aka calcium hypochlorite (that's what you've been using yes?),
-Buddhas Tree Defender,
-H202, but that's not really worht the price in such a huge system like yours.

Sure, you'll have to add it all the time but it beats going to hempy. Active hydroponics is the way to go!

i don't have a lot of experience with hydroponics, just use a little aerogarden to start cuttings. will continually running a sterilizing agent allow mycorrchizae to grow in the roots? does it really matter in hydro? know they're damn good to have in soil.

Not really unfortunately, but I prefer the sterile method over the beneficial bacteria one, never liked the idea of something living in my reservoir.

Gregor Eisenhorn said:

Since you believe it to be an enviromental problem, how about just continuously running a sterelizing agent to keep the water dead? That way root rot will never have a chance to infect.

There are few cures I can think of:
-Pythoff,
-Pool Shock aka calcium hypochlorite (that's what you've been using yes?),
-Buddhas Tree Defender,
-H202, but that's not really worht the price in such a huge system like yours.

Sure, you'll have to add it all the time but it beats going to hempy. Active hydroponics is the way to go!

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Yeah I've been using generic "Pool Shock".

The problem I have now is that slime seems to grow so quickly! This last time round I found snot on 1 plant and within a day everything was infected... and then fighting it is a real effort. I decided to go RDWC to save time and maintenance. If I need to inspect roots all the time for rot that kinda negates the advantages... for me. I will finish this grow and make a decision.

Let me show you what I had to deal with this week. So when I first noticed small spots of snot on the roots things didn't look *too* bad. I started sterilising and thought I'd controlled it as roots still looked white for the most part:



But the roots have a slightly beige tinge and seem very floppy and weak. Brushing them with my finger broke pieces off easily and growth up to really started to slow.

When I added the Real Growers Recharge everything was instantly stained brown (this is 36 hours after the Recharge was added and things are actually less brown!):



Only 10ml of Recharge in my 50L system turned the nutrient soln really dark. That's just the nature of it. It does highlight damaged roots quite well. New/undamages roots look white or have light staining while damaged/recovering roots are very heavily stained and look floppy.

Here's a good illustration of recovering roots:



You can see thick white roots growing from the root tips and out of the netpot while the damaged mass of roots in the middle does not recover it's colour or strength.



Here's a pic of week 3 (Left) and week 4 (Right). I'm not worried about the yellowing of lower leaves, that corresponded exactly to when the roots were rotting away and I had to run no nutes for 24 hours before adding them back slowly. New growth looks good which is the important thing. Slightly disappointed overall as the slime really set me back but oh well.

I think I'm going to veg another 10 days and then flower them...

Lofty next time there won't be any slime to deal with, because you'll have it all figured out! Unfortunately I'm a one tub DWC system, not even coming close to being as complicated as your system so I can't help much.

And despite the setbacks, that growth in 10 days is awsome, another 10 and they'll definitely be ready to flower.

Gregor Eisenhorn said:

Lofty next time there won't be any slime to deal with, because you'll have it all figured out! Unfortunately I'm a one tub DWC system, not even coming close to being as complicated as your system so I can't help much.

And despite the setbacks, that growth in 10 days is awsome, another 10 and they'll definitely be ready to flower.

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Not convinced I have it all figured out!

Anyway I've assembled the autopot system for the mums and put up some plastic sheeting with a zipper for the door.

Have also mixed up the medium. I've gone with 2 inches of clay pebbles at the bottom and then a 60/40 coco/perlite mix. I think I'll get some good clones for the mums in another few days. They're all supposed to be fem seeds but I'll clone the best 2 of each strain just to be certain.

I'm gonna be away over the weekend. Hopefully I don't come back to a slimy mess on Monday!

when you're using coco, remember you have to use extra cal-mag, and flush every couple of weeks, i switched to it and like it, but it has idiosyncrasies.
i actually add a TBSP of pelletized lime per gallon of container while i'm mixing it up, slows down how fast it eats cal

Hey awesome thread man, you really went all out for your first grow, the level of effort is inspirational.
The algea problem is a bitch, but with your dedication and research I don't doubt you'll figure something out.
Also, I love the collars on the plants and i thought, why not make the whole top of the bucket reflective ?
Grow rooms are always lined up with reflective material except for the pots and floor, I think im going to try it.
Subbed.

Oh and dont forget to update !! how did the weekend go ? has the algea come back ?

I was a little anxious leaving things alone over the weekend because it was going to be 7 days since the last res change and that is around the time where slime had taken over previously... but to my surprise roots are looking fine! I did a res change on Monday morning and noticed there is a little slime around but it's not the same as before. Previously it was white and snotty. The slime is now dark brown and gritty looking. I've read that bennies can make brown slime like that (and the Recharge is really dark brown so that would fit)... so as long as the roots are looking fine and growth is good I guess I'll keep adding the Recharge!

Here's a pic of what things looked like when I got back:



This evening I topped most of the plants and took a load of clones. Only the smallest Purple Afghan Kush wasn't topped as it's a real runt compared to all the others. I'm attempting to clone in rockwool as I'm too freaked out by slime to use the aerocloner!

I've put the clones in a corner of the mother room under 110w of T5:



Here's what the room looks like after topping:



I'm going to veg another 7 days and then flip to 12/12.

I'm not too sure what I'm going to do with the next grow. I'm kinda leaning towards binning the RDWC and switching to hempy... Slime has just been too stressful! I've even been considering making up the "veg" room to 1000w of LED and flowering this crop where it stands. Then vegging the next crop simultaneously in the "flower" area. I dunno

I think you gotta give your rdwc system at one more run! You've got a pretty complex kit put together and knew there'd be some tuning. Your decision and design processes have been sound and you hit a hiccup. You now have at least some semblance of a working solution and can continue to dial it in. Your lab is probably only a few cycles away from a [nearly!] autonomous industrial goodie factory