Problem after adding Great white to DWC.

Hi all, first off a little info about what I am running. This is my first attempt at dwc.

Substrate: Rockwool cubes in hydroton.
Nutes: Canna aqua vega
Additives: Tried using great white and a little nf zyme. (this is where problem started)
Ph: I keep it at 5.8 let it drift to 6 then adjust when needed.
Ec/ppm: I was running around 1.2ec so like 450-500ppm?
Water temp: 68-70
Two totes with 9gal of nutes in each.
Plants are about 5 weeks old. (from seed)

Ok so initially I had a little trouble with not enough oxygen which caused a tiny bit of root rot, I rectified the problem as quick as I could and added a better air pump checked for light leaks and started using 35% h2o2 at 5ml per gal to clear them up. It seemed to help alot but was very expensive ($20 for 100ml) There was new white roots exploding out everywhere!
I then ordered some great white and decided to stop using the h2o2 and try get some beneficials in to maintain the res. I noticed that the roots got really badly slimed the next day, was sort of clear and the longer I left it, it was turning a blackish color. I thought it was the nf zyme I had added as it turned the res a dark brown color, so I sterilized and flushed res and added half strength nutes and treated roots with a spray of h2o2. I rinsed off the h2o2 and as much of the slime as I could before I put them in with the gw because I didn't want to kill the bene's. Anyway I noticed a little of the black stuff forming on the tip of the roots again. Nowhere near as bad as before though. Is this normal for beneficial bacteria? Or is it the pythium or some kind of other slime/algae?

Anyone? Should I maybe make another post in the organics section?

is that temp u gave the water temp or the room temp?

Sorry, that was the water temp. I should also add that my ph has been stable until I added the gw now it is rising slowly about 0.5ph a day

Your water temps are prefect.

H202 use leads to dependence. It doesn't just kill fungi, it kills everything, good bacteria etc so you have to keep using it. You only use h2o2 as a one off and then that's it!

I don't know what great white is, but make sure you're not adding too much. I use a root conditioner called dutch master zone. You can use that stuff long term and it will work way better than h2o2. H2o2 is also a waste of money and can kill your plants if you overdose.

Bottom line; change your res and stop adding h2o2. Chemicals aren't going to compensate for a shit air pump. You didn't mention how many watts your air pump is but you should be using at least half a watt per gallon, double would be ideal.

If your air pump is good then all you can do is wait, that root rot will stay there for a long time but new pearly white roots will eventually grow back.

Thanks for the reply man I appreciate it. Gw is mycorrhizae and trichoderma. From what I understand it is not the mycos that work in DWC but the trichs. They kill and compete for food with the pythium and other bad bacteria. So after my use of h2o2 (which should of killed all the good and bad bacteria) I was trying to populate the water with beneficials to keep it root rot free.

My air pump is 68 litres/pm (35watts) with two 6 inch air stones in each tote and 9gal of nutes in each. I also have the air pump that I replaced that I am going to put an extra air stone in each tote with. That one is only like 10watts, it's why I had problems in the first place with the initial root rot.

I am pretty sure that the black shit on the roots is just the bene's doing their work because I heard it gets worse before it gets better. I might order some of that dutch master zone, I have heard a lot of good things about it. It is probably the better option seen as I am growing in chemical nutes.

And yeah, I also stopped using h2o2 before the great white as it was just too expensive and unstable. Was kind of just like an "oh fuck I need something to kill this shit now!" While I was waiting on my order of great white lol.

3viL said:

My air pump is 68 litres/pm (35watts) with two 6 inch air stones in each tote and 9gal of nutes in each. I also have the air pump that I replaced that I am going to put an extra air stone in each tote with. That one is only like 10watts, it's why I had problems in the first place with the initial root rot.

Click to expand...

10 watts should be fine for that, I have 5 gallon buckets with 2.5w each and no root rot, and that pump will get divided up even more soon. In your root rot situation though I guess more bubbles might help.

Nothing you've mentioned so far should have caused any root rot, except the excessive h2o2 you used. From what I can piece together I think you must have just seen a few brown roots and overreacted.

6 inch airstones? Are those the long thin type ones? You put them at the bottom of your res right?

The other thing you can do is change your res as often as you can, it's a waste of nutrients and a PITA but try do it at least once a week it will help keep it sterilised when you have root rot. Wipe it out thoroughly with hot water, the chlorine in the tap water will clean it good enough. This should kill the some of the alge spores.

Northern Lights Grower said:

10 watts should be fine for that, I have 5 gallon buckets with 2.5w each and no root rot, and that pump will get divided up even more soon. In your root rot situation though I guess more bubbles might help.

Nothing you've mentioned so far should have caused any root rot, except the excessive h2o2 you used. From what I can piece together I think you must have just seen a few brown roots and overreacted.

6 inch airstones? Are those the long thin type ones? You put them at the bottom of your res right?

The other thing you can do is change your res as often as you can, it's a waste of nutrients and a PITA but try do it at least once a week it will help keep it sterilised when you have root rot. Wipe it out thoroughly with hot water, the chlorine in the tap water will clean it good enough. This should kill the some of the alge spores.

Click to expand...

Yeah the first air pump was only 10watts which is why I got it. I rectified that problem by getting a better pump. I just was reading that pythium will keep coming back so that is why I was adding the great white to ward it off for the future lol.

Yeah the 6" long ones, they are on the bottom and it has pretty good coverage with bubbles now. I guess, like you said, all I can do is wait and hope for the best now. I was even thinking about getting a powerhead in each of the totes as seen as too much air is never a bad thing. I think I will go with seperate buckets next time as the totes are a bitch to maintain and do res changes on. And if one plant gets affected it soon spreads to the others too. So it would be heaps better to isolate them.

I personally wouldn't add more air than that though as the noise drives me mad after a while not to mention the paranoia regarding neighbours LOL

Northern Lights Grower said:

I personally wouldn't add more air than that though as the noise drives me mad after a while not to mention the paranoia regarding neighbours LOL

Click to expand...

Hahaha true. The pump is pretty loud as it is!

The only other thing I can think of doing that kind of damage is a power blackout, maybe 12 hours plus. I had an air pump fail a few weeks ago, no air for over 24 hours and I got a some brown roots.

Northern Lights Grower said:

The only other thing I can think of doing that kind of damage is a power blackout, maybe 12 hours plus. I had an air pump fail a few weeks ago, no air for over 24 hours and I got a some brown roots.

Click to expand...

Oh no! That would suck. Hope they are growing healthy again now bro! I would of freaked out.

3viL said:

Oh no! That would suck. Hope they are growing healthy again now bro! I would of freaked out.

Click to expand...

Nah they were fine, just pretty slow growing for a few days. I think the dutch master zone helped a lot keeping it sterile.

Good stuff that they are ok. I just ordered some of that dutch master zone so I will see how it goes, what is the active ingredients in it? Is it primarily for chemical nutes?

Potassium Nitrate and Copper Sulphate. Yeh it's a hydro additive.

Sweet! Thanks for your help mate.

Hey all, just wanted to update the thread for anyone who was curious.. So after freaking out about all the black stuff on my roots I decided to smoke a joint and chill about it for another day just to see what happened.
Turns out not all slime is bad from what I can see. Here is an update on the root pics from yesterday. It has crazy new growth coming out everywhere and has grown like an inch or two atleast, although the black stuff is still there the roots look cleaner I will rename the pic from yesterday "old" so it is easier to see.

Awesome nice recovery there

Thanks man And I will have the dm zone as a backup too so feeling relieved now.

3viL said:

Thanks man And I will have the dm zone as a backup too so feeling relieved now.

Click to expand...

Don't be afraid to use it continuously, is really speeds up root growth and it's pretty concentrated so lasts a long time.