# using bleach



## joe macclennan (May 15, 2013)

One of the most controversial subjects is using bleach in hydro. I have always been scared to try it personally.

Well i've been battling the worst case of slime I have ever experienced. I was up to 8oz of h202/50 gallon rez. a day. Getting damn expensive too. At these levels I was finally getting the best of the dreaded slime though and was on my way to being slime free. Or so I thought. Then I ran out of the h202, no big deal as I was gonna go to the hydro shop anyway. I went to my local hydro store to get some more and they were out and cannot get it anymore due to a change in state regulations. Well Fuck!

I went online and found a homeopathic store that sells it at roughly the same price I was paying so I ordered some but it was gonna take like a week to get here. This is an eternity w/this slime I have been dealing with. 4 days w/no treatment and my rez would be so funked up I would have to change. 

So I had this bottle of hth pool shock. (calcium hypochloride) I bought the stuff a few years ago as a "break glass in case of emergency" option. I figured this to be an emergency so here goes. I did some reading on here and found someone who uses this stuff and followed his dilution rate. 

2grams of pool shock per one gallon of water. Shake thoroughly until it all dissolves and use one oz. of this solution per gallon of rez. Re-dosing every three days.

Well been 5 days and my rez. looks as clean as ever. Better really than when dosing w/h202. The plants are doing just fine with it. I really see no downside here. 

SOOOOOOOOOOO much cheaper than the h202


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## Ninjabowler (May 15, 2013)

If that stops working or starts hurting anything and you need another option or some good info to read on try this....
https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html


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## joe macclennan (May 15, 2013)

Yah, I should have added that I ordered everything needed to brew heisenbergs tea also. I really want to stay away from this route tho. I have more than enough to do everyday with 300 gallons of rez. Brewing tea would be a full time job. Waiting on bennies to bloom and what not is not really my cup of tea. haha see what I did there?

I have the aquashield,zho,and ancient forest if I change my mind later.

Honestly though if the pool shock is working ima run w/it.


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## joe macclennan (May 17, 2013)

6 days now slime free  everything is looking better. I'm gonna cut back on my dosage by 25% when I dose again tomorrow. so around 38 oz/50 gallons.. we'll see. 

My h202 finally arrived today but that stuffs going to the back of the bus for now.


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## cannabineer (May 17, 2013)

Sodium hypochlorite (bleach or liquid chlorinator ... note they are at different concentrations) works a treat. Welcome to the Bleached Side. cn


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## joe macclennan (May 17, 2013)

I read somewhere that calcium hypochlorite is better than sodium. Is this not true? Iyo

You have used bleach successfully too?

It is working wonders for me right now.


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## [email protected]@ (May 17, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> I read somewhere that calcium hypochlorite is better than sodium. Is this not true? Iyo
> 
> You have used bleach successfully too?
> 
> It is working wonders for me right now.


How many ml/gal you are using?


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## joe macclennan (May 17, 2013)

*

2grams of pool shock per one gallon of water. Shake thoroughly until it all dissolves and use one oz. of this solution per gallon of rez. Re-dosing every three days.​




*This is what I started with. I am going to lower the dosage gradually to see where I really need to be. 

I had a terrible case of slime initially. So my dosage was intended to bring this in check. I do not know yet what dosage will be required for preventative maintenance.


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## [email protected]@ (May 17, 2013)

thank you bro. make sure after this grow you clean everything with bleach. Here is another formula that I copied from here in riu:
100 ml of Clorox bleach added to a gallon jug of RO water then 1 teaspoon per gallon initially then 1/2 teaspoon per gallon every other day after that.


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## El Tiberon (May 18, 2013)

I am doing an outdoor aero grow and have been getting some high temps and some algae has started. Will chlorine bleach prevent this? What is the dosage I should use?


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## joe macclennan (May 18, 2013)

It should.

I am by no means an expert on this subject. 

I just wanted to post my results to give others an option if needed. 

I run f&d and ebb and flow.

Aero is a whole nother critter. I would change the rez and add maybe 1/2oz of the solution/gallon of rez. See if this helps increase or decrease dosage as needed. 

My 2 cents.


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## flyingsteve (May 19, 2013)

I've used straight tap water and added bleach with no negative side effects. It also didn't cure my root rot issue. I tried SM-90, 35% h2o2 in large doses, and bleach... I eventually gave up on the plants and started a new patch (this time adding a UV sterilizer and chiller), during that time I let the root rotted plants go and didn't tend to their hydro system for about 2 weeks. The largest plant recovered fully, despite slimed up roots & lack of tending to pH/nutes. It grew out an entirely new set of roots and began thriving again! 

In my opinion and from past experience, THE BEST WAY to deal with slime and keep it away permanently is with a UV sterilizer. I never once had an issue with root zone pathogens when using UV and had great results up top as well. 

Just my 2 cents


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## joe macclennan (May 19, 2013)

I've never ever had to run UV or chillers except in nft. Damn Fiddly systems.

Been doing this for ten years. 

I think I figured out the cause of my problems. I put a minisplit in recently. The cool air from the evap is dropping directly on my tray keeping my girls cooler. I stretched out my floods to once every other day and it seems to be helping a lot.


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## flyingsteve (May 19, 2013)

I've never had a problem until this last event. No matter how I sterilized and cleaned it just kept coming back. Yet I grew flood and drain melons outside last summer in 5g hydroton buckets and had no root issues lol


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## joe macclennan (May 19, 2013)

It's in your roots. Try extending your time between floods.


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## cannabineer (May 19, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> I read somewhere that calcium hypochlorite is better than sodium. Is this not true? Iyo
> 
> You have used bleach successfully too?
> 
> It is working wonders for me right now.


 If you'll pardon the expression ... it's a wash.

Weed doesn't like sodium, but the introduced amount is tiny.
What i like about bleach is that it's convenient to measure, it's already dissolved, and it's stable. Your working concentration of hypochlorite is established at once; no guesswork. jmo. cn


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## flyingsteve (May 19, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> It's in your roots. Try extending your time between floods.



My indoor grows are DWC, but yes, it's in the roots. I washed and washed and cut away lots of dead roots and changed out the hydroton in the net pots, etc. Anyway, I cannot lose a harvest so that is why I use mechanical filtration and UV along with a chiller.


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## waterdawg (May 19, 2013)

I just started doing hydro this last year and have never had an issue with root rot or slime but do use H2O2 29% as a preventitive measure and am only running 2 100L res's at a time so cost is not an issue, I only go though 4 litres every 6-7 months @ $25. My temps in the rez never get above 21c (so far lol). Is it the temps that cause it or something else, I need to be prepared lol.


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

waterdawg said:


> I just started doing hydro this last year and have never had an issue with root rot or slime but do use H2O2 29% as a preventitive measure and am only running 2 100L res's at a time so cost is not an issue, I only go though 4 litres every 6-7 months @ $25. My temps in the rez never get above 21c (so far lol). Is it the temps that cause it or something else, I need to be prepared lol.


I think in my case it was a combination of bacteria and favorable temps/conditions allowing the bacteria to breed. I've since added a DIY chiller and a filtration and UV sterilization system. I don't like to f*ck around, if you can't tell lol. Would prefer to spend more time growing, logging, and learning than adding H2O2 and other preventative treatments. That's all money/time I don't want to spend and good filtration and a chiller cures all that nonsense. My ultimate goal in a few years is to start a hydroponically grown produce business, and if you aren't running filtration with a large operation like that you're just asking for trouble.


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> *
> 
> 2grams of pool shock per one gallon of water. Shake thoroughly until it all dissolves and use one oz. of this solution per gallon of rez. Re-dosing every three days.​
> 
> ...


*

*This is what I used and it works like a charm even outdoors and temps hitting mid 70's in the res at times. No effect on the plants. I have used it one time. It has been a week since the treatment. Since I have not seen any more algae, I think the once every 3 days is overkill.


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## joe macclennan (May 26, 2013)

I haven't added any to my rez in close to a week now. Still crystal clear++++++++

Dare I say I am slime free?


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> I haven't added any to my rez in close to a week now. Still crystal clear++++++++
> 
> Dare I say I am slime free?


Let's hope! My slime wouldn't be defeated. I went a few days with clear water and then BAM it came back. I would keep up with your treatment, though... Don't let your guard down.


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

I am running outdoor aero. I am keeping an eye on the exhaust tube that empties into my res as a sign of algae coming back. This was where the first sign of it appeared initially. If I see some color, I will slap it with another dose. Here is a video of my set-up.

[video=youtube_share;ucrR55fIVIE]http://youtu.be/ucrR55fIVIE[/video]


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

About your peppers, my soil garden planted bell peppers didn't take off until the summer temps were hot and stayed hot. They really enjoy the warmer temps. Everything else flourished and took off but they just didn't do much of anything until late July. 

Have you had any thoughts of relocating your reservoir to under your deck to reduce temps?



This was the hydro portion of my garden from last year, F&D Yellow Petite watermelon on the right, Cantaloupe to the left and then the tubes were F&D strawberries. I buried the reservoirs to their rims and covered in Reflectix. Also used Great White Myco. Had no issues with algae or pathogens, despite res temps sometimes climbing to 80+


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

I can't relocate it. I am using 1 gallon cranberry juice bottles to keep the temps down. They work really well. I invested in a marine cooler and they are insulated to work in the sun. The plants are still making the adjustment to the heat. I almost wish I had gotten them started in mid April. I will keep an eye on the peppers and see how they will do later on in the heat. So far I am pretty happy with the results. Once the plants started making new roots, they took off in growth. Much faster than anything I have ever seen in soil.


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## joe macclennan (May 26, 2013)

El Tiberon said:


> I can't relocate it. I am using 1 gallon cranberry juice bottles to keep the temps down. They work really well. I invested in a marine cooler and they are insulated to work in the sun. The plants are still making the adjustment to the heat. I almost wish I had gotten them started in mid April. I will keep an eye on the peppers and see how they will do later on in the heat. So far I am pretty happy with the results. Once the plants started making new roots, they took off in growth. Much faster than anything I have ever seen in soil.


are you sterilizing your bottles before reuse?

I did the frozen bottle thing for a while when I was running nft. It's real easy to keep reintroducing the bad stuff back into your rez.


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## Sativied (May 26, 2013)

I'm in my first run hydroponics, aeroflo-clone-ish diy setup, currently in week 7 12/12 and have been using bleach since the start, but not for the past 3 weeks. No problems keeping my rez cool which seems, besides complete darkness and circulation, to be enough. I also use it to clean the rez but haven't been able to do that really since my roots grew back all the way in my rez.

Oh and here's something I just could help trying out, 'mixing bleach with h2o2', it creates a load of bubbles that seems to very effectively clean my sprayers and air stones 

Edit:


joe macclennan said:


> are you sterilizing your bottles before reuse?
> 
> I did the frozen bottle thing for a while when I was running nft. It's real easy to keep reintroducing the bad stuff back into your rez.


Doesn't freezing them kill all bacteria?


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

El Tiberon said:


> I can't relocate it. I am using 1 gallon cranberry juice bottles to keep the temps down. They work really well. I invested in a marine cooler and they are insulated to work in the sun. The plants are still making the adjustment to the heat. I almost wish I had gotten them started in mid April. I will keep an eye on the peppers and see how they will do later on in the heat. So far I am pretty happy with the results. Once the plants started making new roots, they took off in growth. Much faster than anything I have ever seen in soil.


I used 16oz water bottles to keep my rez temps down, they did work very well in 16g of water. It was 42f here last night with that cold snap... Now this week it's going back to 80s+! wtf lol. 

It was just my results with the peppers. Hydro does grow FAST. The roots have no resistance in their search for water and nutrients so they literally grow inches a day sometimes. I like your setup and am a bit jealous wishing I had the outdoor space to do that... Unfortunately I am an apartment dweller for this season 

Freezing doesn't kill the bacteria, at least not at the temp of your freezer... But maybe not at all depending on the bacteria, may just preserve it until it thaws out. I would spray my water bottles with rubbing alc then drop them in.


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## cannabineer (May 26, 2013)

Sativied said:


> I'm in my first run hydroponics, aeroflo-clone-ish diy setup, currently in week 7 12/12 and have been using bleach since the start, but not for the past 3 weeks. No problems keeping my rez cool which seems, besides complete darkness and circulation, to be enough. I also use it to clean the rez but haven't been able to do that really since my roots grew back all the way in my rez.
> 
> Oh and here's something I just could help trying out, 'mixing bleach with h2o2', it creates a load of bubbles that seems to very effectively clean my sprayers and air stones
> 
> ...


Usually not. Bacteria are slowed but not killed. cn


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## Atomizer (May 26, 2013)

I run a constant low level of bleach in my nutes for outdoor aero, just as a preventative measure. I run drain to waste, so no problem with res temp issues. 
Personally i would decrease the misting and pause duration to say 10 seconds every 2 minutes for full sun. 10 seconds every 8-10 minutes would be ok at night when the plants dont need as much.


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

I have not been sterilizing the bottles. They basically float around in the res and get drenched in nute solution that contains the pool shock. I have not seen anything remotely close to the algae I had before. The 2 grams per gallon and 1 ounce per gallon of res worked perfectly and has kept things under control. I am pretty transparent about all things I do growing wise. It does not bother me to list my failures or successes. I am tempted to run this solution for another week but in the end it would not be beneficial to the plants, so the res will still be changed weekly. I just open the exhaust valve into a bucket and pour the res solution around the plants in the yard each week. Good place to get rid of it and still get some use from the unused nutes. As close as I can guess the plants are using about 4 gallons of water a week but it is still very early in their life. Soon I expect that number to double or perhaps triple. 

I built this system to be taken apart and put back together as quickly as possible. My end caps are all sealed and held in place with a simple nylon nut and bolt. If push came to shove, I could tear this system down, wash it completely and rinse it and put it back together within one timer cycle. I have a lot of photos from the build on another site so if anyone comes across a problem with their own build or needs an idea on how to improve an particular aspect of a build I probably have how-to photos readily available. I am most proud of my end-caps and exhaust drains. They work perfectly. The system is 100% light-proof and leak-proof. Completely sealed.


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

Atomizer said:


> Personally i would decrease the misting and pause duration to say 10 seconds every 2 minutes for full sun. 10 seconds every 8-10 minutes would be ok at night when the plants dont need as much.


This is something I have been considering. I have been noticing wilt coming on during the hottest part of the day and a fast recovery shortly afterwards when the shade finally hits. I am assuming this is hardening the plants off but I don't want to take a chance at killing them once the 90 degree days begin to wear us out here. They are accepting of the 8 minute off easily from what I have seen, even in full sun but as I mentioned there is some wilt that happens. Most plants even in soil will show wilt in very hot sun around here and they have not died as yet. I will try a couple days of a faster time during the day and see what the results are. If push came to shove I can simply unplug the timer and run the system as DWC with a 800 gph flow through the rails. This pump puts out the water certainly.


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

You need a temperature/humidity sensor and an arduino so you can have watering controlled automatically! BYAAAA!!!


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

Tried to rep you again Steve. Thanks for the tip.


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## joe macclennan (May 26, 2013)

Sativied said:


> Oh and here's something I just could help trying out, 'mixing bleach with h2o2', it creates a load of bubbles that seems to very effectively clean my sprayers and air stones
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Doesn't freezing them kill all bacteria?



never ever mix bleach and h202 ! bad bad 

It causes a chemical reaction and those bubbles you saw are chlorine gas as well as hydrogen and oxygen. Two sides of the fire triangle and the chlorine gas is toxic if at high enough level.

as far as freezing killing bacteria, no


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## cannabineer (May 26, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> never ever mix bleach and h202 ! bad bad
> 
> It causes a chemical reaction and those bubbles you saw are chlorine gas as well as hydrogen and oxygen. Two sides of the fire triangle and the chlorine gas is toxic if at high enough level.
> 
> as far as freezing killing bacteria, no


I loved mixing strong HCl with 30% peroxide. Even better than aqua regia for stripping platinum metals off the catalyst bed, and no annoying nitrosyl complexes to decompose. cn


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

my first job was in fast food in 1982. I mixed bleach and ammonia together to mop the bathrooms. I almost passed out and had the worst headaches I have ever experienced for a few days afterwards. Don't go mixing things that will kill you even if you don't know what they will do. I have been reading up on chlorine and it's potential to cause cancer since I have had this algae issue. I don't know if this is the right way to go IMO.


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## joe macclennan (May 26, 2013)

We are running such a small amount I personally am not worried about it. Eating at mcdonalds will prob. kill you quicker


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## 1itsme (May 26, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> I read somewhere that calcium hypochlorite is better than sodium. Is this not true? Iyo
> 
> You have used bleach successfully too?
> 
> It is working wonders for me right now.


 I've used bleach b4 when i wqas doing hydro it seemed to work as a preventitive, no luck as a cure tho. never thought of using cal-hypo tho. thats some realy strong stuff, we used to use it when i used to clean pools. cool idea if it doesnt kill the plant, it should kill everything else.


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

El Tiberon said:


> Tried to rep you again Steve. Thanks for the tip.


Thanks. I use Arduinos to do lots of projects. I have one controlling my chiller now and I used one a while back to control a high pressure aeroponic setup. That's one method I plan to re-visit some day soon. 



joe macclennan said:


> We are running such a small amount I personally am not worried about it. Eating at mcdonalds will prob. kill you quicker


rofl


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## joe macclennan (May 26, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> I think in my case it was a combination of bacteria and favorable temps/conditions allowing the bacteria to breed. I've since added a DIY chiller and a filtration and UV sterilization system. I don't like to f*ck around, if you can't tell lol. Would prefer to spend more time growing, logging, and learning than adding H2O2 and other preventative treatments. That's all money/time I don't want to spend and good filtration and a chiller cures all that nonsense. My ultimate goal in a few years is to start a hydroponically grown produce business, and if you aren't running filtration with a large operation like that you're just asking for trouble.


To each their own. I have three chillers I am not using right now. I bought them for the nft systems. I personally don't want to run another 500 watts of chiller + pump for a f&d system. I never had to before. 



El Tiberon said:


> I think the once every 3 days is overkill.


I tend to agree. I haven't added any in almost a week now and my last dose was only 25oz/50gallons. Rez is still clear no slime but now a slightly fishy smell so I am going to add 12oz/50gallons tonite.




1itsme said:


> I've used bleach b4 when i wqas doing hydro it seemed to work as a preventitive, no luck as a cure tho. never thought of using cal-hypo tho. thats some realy strong stuff, we used to use it when i used to clean pools. cool idea if it doesnt kill the plant, it should kill everything else.


It seems to work wonders. I also cut way back on my watering though. This has helped as much as anything.imo


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## 1itsme (May 26, 2013)

thats pretty cool, we used to use it when i used to clean pools, as a last resort for algae problems. a few cups of it will oxidize all the algae in a fairly big pool in a couple hours. its pretty reactive, it can combust with alot of stuff (like pepsi). i would be realy carefull with it, we used to buy just enough for 1 pool so we wouldnt have to drive @ with it all day. idk if the one they sell retail is less concentrated tho.


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## cannabineer (May 26, 2013)

That slight fishy smell might be dead bad guys. cn


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## 1itsme (May 26, 2013)

cannabineer said:


> That slight fishy smell might be dead bad guys. cn


maybe, i would thnk cal-hypo would pretty much turn them to dust tho.


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## Atomizer (May 26, 2013)

El Tiberon said:


> This is something I have been considering. I have been noticing wilt coming on during the hottest part of the day and a fast recovery shortly afterwards when the shade finally hits. I am assuming this is hardening the plants off but I don't want to take a chance at killing them once the 90 degree days begin to wear us out here. They are accepting of the 8 minute off easily from what I have seen, even in full sun but as I mentioned there is some wilt that happens. Most plants even in soil will show wilt in very hot sun around here and they have not died as yet. I will try a couple days of a faster time during the day and see what the results are. If push came to shove I can simply unplug the timer and run the system as DWC with a 800 gph flow through the rails. This pump puts out the water certainly.


A long pause in full sun will tend to heat the water thats coating the roots, so they can suffer even if they`re kept wet. More frequent misting in the hottest part of the day will help to keep the roots cooler. The thing to avoid like the plague is allowing the roots to get too dry even for a short time.

I see you`re running peppers and toms. I never had any luck with them in the same setup even when the peppers were downstream of the toms so they got lower nute levels. These days i run the toms in aero and the peppers in F&D so they can go their seperate ways nutewise. 
The peppers do great full term on the same feed as the toms use upto their 4th true leaf. At that point, the toms need more N, Ca and K prior to the 1st flowers appearing. When i tried gearing the nutes to the peppers, the toms were very prone to blossom end rot (BER) so its worth keeping an eye on them.


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

Atomizer said:


> A long pause in full sun will tend to heat the water thats coating the roots, so they can suffer even if they`re kept wet. More frequent misting in the hottest part of the day will help to keep the roots cooler. The thing to avoid like the plague is allowing the roots to get too dry even for a short time.
> 
> I see you`re running peppers and toms. I never had any luck with them in the same setup even when the peppers were downstream of the toms so they got lower nute levels. These days i run the toms in aero and the peppers in F&D so they can go their seperate ways nutewise.
> The peppers do great full term on the same feed as the toms use upto their 4th true leaf. At that point, the toms need more N, Ca and K prior to the 1st flowers appearing. When i tried gearing the nutes to the peppers, the toms were very prone to blossom end rot (BER) so its worth keeping an eye on them.


This is only a test of the capability of the system itself more than anything. My next strain hunt is Colombia and I will have to grow in an apartment and in Aero to avoid humping soil up 20 flights of stairs. Stay patient young jedi. There is a method to the madness of El Tib. I must learn this system and I must learn the reaction different plants will have in it to expect potential problems. The next cannabis grow I do will be Aero under LED. I must learn the mechanics of this before I leave. El Tib does not make mistakes. This is why he is still alive today after so many years of growing in Mexico.


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## flyingsteve (May 26, 2013)

Atomizer said:


> The peppers do great full term on the same feed as the toms use upto their 4th true leaf. At that point, the toms need more N, Ca and K prior to the 1st flowers appearing. When i tried gearing the nutes to the peppers, the toms were very prone to blossom end rot (BER) so its worth keeping an eye on them.


Need that calcium for the BER.


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## joe macclennan (May 26, 2013)

cannabineer said:


> That slight fishy smell might be dead bad guys. cn


Elaborate please? 

My res. is as clear as I've seen it in over a month. No foaming No slime. I did just put lids on em tho cuz my rh was going through the roof with all of these open drums of water. The lids aren't air tight they still allow some air exchange for my bubblers but they catch a ton of condensation and put it back in the rez instead of my air which I then have to dehumidfy.

I don't like the fishy smell either. I added 12oz/45gallons of the diluted pool shock a little bit ago.

My plants look like they have a bit of a zinc def. I attributed this to getting over the root rot and getting a pretty stiff treatment of sns203/evergreen last week due to some root aphids and fungus gnats which at this point are well under control.


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## El Tiberon (May 26, 2013)

Atomizer said:


> I see you`re running peppers and toms. I never had any luck with them in the same setup even when the peppers were downstream of the toms so they got lower nute levels. These days i run the toms in aero and the peppers in F&D so they can go their seperate ways nutewise.


Nute levels are the same regardless of site location. The res pumps out a prescribed mix through many jets. No such thing as lower nute levels to certain site location in the system. If one gets low nutes, all get low nutes and vice versa.


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## Atomizer (May 27, 2013)

Aye, sorry i forgot to mention the peppers were downstream in NFT  Running both in aero resulted in BER with the toms trying to keep the peppers happy and burning the hell out of the peppers trying to keep the toms happy. 
If you can keep the root temps under control you`ll soon have a jungle on your hands.


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## Sativied (May 27, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> never ever mix bleach and h202 ! bad bad
> 
> It causes a chemical reaction and those bubbles you saw....


No way, really!?  


If it's starting to smell like fish again, I'd turn on one of those three chillers you have lying around anyway and make sure there is proper aeration and circulation - which with a fish smell probably isn't the case.


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

that guy apparently didn't know about the reaction caused by mixing them. If you had taken the time to read his post you might have noticed.

and no the chillers won't be getting turned on anytime soon
My electric bill is high enough already. Besides who in their right mind would run a chiller for a f&d system?

There is more than one way to skin a cat


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## Sativied (May 27, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> that guy apparently didn't know about the reaction caused by mixing them. If you had taken the time to read his post you might have noticed.


There's a reason I didn't take the time to read 'his' posts... speaking about 'noticing'  

I'm pretty sure, fairly certain, 'that guy', as well as anyone else for that matter, expects a chemical reaction from mixing h2o2 with bleach. I'm also pretty sure 'that guy' didn't seriously recommend it as a repeatable practice, but was just something 'he' wanted to "try" to see what chemical reaction it would give. Having some sprayers soaking in h202 in a whiskey glass in one hand, bottle of bleach in the other hand... will it fizzle or will it bang?  Come on, it's like saying smoking (or McDonalds) is bad for you.



joe macclennan said:


> Besides who in their right mind would run a chiller for a f&d system?


Someone with a rez smelling like a fish pond? I'm not using a chiller myself because I don't want to spend that much watt on it, but if you are getting a bad smell despite your new found love for bleach, and got 3 lying around, I would at least consider using it till you found another effective way to skin your cat. Good luck finding it.


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

Sativied said:


> There's a reason I didn't take the time to read 'his' posts... speaking about 'noticing'
> 
> I'm pretty sure, fairly certain, 'that guy', as well as anyone else for that matter, expects a chemical reaction from mixing h2o2 with bleach. I'm also pretty sure 'that guy' didn't seriously recommend it as a repeatable practice, but was just something 'he' wanted to "try" to see what chemical reaction it would give. Having some sprayers soaking in h202 in a whiskey glass in one hand, bottle of bleach in the other hand... will it fizzle or will it bang?  Come on, it's like saying smoking (or McDonalds) is bad for you.
> 
> Someone with a rez smelling like a fish pond? I'm not using a chiller myself because I don't want to spend that much watt on it, but if you are getting a bad smell despite your new found love for bleach, and got 3 lying around, I would at least consider using it till you found another effective way to skin your cat. Good luck finding it.


again with this? ok no you are fairly wrong he was mixing this together to clean his system. So yes he was/is repeating the practice. He didn't want to "see" what happened. read the post or just keep coming back and posting nonsense and I will end up paraphrasing the entire thing for you. That is much easier. 

on the chillers, considered and rejected. 

On skinning cats, very sharp knife

Have a good day!

Edit: Commenting that you are "pretty sure" about what someone else is doing is asinine. Especially when you can read the post and be positive.


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## flyingsteve (May 27, 2013)

Let's not fight, boys. If dude man doesn't want to run a chiller that's his business and not mine or your problem. Honestly, if I was running F&D again I would do the same thing I did the first time I ran F&D - Beneficial bacteria. My outdoor F&D had zero issues with slime or algae and the water temps were often 80F+ and OUTSIDE open to infection from whatever the hell the wind blew.


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## cannabineer (May 27, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Elaborate please?
> 
> My res. is as clear as I've seen it in over a month. No foaming No slime. I did just put lids on em tho cuz my rh was going through the roof with all of these open drums of water. The lids aren't air tight they still allow some air exchange for my bubblers but they catch a ton of condensation and put it back in the rez instead of my air which I then have to dehumidfy.
> 
> ...


This is "educated conjecture", but enough hypochlorite to kill the bugs and not singe the roots will leave dead but essentially intact bugs. As they lyse and get chewed up by residual enzyme action, they'll smell a bit. It's a sort of olfactory ghost and not a reason to worry imo. cn


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## Sativied (May 27, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> again with this? ok no you are fairly wrong he was mixing this together to clean his system. So yes he was/is repeating the practice. He didn't want to "see" what happened. read the post or just keep coming back and posting nonsense and I will end up paraphrasing the entire thing for you. That is much easier.
> 
> Edit: Commenting that you are "pretty sure" about what someone else is doing is asinine. Especially when you can read the post and be positive.


You're kidding me right. After all the hints? "That guy" you are talking about is in your head. He does not exist, there is only me and you. Please read back who wrote the post...., fine, I'll make it easy for you so we can both laugh at you and you can bounce your head some further  *I* wrote that post - HEEEEE = MEEEEE. 

So yeah... I can be pretty positive about what I did without reading it, I said something about how I just couldn't resist mixing them to try and see what happens and that that actually 'seemed' effective. Pretty sure I added a smiley of some sort as well. Certain 'he' said nothing about repeating the practice or mixing it to clean his system. Quite certain he already posted in the very same post that he had been using bleach from the start to clean his system and is currently relying on low temps only.

You got to admit that's hilarious right? Telling me to read the post, you making up all this nonsense, and even 'threatening' to paraphrase the entire thing - while I wrote it. Funny as hell.   



flyingsteve said:


> Let's not fight, boys. If dude man doesn't want to run a chiller that's his business and not mine or your problem.


 Strange thing to say. Not 'fighting' him, just advised to reconsider using it temporarily till a more desirable solution is in place. Refusing to keep a rez cool while advocating bleach, not my problem no. Nor is someone's drowning plants, yet I still comment on those threads as well.



joe macclennan said:


> Have a good day!


Back at ya man, make it great one.


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## flyingsteve (May 27, 2013)

Sativied said:


> Strange thing to say. Not 'fighting' him, just advised to reconsider using it temporarily till a more desirable solution is in place. Refusing to keep a rez cool while advocating bleach, not my problem no. Nor is someone's drowning plants, yet I still comment on those threads as well.


That's just my point... It's not my plants or my medicine or my money. My chiller shifts 1,800btu/hr at 400w/hr. I can drop the temp on 20g of h2o by 11F/hr, so to keep the water between 67f-69f = 2f or about 10min run time per hour when lights are on... 10 * 18 = 180min = 3hrs per day @ about 11c per kW/hr... 400w x 3hrs = 1.2kW/hr or around 15c per day... x 30 days = about $5 per month. + 40w x 24hrs x 30 days to keep filtration/uv sterilization going = $3 per month... So I spend less than $10 per month to insure no pathogens, no slime, no algae, no headaches, healthy plants... Another way to think about it is $60/wk for 1/8th. It's hella cheaper to grow my own per month than buy it from some one else, even with all this extra equipment. Basically, it costs about $60/mo in electric to yield FAR more... Then if you turn around and sell to a dispensary or whomever and you're still complaining about a utility bill... lol, you're really doing something wrong bc it's profit hand over fist compared to what you spend to grow it. 

My last medical grow was some auto AK47 in soil pots that I barely put any attention or time in to and probably spent maybe $30 dollars TOTAL with a 250w CMH lamp, etc and I have enough smoke for 2mo!

Oh, and I might do 1 res change per grow cycle... Probably a partial drain so I can reduce nitrogen a tad and increase phosphate.


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

Sativied said:


> You're kidding me right. After all the hints? "That guy" you are talking about is in your head. He does not exist, there is only me and you. Please read back who wrote the post...., fine, I'll make it easy for you so we can both laugh at you and you can bounce your head some further  *I* wrote that post - HEEEEE = MEEEEE.
> 
> .



HEEHEE point taken.  I didn't go back and read it. Either way you talking about mixing those two together could give others the impression this is ok. When it's really not. 

Got a good laugh bout this one. 

Edit: still smiling bout my dunceiness


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> That's just my point... It's not my plants or my medicine or my money. My chiller shifts 1,800btu/hr at 400w/hr. I can drop the temp on 20g of h2o by 11F/hr, so to keep the water between 67f-69f = 2f or about 10min run time per hour when lights are on... 10 * 18 = 180min = 3hrs per day @ about 11c per kW/hr... 400w x 3hrs = 1.2kW/hr or around 15c per day... x 30 days = about $5 per month. + 40w x 24hrs x 30 days to keep filtration/uv sterilization going = $3 per month... So I spend less than $10 per month to insure no pathogens, no slime, no algae, no headaches, healthy plants... Another way to think about it is $60/wk for 1/8th. It's hella cheaper to grow my own per month than buy it from some one else, even with all this extra equipment. Basically, it costs about $60/mo in electric to yield FAR more... Then if you turn around and sell to a dispensary or whomever and you're still complaining about a utility bill... lol, you're really doing something wrong bc it's profit hand over fist compared to what you spend to grow it.
> 
> My last medical grow was some auto AK47 in soil pots that I barely put any attention or time in to and probably spent maybe $30 dollars TOTAL with a 250w CMH lamp, etc and I have enough smoke for 2mo!
> 
> Oh, and I might do 1 res change per grow cycle... Probably a partial drain so I can reduce nitrogen a tad and increase phosphate.


You make a good point on cost vs. payoff. However you are leaving out the fact that I would have to actively vent my chiller room which would add a bit more to my bill for the fans consumption. plus I have two rez. for flower. One for the first two tables of sog the second for the last two. I run slightly higher nutes in the last 4 weeks. I also have a seperate rez for my ebb and gro. for my flowering mums. So we are talking about closer to $150-200+ dollars a mo. more in electric costs total. It is not the cost so much that I am concerned with it is the extra energy consumption or total kwh used. I really don't want to draw any more attention than I already am.

Besides my rez. rarely gets above 70f as it is. 

Hell back in the stone age when I was a total newb. before I went to a sealed room. I was in an attic space in f&d. No a/c just ventilation. My rez. temps would get way higher than I see now. I never had any problems with slime or bullshit. Hell, this was like 10 yrs. ago before I had even heard of h202. I never would have even considered adding bleach to my rez. or running a chiller. 

Bottom line in f&d chillers shouldn't be necessary. 

Anywhoo. back on the topic of this thread. Running bleach.

I added 12oz/45 gallon of the bleach solution to my rez. last night to see if it helped it didn't seem to. I pulled my pumps and airstones out to inspect and there was just the slightest hint of slime starting to form so I added another 6oz. 

I'm filling my premix drums now. I'ma go ahead and change them again in a few days.


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

cannabineer said:


> This is "educated conjecture", but enough hypochlorite to kill the bugs and not singe the roots will leave dead but essentially intact bugs. As they lyse and get chewed up by residual enzyme action, they'll smell a bit. It's a sort of olfactory ghost and not a reason to worry imo. cn


Thanks bear. Hadn't thought about it this way. I am absolutely sure you are correct. 

You said earlier that you use regular Clorox due to it being easier dispersed. Makes total sense. It's is a bit of a pain to ensure that the granules of the pool shock are entirely dissolved for me since my mix jug is black instead of opaque. 

At what dilution rate do you use the clorox, and in what type of systems? 

For maintenance or to quell active infections.


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## cannabineer (May 27, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Thanks bear. Hadn't thought about it this way. I am absolutely sure you are correct.
> 
> You said earlier that you use regular Clorox due to it being easier dispersed. Makes total sense. It's is a bit of a pain to ensure that the granules of the pool shock are entirely dissolved for me since my mix jug is black instead of opaque.
> 
> ...


I haven't used it yet myself, but a friend dosed it at 1 ml per gallon for shock and about 1 ml per 3-5 gallons that for prevention.

I mixed large batches of veg nute for my last grow and stored them for months, then used them for drain-to-waste soilless. What I added was "Physan 20", a benzalkonium prep, at the rate of 5 ml into 100 liters (for 1 ppm final). It kept my nutrient clean, and it didn't decompose (as bleach would over such a time period at lowered pH) or interact with my micros. cn


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

cannabineer said:


> I haven't used it yet myself, but a friend dosed it at 1 ml per gallon for shock and about 1 ml per 3-5 gallons that for prevention.
> 
> I mixed large batches of veg nute for my last grow and stored them for months, then used them for drain-to-waste soilless. What I added was "Physan 20", a benzalkonium prep, at the rate of 5 ml into 100 liters (for 1 ppm final). It kept my nutrient clean, and it didn't decompose (as bleach would over such a time period at lowered pH) or interact with my micros. cn


1ml/gallon for shock so bout 1.7oz/50 gallons. Sounds reasonable. Thank you.


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## flyingsteve (May 27, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> You make a good point on cost vs. payoff. However you are leaving out the fact that I would have to actively vent my chiller room which would add a bit more to my bill for the fans consumption. plus I have two rez. for flower. One for the first two tables of sog the second for the last two. I run slightly higher nutes in the last 4 weeks. I also have a seperate rez for my ebb and gro. for my flowering mums. So we are talking about closer to $150-200+ dollars a mo. more in electric costs total. It is not the cost so much that I am concerned with it is the extra energy consumption or total kwh used. I really don't want to draw any more attention than I already am.


If you don't have temp problems then a chiller isn't needed, obviously. On the other hand, my grow room is a 12x12 room and it typically stays around 80f in there while lights are on. I usually close the air vents up in the adjacent rooms so I can have more A/C ventilation going through there. By the end of the day light cycle the nute temps will be pushing 76+. Adding the chiller in to the room really didn't increase the ambient temps. Once I get out of this f'n apartment in a few months and in to a house I will vent the lights out to another room or something. 

With all this bleach talk, I've heard it said that using bleach can create resistant super bacteria. Sorta like taking antibiotics every time you have a sniffle. Maybe Cannabineer can chime in on this? 

I tried bleach and h2o2, etc and found that I like using UV sterilization better. You aren't having to play with chemicals... I use an aquarium canister filter with a polishing filter pad and 9w UV and the water stays nice and clean and any bits of root or plant debris gets filtered out so bacteria has nothing to feed on.


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

My rez's are not in my flower room. they are downstairs on concrete in my veg. room. I keep my veg room at around 70deg,F. While I run my flower room about 77-79f


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> I tried bleach and h2o2, etc and found that I like using UV sterilization better. You aren't having to play with chemicals... I use an aquarium canister filter with a polishing filter pad and 9w UV and the water stays nice and clean and any bits of root or plant debris gets filtered out so bacteria has nothing to feed on.


I have a uv filter similar to this. I almost put it in at the height of the slime a couple of weeks ago. Before being bleached. The only reason I didn't was cuz the extra heat put off by the circ. pump would've forced me to turn a chiller on. 

I don't blame you for not wanting to add extra chemicals. I don't want to either. That is why I have been steadily cutting back on the bleach to see where I end up. 

It looks like a week with no bleach at all is a bit long at this point for me. 

Honestly though. I have only been watering 1x everyother day on my sog for the last week and this helped more than anything. I was just checking things out and Right before flood they were drooping a bit more than I like so I'm gonna go back to 1x a day.


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## flyingsteve (May 27, 2013)

Would be ideal to use geothermal cooling... bury some stainless or titanium tubing and that way you could have virtually unlimited number of circuits for different grow ops. I did this for a friend of mine. Under his house is a crawl space and we dug down about 12" in the dirt and laid out some tubing. If you don't have a crawl space to help regulate seasonal temps then you'd have to dig down several feet depending on your seasons. But if your BTU demands are low then it would be a pretty small hole, anyway. In my outdoor F&D setup I buried the 18g plastic tote reservoirs to the rims to help with cooling.


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## flyingsteve (May 27, 2013)

Btw, Joe... It must be a real joy to do SOG. I find my 6 plants to be a beautiful site, can't imagine having 20+ going!


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## joe macclennan (May 27, 2013)

lotta work. lotta fun too when everything is going smoothly. no fun at all when not.


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## flyingsteve (May 29, 2013)

The slime - brown algae or whatever - is back in my system. I thought the water was starting to smell a bit "fishy" and when I popped the canister filter open I found a bit of it being trapped in the bottom, luckily. If it wasn't for the filter system that shit would be every where in my hydro and in the roots. I changed filter pads out and cleaned inside of filter canister with pine-sol (ammonium) and added a liberal amount of SM-90 and 29% h2o2 to the entire system. I'm starting to think that this pathogen is either in my tap water or coming from a contaminated nutrient bottle. If this keeps up I am going to pick up some Pool Shock.


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## El Tiberon (May 29, 2013)

I cut my dose down in half from the last change. 1/2 ounce per gallon. No visable algae as yet.


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## cannabineer (May 29, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> Would be ideal to use geothermal cooling... bury some stainless or titanium tubing and that way you could have virtually unlimited number of circuits for different grow ops. I did this for a friend of mine. Under his house is a crawl space and we dug down about 12" in the dirt and laid out some tubing. If you don't have a crawl space to help regulate seasonal temps then you'd have to dig down several feet depending on your seasons. But if your BTU demands are low then it would be a pretty small hole, anyway. In my outdoor F&D setup I buried the 18g plastic tote reservoirs to the rims to help with cooling.


That's a great idea if you live in a cool enough climate. I visited a cave not too far from Tucson that was 72 degrees year-round. Up north such a cave would be a useful high 50s in geothermal equilibrium. 



flyingsteve said:


> The slime - brown algae or whatever - is back in my system. I thought the water was starting to smell a bit "fishy" and when I popped the canister filter open I found a bit of it being trapped in the bottom, luckily. If it wasn't for the filter system that shit would be every where in my hydro and in the roots. I changed filter pads out and cleaned inside of filter canister with pine-sol (ammonium) and added a liberal amount of SM-90 and 29% h2o2 to the entire system. I'm starting to think that this pathogen is either in my tap water or coming from a contaminated nutrient bottle. If this keeps up I am going to pick up some Pool Shock.


Some of those cyanobacteria are practically nuke-proof. You might think about fighting fire with fire. Heisenberg has a fascinating stickied thread about making a "tea" of mixed beneficial microbes and playing Celebrity Deathmatch between the bennies and the slime. cn


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## flyingsteve (May 29, 2013)

cannabineer said:


> Some of those cyanobacteria are practically nuke-proof. You might think about fighting fire with fire. Heisenberg has a fascinating stickied thread about making a "tea" of mixed beneficial microbes and playing Celebrity Deathmatch between the bennies and the slime. cn


I've made tea before per his recommendations with Great White Myco... Typically only use it for soil, though. Are you thinking that I should go with bennies over Pool Shock? I'm honestly surprised that the UV lamp isn't blasting it away. It was nothing nearly like I've had it before, pre-UV and filter... I was thinking that I should go with biological filtration, it's a type of medium that you put in the canister filter that bacteria will live in... In an aquarium this provides a place for beneficial bacteria to filter out fish waste. I'd have to turn the uv lamp off then, obviously... Guess I'll wait a few more days and see if the cyanobacteria returns in force... If so, then I'll brew a tea and try that route.


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## joe macclennan (May 30, 2013)

Things are Finally starting to turn around. looking a-lot better overall. Very few fungus gnats. No sign of the root aphids, and the girls are starting to get new growth. No sign of the slime. good to go. Now I'm thinking about all those dead roots and gnat bodies and shit. Probably gonna go back to the h202 to help break them down. I also got a rez changed again. I decided to follow homebrewers lead and try some of the dynagro veg 7-9-5 for flower for about 25% of my room. We'll see.

The bleach did the trick for sure against the slime. One oz. solution/gallon is a bit much tho. Deffinitely fried some roots at these levels. I figure it to be a trade off. At the rate that slime was going I would have had to shut down. so I prob. salvaged just over half my tables. Not too bad considering. 

I ordered some gnatrol for the few gnats left and some more sticky traps. I seriously don't want these fuckers to come back. I like what I have read about the gnatrol. It seems like it would be a good option for me in veg. I don't use h202 or bleach in veg. Don't need it, thankfully. I also added a dehumidifer and two fans to my veg. room today.

Am I correct in assuming that since The gnatrol is biological, bleach or peroxide can't be used? I've got some azaguard coming to use in flower I know it can be used with h202 so If I have to continue running the peroxide in flower I can use that.

Another question I had will the h202 react with the protekt I am running? I thought I read somewhere it would.

I've never used sm-90 before, what is it exactly?


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## cannabineer (May 30, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> I've made tea before per his recommendations with Great White Myco... Typically only use it for soil, though. Are you thinking that I should go with bennies over Pool Shock? I'm honestly surprised that the UV lamp isn't blasting it away. It was nothing nearly like I've had it before, pre-UV and filter... I was thinking that I should go with biological filtration, it's a type of medium that you put in the canister filter that bacteria will live in... In an aquarium this provides a place for beneficial bacteria to filter out fish waste. I'd have to turn the uv lamp off then, obviously... Guess I'll wait a few more days and see if the cyanobacteria returns in force... If so, then I'll brew a tea and try that route.


After a coupla failed tries at better living through chemistry ... yeah; I'd bring in the tiny specialists. cn


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## cannabineer (May 30, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Things are Finally starting to turn around. looking a-lot better overall. Very few fungus gnats. No sign of the root aphids, and the girls are starting to get new growth. No sign of the slime. good to go. Now I'm thinking about all those dead roots and gnat bodies and shit. Probably gonna go back to the h202 to help break them down. I also got a rez changed again. I decided to follow homebrewers lead and try some of the dynagro veg 7-9-5 for flower for about 25% of my room. We'll see.
> 
> The bleach did the trick for sure against the slime. One oz. solution/gallon is a bit much tho. Deffinitely fried some roots at these levels. I figure it to be a trade off. At the rate that slime was going I would have had to shut down. so I prob. salvaged just over half my tables. Not too bad considering.
> 
> ...


1) Gnatrol plus a chemosterilant = dead Gnatrol. Sorry.

2) Pro-tekt is just potassium silicate. It won't cross-react with peroxide or bleach. 

About the gnats ... I've heard cinnamon works. There are essential oil preps ... I saw one at the casa de hydro but don't remember the brand ... it had cinnamon oil in it. That will stand up better to peroxide but not bleach. cn


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## joe macclennan (May 30, 2013)

I've got some sns-203 which I used last week combined with evergreen liquid pyrethrin as a drench solution. I waited a couple hours after flood and did the drench. That way it had 24 hours for the drench to work before the next flood.It really knocked those gnats down but there are still some left and I found several larvae today as I was cleaning. I wasn't even looking for em so I take that as a bad sign. 

I believe both the sns and the pyrethrin break down fairly quickly so they seemed a good option along with azagard to throw in the rotation if needed when running sterilizers. 

So I'll run the gnatrol in veg. to start. That would work out great really. It could be here sat. 

Got my new respirator today too.  I feel like I am on breaking bad when I put it on. 









I appreciate your advice bear. Finding someone with your knowledge and willing to help, is rare around here.

++++++++

*You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to cannabineer again.
*

Edit: I ordered some cinnamon oil.8 oz for 20 buks. We'll give it a shot. It's gotta smell better than that god awful sns203 or pyrethrin.


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## flyingsteve (May 30, 2013)

Turns out I had some light leaks in my hydro totes, pretty bad ones at that. Probably why the bacteria returned. I want to try some Pool Shock or something... What do you guys recommend? I don't want to fry my plants, though. I found some Chlorine Free shock

http://www.lesliespool.com/Home/Pool-Chemicals/Pool-Shock/14543.html

*Powerful, Chlorine-Free Shock*

Leslie&#8217;s Fresh &#8216;N Clear is a powerful, new chlorine-free shock, designed to clean your pool and leave your water sparkling clear! Our most popular non-chlorinated shock, Fresh &#8216;N Clear uses the power of available oxygen to eliminate contaminants, organic waste, chlorine odor, and prevent algae, all while freeing up the chlorine already in your pool. And the best part of chlorine-free shock? You can get back in the pool in as little as 15 minutes after use!




Quick-Acting Formula

Leslie&#8217;s Fresh &#8216;N Clear is the fastest dissolving non-chlorinated shock on the market! It quickly clears up your pool, leaving you with more time to enjoy the sparkling water.
Effective Alternative to Chlorinated Shock

Cleans your pool, eliminates organic contaminants, and prevents algae without killing microorganisms or adding high levels of chlorine.
Multi-Purpose

Powerful waste eliminator, algae preventer, and water purifier. Fresh &#8216;N Clear also frees up available chlorine to destroy bacteria. Works great in both chlorinated and brominated pools.

Leslie&#8217;s Fresh &#8216;N Clear chlorine-free shock allows you to safely, quickly, and effectively shock your pool without adding chlorine. Upon being added to your pool, Fresh &#8216;N Clear goes to work immediately, eliminating 99.9% of organic compounds. These include bacteria, nitrogen compounds, swimmer waste, and natural waste. It does this by freeing up the available chlorine in your pool, allowing the chlorine to destroy the contaminants in the water. By breaking up the combined available chlorine, Fresh &#8216;N Clear also eliminates those annoying chlorine odors.

Along with keeping your pool clean and algae-free, Leslie&#8217;s Fresh &#8216;N Clear offers many other great advantages. Because it does not contain chlorine or calcium, Fresh &#8216;N Clear keeps your pH and water hardness levels perfectly balanced, saving you money on new chemicals. No chlorine also means no long waiting periods after shocking your pool, swimmers can get back in the pool in as little as 15 minutes.


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## flyingsteve (May 30, 2013)

Ah, just noticed that that Chlorine Free Shock does this "*Also reactivates bromine, eliminates ammonia, nitrogen compounds*"

Cannabineer, how much liquid bleach (sodium hypochlorite) would you recommend per gal of nutrient solution?


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## joe macclennan (May 31, 2013)

1 ml per gallon for shock and about 1 ml per 3-5 gallons that for prevention.​


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## joe macclennan (Jun 2, 2013)

well sumbitch. Fucking root aphids are back. Guess I'm gonna have to get out the big guns.


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## cannabineer (Jun 3, 2013)

Leslie's has monopersulfate as the active ingredient. I tried to find something about its use/effects in hydroponics, but didn't get much. in pools, it's iused to "leverage" low chlorine/chloride concentrations into a good antiseptic that isn't very chlorine-stinky. 

I skimmed this but could not find the bit where they discussed the monopersulfate (brand name Virkon). cn

http://ainfo.cnptia.embrapa.br/digital/bitstream/item/18070/1/a01v32n4.pdf


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## 1itsme (Jun 3, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> well sumbitch. Fucking root aphids are back. Guess I'm gonna have to get out the big guns.


that sucks. when i got root aphids about a year ago i used evergreen & it knocked them out. I applied as a root drench (soak) and also sprayed (plants, room, everything). i didnt have a prob with them coming back even tho there were flyers by the time i saw them. i did however reapply several times the first two weeks then @ once a month for a couple months. now i use it once in when i pot clones and right before i flip. im wondering if the chlor and uv filter broke it down faster than normal.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 3, 2013)

Bear; I liked where it read sodium hypochlorite was 100% effective for elimination of pyth. At least we are not the only people who think it is acceptable to run it. Nice find. I skimmed bout the first 4 pages. I'll peruse it when I'm a little more rested.

My root rot prob. is slowly getting better. My smaller plants have crazy root growth coming on. My mothers finally have nice white roots shooting out of their 10 inch netpots. So I am real happy bout all this. I was gonna do a drench tomorrow for the fungus gnats with the gnatrol in veg and azaguard in flower. As the fungus gnats are still present. I put some new sticky cards out and got around a dozen willing customers on each in 24 hours. Now that I saw some root aphids I think I'm gonna hit my veg with the Imidacloprid. I was hoping not to use this stuff. Got some of the best roots I've seen in months and now have to use a new poison not happy at all. 

at least I get to try out my new mask.

I'll probably go ahead and use the azaguard in flower tho.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 3, 2013)

1itsme said:


> that sucks. when i got root aphids about a year ago i used evergreen & it knocked them out. I applied as a root drench (soak) and also sprayed (plants, room, everything). i didnt have a prob with them coming back even tho there were flyers by the time i saw them. i did however reapply several times the first two weeks then @ once a month for a couple months. now i use it once in when i pot clones and right before i flip. im wondering if the chlor and uv filter broke it down faster than normal.


Did you adjust the ph of your drench before use? I didn't last time I think I will next.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 3, 2013)

I cured my bacterial infection using 1ml of bleach per gallon... Took about 2 days but now the foam which had been building around the edges of the cultivation tubs is now gone and I've noticed root growth has resumed. I was observing rapid root growth before this infection and then it just completely stopped - until now. I am still trying to figure out exactly what this bacteria is and what caused it. I think it is a type of cyanobacteria but I'm not certain. Also, not certain what caused it but I'm wondering if it isn't from excess silica. I know the effects of the bacteria but now I need to know the cause. 

I'm using a water treatment to remove the chlorine/chloramines before adding in my Great White bennie tea as I don't want to continue using bleach... At least for this point in time until I do more research.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 3, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> Also, not certain what caused it but I'm wondering if it isn't from excess silica.


i am curious about this as well. My problems coincided with the use of protekt to an extent. There were a few other variables at the time as well tho. I have not heard of excess silica contributing to slime infections before. 

I believe what I am battling is pyth. The link bear put up gives a pretty good description of what I am dealing with.


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## 1itsme (Jun 3, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Did you adjust the ph of your drench before use? I didn't last time I think I will next.


 i adjust the ph before i add the evergreen after nutes. the first time i used a big tub and a pond pump with a watering wand attatched. set the plants so the top of the soil was like 6 in above the water line and just drencged it top to bottom for a bit (no nutes that time. after that i just add to the res + spray. i think the pyrethrum is a repellent as well so they will get out of the soil if you do a drench. thats why i spray same time. i'm not shure who i saw doing it first db or someone on youtube, but i got a $20 paint sprayer from harbor freight for spraying the room down. it hits everything np. realy small drops. oh i add a drop of dish soap to break the surface tension too. hth


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## flyingsteve (Jun 4, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> i am curious about this as well. My problems coincided with the use of protekt to an extent. There were a few other variables at the time as well tho. I have not heard of excess silica contributing to slime infections before.
> 
> I believe what I am battling is pyth. The link bear put up gives a pretty good description of what I am dealing with.


My problems started while using Pro-Tekt, too...


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## joe macclennan (Jun 5, 2013)

well, did a drench w/the imid in veg. last nite. @.44ml/gallon for the root aphids. Running my sulfur burner in flower today. I'm gonna give it a good 4 hour burn. This should help some w/the gnats and kill any errant spores in my room. I may do a drench w/azamax in flower tonite. I dunno yet.

I have been using 4oz 35% h202/50 gallons a day for the last 4 days in my flower rez's this is keeping the slime at bay. Gonna drop back to 
3 oz today


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## joe macclennan (Jun 6, 2013)

just a hint of slime in flower rez 1 this morning apparently 3oz/h202 not quite enough. Final flower rez. looks good though. Veg rez. still looking great. 

Did the drench with imid in veg. Found a few dead aphids and a few dead fungus gnat larvae. I am hoping the imid helps with the gnat larvae too. They are not listed as a target species on the label tho. I put a few new sticky traps out so we'll see how many customers I get. 

I put a drainage mat down in my homemade trays to help facilitate drainage and such.




It is gonna be the ticket I believe. Kinda pricey but I gots to do what I gots to do. Room is not big enough to go with store bought trays otherwise I would. I am getting a storebought tray for veg tho.

Gonna do the azamax drench in flower tonite. Running my sulfur burner in veg now.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 6, 2013)

H2O2 did nothing for my brown algae slime. Bleach at 1ml/g does the trick, though. Will cut back to 1ml/3g on next dosing.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 6, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> H2O2 did nothing for my brown algae slime. Bleach at 1ml/g does the trick, though. Will cut back to 1ml/3g on next dosing.


It's not brown more white/clear


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## flyingsteve (Jun 6, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> It's not brown more white/clear


Same with mine. It starts off as brown but can be clear or clear with brown spots around in it. Has a jellyfish-like appearance in the water and has the same type of texture/feel. Covers the roots first as a clear slime but then changes to brown. 

Any of that sound familiar? Would love to know if you've got the same thing. Can you snap a pic? I would LOVE to know exactly what this shit is and where it can come from.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 6, 2013)

Sounds pretty close.

I believe it is pyth.

Read the link bear put up. 

That study describes it and it's symptoms accurately.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 6, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Sounds pretty close.
> 
> I believe it is pyth.
> 
> ...


Weird... I will have to read that article. All I know is that bleach kicked its ass and the plants recovered in 2 days.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 6, 2013)

I'ma have to go back to the bleach which is fine. I feel I should be able to run a much lower dose this time. The slime is just barely noticeable and only in one rez so far. Where a few weeks ago it was out of control. Interestingly it is only in the first res in flower. Which reinforces why I really need to get my new flood table ordered for veg but the hystore isn't placing another order to their distributor till next week. Oh well. things are looking better anyways with only flooding 1x/2days. 

Funny thing is I have been running these same tables for three years with relatively few problems. Now root problems are an issue because my new minisplit is keeping it so much cooler I didn't adjust my watering schedule accordingly. I would never have thought I could get away with one flood every two days in 6 inch pots. The 10 inch netpots my moms are in sure but never 6 inch. 

Amazing what good a/c will do.

Either way I have to get the flower trays draining better so I'm gonna put the rest of my mats in since they just got here. Prob. change water again tomorrow w/bleach in res1 oh, and azamax drench for flower tonite. so when I change water it will be fresh for next flood.

busy busy


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## flyingsteve (Jun 6, 2013)

Word. I spent 2hrs today flushing my system out and then re-fill and pH/nutes... Turned chiller down to 65f and added 20ml bleach for 23g of h2o. Really wishing I had a hose that I could run to dwc system. Would make flushing, cleaning and re-fill sooo much easier. The water gets pumped out to drain in the tub but then I have to run back and forth with 5g buckets to flush and re-fill.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 7, 2013)

So what I've got going on is good ol' fashion root rot... When I transplanted from soil to DWC, I tried to keep as many of the existing intact roots in place... They came out as a bundle, like a long ponytail all wrapped together. I coiled them around the bottom of the net pot and apparently now they aren't too happy. Most of those old roots are dead or dying and rotting away, while the plants have put out new roots. Unfortunately I cannot really remove the old roots because they're entangled with new roots. I'm just gonna keep running the bleach until this all clears out and hope for the best.

After I flushed yesterday I dosed with 10ml of bleach and today I dosed again with 23ml of bleach... Back to 1ml/g. Just purchased some Dutch Master Zone online. It's chloramine based so it'll stay in solution longer than the chlorine and is safer. I probably should've just went to Wal-Mart and bought some Pool Shock or something that is primarily chloramine based but the DM Zone was $20 and free shipping on eBay. 

I was thinking about mixing in some SM-90, but since I don't have a chlorine tester I need to be able to smell if there is chlorine still left in solution.


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## 1itsme (Jun 7, 2013)

smell is not a good indication of chlorine concentration, heres why. bleach (sodium hypochlorite), and pool chlorine (theres like 3-4 different chems used as chlorine for pools) dont have a particularly strong chlorine smell. when it's in a pool (or res) it reacts with organic material (usualy something with n like protiens or ammonia) and forms nitromines. niromines stink like chlorine and arent as efficient as sanitizers (they do stay in solution alot longer tho). when your doing a pool route and ppl complain about too much chlorine hurting their eyes, (generaly right @ the time algae starts showing up), the way you fix it is to shock the pool. eg. you add more chlorine -raise the avail chlorine lvls at least 10x higher than the nitromine lvls. what that does is cause the amonia to turn to a gas and come out of solution. ppl usualy think theres less chlorine the day after you shock a pool bc it doesnt smell or burn their eyes. of course its not true there's way more. yoiu need 2 different tests to tell how much chlorine there is. personaly i would avoid any organic material in the res (also any amonia or urea based n) while you are using chlorine as it will significantly reduce the effect of the chlorine as a sanitizer. hth & gl


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## flyingsteve (Jun 7, 2013)

Thanks for the info 1itsme. I got some DM Zone on the way so hopefully I can stop using the sodium hypochlorite soon. Do those chlorine meters work for this? The ones that read cl2? There are some cheap ones on eBay but I'm not sure if they're what I need or want.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 7, 2013)

well Fuckit I decided last night I wasn't gonna wait three weeks for a big storebought tray for veg. So I tore my homemade flood tray down emptied it out and put in my 2x4 storeboughts. Everything worked out great. I was able to reuse my fill manifold and only had to do some minor drainwork. Zero dollars out of pocket My babies be gettin great drainage now. 

Since drenching with imid I have found significantly fewer root aphids, although a few are still hanging on. I'm gonna give it a few more days as it is systemic and maybe do one more drench. I need to get some gnatrol on em cuz these damn gnats are outta control. I'm more worried about the aphids tho. With better drainage the gnats will have less food. I'm going through sticky traps like crazy. 

Drenched my flower tables last night with azaguard. Prolly gonna do my flowering moms tonite.

Fuck I'm tired.

Does anyone know if the imidacloprid interferes with gnatrol? 

Or how long to wait after drenching with imid to drench with gnatrol?

Edit: I also got my flower rez's changed today treated first rez with 4oz bleach solution/50 gallons and final rez with 4 oz/h202


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## 1itsme (Jun 7, 2013)

the tests ive used are all chem. the common one is for available chlorine, theres a second one for total chlorine (including chloramines). in a res i wouldnt think it would be that big an issue as you change the water frequently. ub (i thnk was ub i cant find the thread) said that most of the comercial hydro ops (crops) use a chlorine product for pyth prevention. my guess would be that its cal hypo or another pool shock rebranded for the greenhouse industry. if youre having success with cal-hypo i would just go with that, but def store it outside away from anything flamable and other chems ( its a pretty strong oxidizer) ill try to find out the product he was talking about and whats in it. hth


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## flyingsteve (Jun 7, 2013)

Pythoff is the only one I've come across so far and it is Chloramine based.


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## 1itsme (Jun 7, 2013)

maybe they use chloramine bc it wont react with urea or ammonim?


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## flyingsteve (Jun 7, 2013)

1itsme said:


> maybe they use chloramine bc it wont react with urea or ammonim?


I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on that but I'm sure one reason is because it doesn't decompose like sodium hypochlorite


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## flyingsteve (Jun 8, 2013)

OK, I did something drastic. After 2 days since flushing out the bennies and returning to the bleach treatment the plants have yet to recover or put out new roots. I took one of the plants and hacked most all of it's roots away down to the rapid rooter plug. Most of the roots looked like shit, anyway. I mixed up a foliar spray to 300ppm using fish and seaweed fert, GH RapidStart, cal/mag, superthrive, pure blend compost tea, and a sprinkle of great white powder. I sprayed all the plants down with this and I'm curious to see what is going to happen! Will the plant that received a buzz cut recover and put new roots out? Will the other plants recover from the foliar feeding alone? Who knows! Let's find out!

*I transplanted a bare root clone from soil to the hydro system 2 days ago... It's looking OK, but if it doesn't start showing some new growth by tomorrow then I think I may need to actually flush out some of the water and replace with bottled water. Perhaps there is something in my tap water that is causing a nute lock out? I've had DWC plants growing fine in it before, though... However, I know that my tap water is "hard" and always leaves water stains, perhaps it is too much calcium causing a lock out? Mmmmm, now I'm really tempted to go buy a couple bottles of distilled water and do a 1/2 flush.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 8, 2013)

Rapid rooters huh? I started using the root riot brand a few years ago and had phenomenal results. 90%+ success ratio. A few months ago my success ratio started dropping. Nothing major down to maybe 75% or so. A month or so ago I opened a new bag and noticed a strong musty smell. Smelled like mold to me. Even though there was no visible mold. I took the bag back to the store and they had several other ppl. Come in complaining of the same thing. The guy at the store called the supplier and they said the manufacturing process had been changed but the musty smell was ok. Now the bags have a perforation hole in the top corner. 

I do not like this new composition of the r/r's I still am only getting 70% or so to live so I am currently trying a few in rockwool cubes.
I ripped a few rr cubes open with some of the clones that were lagging and found fungus gnat larvae in almost everyone that failed to root. 

Now I don't know if it is just gnats from my room laying eggs in em which is possible. Or if they are coming contaminated either way I am trying to get away from the rr's and go rockwool for cloning. The way I figure it the hole in the bags is only providing entry for gnats while they are laying in some warehouse and shit, and that musty smell is like a homing beacon for gnats. 

One piece of advice I can give you is to try to cut some of the excess cube away without cutting your roots. This will allow the cube to dry out some. I cut the top corners off at a 45 and this helped to dry the stem out which was leading to damping off a while ago for me. Also make sure you pot the cube above the flood line. The roots will find their way down into the water. You may have to hand water for a few days until they do. Those cubes absorb so much water it is not good to have that on the stem all the time.

Another thing if you decide to cut roots later is to leave the taproots if possible. They will regrow fibrous roots later even if they look a little brown now. Any fibrous roots that were dead/brown you probably did well getting rid of. 

When I treated heavy with bleach it took almost a week to see healthy new root growth. 

Dwc is a recipe for disaster when it comes to root problems. IMO 
I know lots of ppl. use it successfully it just seems more finicky to me. Also I can see how it is harder to get rid of root rot cuz you cannot let your roots dry out. Which is the most effective means to clear up rot problems. 

Anyways good luck brother. I hope thing start going better for ya.

Finally after a couple of weeks of nonstop rez. changes and shit things are looking soooooooooo much better over here. Words can't describe how good I feel right now. I checked thoroughly last nite and couldn't find a single live aphid so I went ahead and drenched all my moms with azaguard for the gnats. 
I have Great new root growth and lush foliage. 

happpy happpy happy

I am also really liking running the dyna gro for the first 4 wks of flower so far. Far less leaf drop and overall they just look better. Still run dynabloom from5 wks on though. I may mix it 50/50 with the grow next rez change.

I can already tell with the mats and new trays I will be able to go back to 1xday flood if not more

Enjoy your last few moments on this earth gnats and aphids...... Soon you will all be dead


sorry for the super long post

Edit: I have never been a fan of foliar feeding. It seems I am always battling high humidity as it is. I don't like to give mold spores any more help to thrive.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 8, 2013)

I've always had to be weary of moisture issues with RR plugs and rockwool. Never had an issue with them smelling bad. I get at really good seed germination rates with them once I learned to keep them from getting too wet. I germ in a paper towel first and then go to RRs. My last set of clones (my first time cloning) I did bare root style. I secured them in a piece of foam and the stems hung bare into the bubbler container. Wasn't a great success but I got 6 out of 12 to root and I only needed at most 4 for my grow. 

The tap water here was reading around 250ppm but now it's coming out at 350ppm. We don't even drink it unless we run out of bottled water and we're desperate lol. 

Glad to hear you got your problems resolved! I really hope I get mine fixed up a lot faster than a few weeks or else I'm just gonna throw them into dirt and say fuck it. In fact I am going to wait till next weekend and if they haven't turned around they're going in to dirt pots. We're moving out of this apartment in September and I'll need 8-9wks for flower time and I want that to be done by the first week of September. 

All my hydro grows before were with distilled bottled water and I feed my soil plants bottled water so I'm really starting to believe now that my issues now are with the tap water here. It is delivered to the tap through copper pipes from 1960... meh.

Anyway, I just flushed out 12g of water (half of the total system) and replaced it with bottled distilled. I'm not going to adjust the nutes or add anything other than for pH'ing the solution and I added 15mL of bleach which I'm letting settle through the system now before I pH. IF I start to see a turn around over the next day or two in the plant health then I will probably flush another 12g out and replace with distilled and I won't use the tap water here again. 

The DM Zone I ordered yesterday should be here Tuesday or Wednesday this week, I'm excited to get that and stop using the sodium hypochlorite. The 2 local hydro stores didn't have it in stock


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## flyingsteve (Jun 8, 2013)

I hacked most all the roots off the plants, removing all of the rot and then I soaked them one by one in a strong h2o2 solution... Seeing bubbles come up was a good sign that bacteria was suffering the ultimate consequence. I gently squeezed the RR cubes to remove excess moisture and I lowered the water level in the DWC tanks to promote a slightly drier RR plug. I cleaned all the net pots, soaking them in a strong solution of bleach water and then rinsed them off. I added an additional quantity of bleach to the rdwc system to ensure whatever was floating around would be greatly decimated. Removing the rotted roots and soaking in h2o2 should have greatly helped in reducing spore count and then treating the water with more bleach to remove whatever was in circulation should have greatly helped... Only time will tell now.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 10, 2013)

it's not unusual for my tapwater to swing 100 ppm or so let me know how the dmzone works.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 13, 2013)

well I went three days without dosing with anything and the rez. last dosed with bleach is still clean but the rez last dosed with h202 had a massive slime bloom overnite. So I dosed it with 5 oz. of the pool shock solution.

The bugs are almost gone. Drenched entire veg w/gnatrol today Prolly gonna do a few more gnatrol drenches over the next week. also did another sulfur burn in flower. I'm gonna wait a few more days and prob. do one more imid drench in veg to ensure no aphids are hanging on. 

I am really liking this dynagro foliage pro. So far.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 13, 2013)

The bleach solution cleared all infection out of the system through and through. I've had no signs of anything for like a week now. Unfortunately after hacking the roots on them there plants they are mighty pissed off and don't seem to want to pop out new roots. I flushed the system and re-filled with bottled distilled h2o, chiller set to 65f, lights raised up, around a 1000ppm floranova Grow nutes with Superthrive.... It may be another week before they decide to root again, I'm not sure but I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't just cut my losses and start over with some fast growing autoflower ak-47 seeds I have. Even the one fully rooted clone I have, which I transplanted into hydro from soil - hence my pythium infection (I swear I'm so fucking stupid sometimes), has stopped growing and it looks like it is in a state of suspended animation. The leaves aren't yellowing, but it ain't growing. The leaves on another plant are actually standing up and looking happy but, still no new roots. 

I started the DM Gold Zone yesterday... It's the only thing in the tank now. No bleach or h2o2 or sm-90. 

So, what do you think? Should I start over? The plants are at a vegetative size that once new roots do emerge they will have pretty rapid growth but, I'll only be able to veg them till around the end of the month. If they don't put out roots for another week, then I'd have like 1 week to veg before having to go to flower. I'm worried that a proper-sized root system will not form quick enough to support even a modest yield. I've grown the auto ak47s before and it only took 6wks from seed to harvest and two weeks to dry and cure to get a really nice smoke. Seems like a really short time, but it was a really rocking smoke. They're not fem seeds, though. I was thinking I would start a bunch and the extras I would pot in some pure sand or vermiculite (or a mix or some other inert/easy to remove medium like hydroton) so I'd have extras ready and easily transplanted in the dwc system... Keep a male separate to collect pollen, too. 

OK, sorry about the long post but what ya think? At this point I'd be happy with some yield than no yield and my window of opportunity is dwindling.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 18, 2013)

Well any new roots yet steve?


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## flyingsteve (Jun 18, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Well any new roots yet steve?


I scrapped 4 of the 6 white russians. I found one that by some miracle sprouted a bounty of new roots from the RR plug over the course of maybe 12hrs. I was shocked as none of the others had yet to root. 
I took another white russian, short one with very dense mostly healthy vegetation, and planted it into a pot of sphagnum peat moss. It had no new roots showing, though. I sprinkled the RR plug with great white powder and buried the bitch. I know it'll recover and pull through in soil. Soil is the Plan B for me... I always get acceptable results and it's easy.

Yesterday I was getting ready to do a quick half flush on the hydro system to lower the PPMs and as the water drained out of the molasses colored water (Floranova grow) I could see the 2 5" air stones... Covered.... Thick... In brown algae cyanobacteria shit!!!! 

The one air stone had a good 1/2"+ thick jello consistency colony covering the entire porous surface! There was very little free floaters, surprisingly... This is with DM Gold Zone in the h2o. I did a whole flush and clean with bleach, blah blah, 2 shitty hours later I had flushed, refilled and flushed again, installed 2 new filter pads in the canister, installed another inline 9w UV sterilizer, refilled and added: distilled h2o, DM Gold Zone, SM-90 and after a quick trip to wal-mart (and following the instructions on the first page for mixing up Pool Shock - Thanks Joe) I added 17oz of diluted calcium hypochlorite. 

I tossed 4 of the white russians... Then I potted the newly sprouted autoflower ak47s (5 of them) and added the one rooted white russian. Ran just pH'd distilled h2o with the above mentioned sterilizers and a dosing of cal-mag for a little N + cal/mag/iron. Today I added in FloraNova (about 300ppm). I figure that I'll run 18/6 for the next 2-3wks until the autos begin to flower, giving the white russian time to re-gain a root mass and veg out more. Then I'll switch to 12/12 to flower the WR and the autos will probably suffer a little bit of yield but that'll be easily made up by the extra veg time on the WR.

All that said my RDWC is now like this; Cultivation tanks > canister filter/internal 9w uv > chiller > inline 9w uv lamp > cultivation tanks. Sterilized with a total of 18w UV, SM-90, DM Zone, CaClO2. Maintained at 65f +-1f.... Nothing in there has been transplanted from soil so it's all clean. I sterilized the RR plugs I used for the autoflowers with a long dip in DM Zone treated water and then rinsed with bottled distilled water. If I have any more pathogen related root problems I am going to flip shit and get soil pots out and toss the fuckin hydro shit lol.


**I'm wondering if this cyanobacteria is being introduced through the air pump. I plan to turn the pump off a few times a week for just a few minutes to allow the h2o with the added sterilizers to come in full contact with the air stone and even back up the air hose a bit.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 19, 2013)

Too bad ya had to scrap em but at least you saved a few. 

As far as the bleach goes. I am running waaaaay lower levels than initially. 

You said you added 17 oz of the diluted solution? This sounds like way too much based on what I have learned over the last couple of weeks. How many gallons are you running? 

I am down to dosing a 50 gallon rez. with two oz. of the cal hypo solution upon rez. change and I have not had to redose after for up to a week. I tried running a fresh rez with no cal hypo and developed pretty bad slime at three days. 

I would mix up a fresh batch of nutes with less bleach. Around 1 oz/25 gallons of rez seems to be working for me. 

I read on the deff. thread that excessive chlorine levels start locking out nutes, as well as frying roots. 

As far as turning your air pump off I would not. Esp since you are dwc. If you pull the stone out and clean it well with bleach upon fresh rez. change w/ bleach added you should be good. 

good luck man, you'll get it. My shit is finally under control(for now anyway)

2 oz of the pool shock (2 grams/gallon) solution and rez still crystal clear @ 5-7 days


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## 1itsme (Jun 19, 2013)

yeah the cal hypo is super strong, i'd be careful with that. otoh joe's exp with it sounds realy promising. you get rid of the root aphids yet? i'm suprised that whatever you were using for the root aphids didn't knock out the fungus gnats. the time i got root aphids last year i used evergreen 2 ml per gal as a dunk for the roots and 2 ml per in the res after + sprayed everything with it. seemed to knock them out for me. otoh fungus gnats seem pretty easy to kill. root aphids do get wings in their last stage tho. i thought they were just super tough fungus gnats for a while. their a pita on one thread about them someone was saying that their born pregnant and the larva can make it even if the mom is killed =/. gl guys


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## flyingsteve (Jun 19, 2013)

http://readynutrition.com/resources/better-than-bleach-use-calcium-hypochlorite-to-disinfect-water_19062010/

They're using 3.5g per gallon to make a solution and treating it at 1oz per 100oz to sterilize drinking water... We're doing 2g per gallon and only 1:128. Also, their using high strength CaClO2, the pool shock I got is only like 45% chlorine. 

I'm doing 1oz per gallon initially, so if you're getting good results with lower dosage than I'll cut back and see how it goes.

As the CaClO2 breaks down it degrades in to h2o and calcium... The fact that pathogens are constantly being introduced from air pump, metering tools, etc that you place in the water, the chlorine should degrade fairly quickly. Wish I knew exactly how fast so maybe I'll buy a test kit in the near future to check for total chlorine and free chlorine concentrations.

Turning the air pump off for a few minutes (2-3) will not cause harm. If it means getting CaClO2 in contact with the stones then it's worth it. May be it's entirely unnecessary, not sure. I seem to only get the brown slime at high nute concentrations.


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## 1itsme (Jun 19, 2013)

nice link ty


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## joe macclennan (Jun 19, 2013)

1itsme said:


> . you get rid of the root aphids yet?



Yessssssssssssssss..........................so far anyways That imidacloprid is some bad shit. Didn't touch the gnats tho. 

Fungus gnats are almost completely irradicated in veg. after several drenches w/gnatrol. 

A few gnats hanging on in flower after several drenches with azaguard. I am thinking about drenching flower 1x more with azaguard and switching it up to some evergreen next time. 

I finally got to flood my flower tables 2x today for the first time in months I think I am going to do 2x every other day for a while and see how things go. 

I am almost a week into this rez change and no slime with only the two oz initial cal hypo treatment. Rez. temps as high as 74

I will check and see what %the pool shock is


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## 1itsme (Jun 19, 2013)

i've been sold on evergreen since my root aphid prob but it's the only pyrethrin concentrate i can find @ here. there's a bunch of other ones (some alot cheaper) i'd prob use one of the cheaper ones if you can find it. also, cheap paint sprayers are realy good for spraying. they make much smaller drops so it hits everything. hth


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## joe macclennan (Jun 19, 2013)

1itsme said:


> i've been sold on evergreen since my root aphid prob but it's the only pyrethrin concentrate i can find @ here. there's a bunch of other ones (some alot cheaper) i'd prob use one of the cheaper ones if you can find it. also, cheap paint sprayers are realy good for spraying. they make much smaller drops so it hits everything. hth


Yah, I already have some evergreen. I also have a battery operated sprayer that holds bout a gallon. It works pretty good. Lately I've been doing drenches though and this is so much easier to me.

and I checked my pool shock and it is 48% cal hypo

EDIT: I like the azaguard cuz it is systemic. It just takes several applications and is only effective against larvae. I like to wait a week between applications. 

I have over a hundred sticky traps out to catch adults. Most of them are older and close to being pitched though. 

I put several traps out every couple of days to track how much better things are getting. The last couple have been out for two days and only like one gnat on each. 

I am going to do one more azaguard drench in the next couple of days. If there are any gnats left then I might do an evergreen drench next week.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 21, 2013)

While working with my plants today I took a glimpse at the air stones and the one stone had a little bit of brown algae on it... OK, so DM Zone, SM-90 and the diluted CaClO2 isn't holding it back? idk... So I went ahead and mixed up a new gallon of CaClO2, this time using 3g rather than 2g and I dosed at 1oz/g + 2oz extra for good measure. Turned off air pump for a few minutes so the stones would get fully saturated. 

I gotta keep an eye on this.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 21, 2013)

hmmm, hope you get it under control. What temp is your rez runnin? What kind of nutes you runnin?


7 days since initial pool shock treatment of two oz. of solution per 50 gallons and still clean here. Temps as high as 74f regularly 70-72f

If the levels of calhypo you are running do not get it under control I would suggest maybe going away from dwc to f&d 

I know how frustrating this is for you.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 21, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> hmmm, hope you get it under control. What temp is your rez runnin? What kind of nutes you runnin?
> 
> 
> 7 days since initial pool shock treatment of two oz. of solution per 50 gallons and still clean here. Temps as high as 74f regularly 70-72f
> ...


65f +-1F. GH FloraNova Grow - Brand new bottle of it, too. I'm thinking that these brown algae spores are floating around in the air and getting sucked in through the air pump. When I was using liquid NaClO2 (bleach) at 1ml/g it took care that slime no prob. I don't really care if there is a tiny bit of this slime shit on an air stone, but I need to keep an eye on it that it doesn't grow/spread beyond what I see now. 

I can't switch to F&D right now, but maybe in the future when I do my next grow setup. We're moving out of this apt in September, so don't have the time or really the $ to switch things up.

This cyanobacteria shit doesn't care about temperature or light... Still not sure what it feeds off of. Would like to get a sample of it growing some day so I can have it identified by a professional.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 25, 2013)

Well now I have a bit of brown algae starting. First time for this. Kinda looks like bits of tobacco floating on top and sticking to sides of rez. I doubled my dose of bleach to 4oz/hypochlorite solution per 50 gallons. Rez temps 74f. Only have it starting in 1 rez. but dosed em all anyway as they are all side by side. 

On the upside last batch of clones have roots after 7 days first time I have had roots this fast in a while. Must be doin somethin right. 

Happy happy happy. 

did a drench with 2ml/azaguard/evergreen/gallon tonite of around 10% of flower for the gnats. 

Little fuckers just won't go away. I may end up mixing some sns203 in with my nutes toward the end of rez. life. I also have some cinnamon extract bear said he heard is good to keep gnats away. Thinking about adding some of that in also.


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## 1itsme (Jun 25, 2013)

their still not gone? those are some tough fungus gnats o.o


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## 1itsme (Jun 25, 2013)

ok found a site that gives a dilution rate of 1-2 tsp per gal for spraying or irrigation.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=evergreen dilution rates&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&ved=0CFgQFjAI&url=http://hawaii.gov/hdoa/labels/9472.17_2013.pdf&ei=TUjKUfSmBZHPqwHI_oCwBQ&usg=AFQjCNGuOXek1lqWQl96u6iD2oq_IWfV_A


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## flyingsteve (Jun 26, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Well now I have a bit of brown algae starting. First time for this. Kinda looks like bits of tobacco floating on top and sticking to sides of rez. I doubled my dose of bleach to 4oz/hypochlorite solution per 50 gallons. Rez temps 74f. Only have it starting in 1 rez. but dosed em all anyway as they are all side by side.


No worries on a higher dose of calcium hypochlorite... It's pretty safe. I'm using 4gr/ga diluted and then around 1oz of that per 4ga of nutrient solution. 

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/423734-make-2200-worth-clear-rez.html


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## joe macclennan (Jun 29, 2013)

great link steve. I remember seeing that thread but couldn't remember the details. 

It is reassuring to hear others have ran much higher levels than I am now. 

Recently, the highest dose I have had to do is 4 oz of the 2g/gallon solution has taken care of the worst problems I have had. 

I seem to only have to add it into a fresh rez. and it lasts over a week without re-dosing. 

4 oz was only necessary when rez. temps were exceeding 74f

anything below that 2 oz seemed to work.

I am soooo happy this is working well cuz I reallllllllly didn't want to fuck around with brewing teas and shit and the h202 just wasn't cutting it.

Introducing mollasses into a hydroponic system just seems like a baaaaaaaaad Idea to me.

Edit: So I did a drench tonite in flower with 2ml azaguard,2ml evergreen and 2ml cinnamon oil per gallon. ro water phd' to 5.8 I did a test of this a few days ago on a few plants with no ill effects so I went whole hawg tonite. 

Awesome combination here I think. 

Out of the entire drench less than 15% of the pots had any gnats come out upon drenching and let me tell ya. It was immediate. As soon as this combo hit the hydroton them little fucks came flying out. I have a sticky trap in every other pot.

got them little fuckers on the run I think.

I put several fresh traps out so we'll see how many customers I get.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 29, 2013)

Glad to help, Joe. 

I just added about 30oz of 4gr/ga CaClO2 solution yesterday because of an impending rot issue, as detecting by my nose... However, right now I only have 1 plant in the system and it has no roots in the solution, so I wasn't too worried about shocking plants. I've had a tough time with balancing the moisture in the rapid rooter plugs in the net pots; Hence my rot issue. I think I learned the trick yesterday, though... I re-potted the one and only plant in the system, this time elevating the RR plug so that the top of it is above the hydroton and the bottom of the plug is about 3/4" or so from the bottom of the net pot. This way there will be a natural wicking effect... The top of the plug is exposed to air for evaporation and the bottom of the plug is being wet by the bubble splash and moisture on the hydroton. Before the plug was sitting at the bottom of the net pot with the top of the plug covered by hydroton, so the plug was soaked and stayed soaked causing slow growth - and as my olfactory was detecting - the onset of rot. 
Luckily, I intervened before it got worse and I think the new setup is the answer I've been searching for all along. 

All that nonsense being said, after this grow I will be switching to aeroponics @ 200PSI. My first adventure in to hydroponics was aero, using a pump and stainless mist nozzles at 130psi. The things that turn me on to that system are the greater control of root zone variables, using 5 to 10g reservoir rather than easily 20+ for dwc or NFT, not needing to use a large chiller, not having the same fluctuations in nutrients and pH, less nutrients used overall and lower PPMs, etc. If you have any doubt to the advantages of high pressure aero... Take a look at those roots! http://thehotpepper.com/topic/36616-high-pressure-aeroponics/

She seems to be responding well to this new setup already after less than 24hrs.

On another note, I picked up a series of hydroponic ebooks that are just fantastic and packed full of useful info. If you want them, drop me a PM with your e-mail. Their in PDF format.

** I've been watching one root on the side of the net pot grow over the course of the day and so far it has elongated by a 1/4"... The leaves are also starting to pick up. Very very happy to see that repositioning the rapid rooter cube was the right thing to do and I now know how to pot the other 5 seedlings.


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## joe macclennan (Jun 29, 2013)

yep, I'm sure potting the rr's higher will help.

I have never tried hp aero. I ran low press. aero/nft aka the stinkbud system for a while. It produced amazing results for a while but I was constantly battling rootzone problems. Also the foam plugs allowed water to wick up the stem causing damping off. Running chillers and circ. pumps got to be pretty expensive. Plus I had to keep my room cooler so it cost more in ac usage. This is why I went back to trusty f&D. Turning the chillers and shit off allowed me to plug in a few more lights.

Pretty neat system overall tho and I plan on doing a test run in it sometime in the future. 

The biggest problem I had with aero was getting my homemade ez cloner to produce roots consistently. Plus I had to run a chiller for it with uv sterilization. Pretty big pita just to get clones. Sometimes it worked awesome though.


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## 1itsme (Jun 29, 2013)

yeah, i tried dwc before and had probs, then f&d... same probs. I switched to coco dtw and most of the probs went away. 5 gal res, no ph swing, less water, less nutes, less problems. I'd like to make a cloner that would save some serious time lol.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 29, 2013)

I figure that even though I will probably need to run a chiller still, I'll only be chilling 5g or so, which could be done with a frigg'n mini fridge compressor in lickity split time. I'm actually thinking that instead of chilling the res, I may just create an air circulation through the root zone and cool that air... As for keeping the res clean, I'll use CaClO2 and if need be a small pond pump to circulate the water through a UV sterilizer or use the canister filter with it's UV lamp. Overall I know I will use less electric than a DWC system like I've got now... And once I expand my grow that will require twice the water for DWC so then I'll need to use tap water, requiring RO filtration... Blah blah, why not just go to aero (drain to waste) and get far better results and use far less water and nutes? If I need to dump and replace res every week or two it'll only be a few gallons to deal with, not 20 or 40 or 60g like DWC. 

The high pressure pump I am looking at is an Aquatec RO booster pump that delivers up to 200PSI @ 4amps x 12vdc... Along with Acetyl nozzles which are very resistant to clogging and cheap, around $1.50-$2/ea... And anti-drip valves that open at 180psi... BYAAAA!!! lol 

Personally, I want to make a fogponics cloner. However, the fogger can add considerable heat to the water as I've already experience, but if you're using distilled or even spring water you should have no problems circulating it through a copper or brass core radiator (like for PC cooling) to keep temps in check.


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## 1itsme (Jun 29, 2013)

with 5 gal you could put the res in a mini fridge.


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## flyingsteve (Jun 29, 2013)

1itsme said:


> with 5 gal you could put the res in a mini fridge.


Word. Or use the 1/5hp chiller I built for my DWC... Would take no time at all to keep that small amount of h2o chilled. Thick layers of insulation on the res would help. Not doing this for a few months so I have plenty of time to plan, design, and test. Need to decide on how many plants I intend to veg and flower, too.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 12, 2013)

Well things have really turned around over here. I am dosing a fresh rez once with between 2-4oz of the cal.hypo solution/50gallons and it is keeping things ship shape for 7+days

Rez. temps exceeding 75f at times.


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## sbirch (Jul 12, 2013)

Love hearing great news about bleach. Now how much can you spend at the nute store on all their expensive snake oils????


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## flyingsteve (Jul 13, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> Well things have really turned around over here. I am dosing a fresh rez once with between 2-4oz of the cal.hypo solution/50gallons and it is keeping things ship shape for 7+days
> 
> Rez. temps exceeding 75f at times.


I'd probably have the same luck w/o the light leaks! New totes going in today.



sbirch said:


> Love hearing great news about bleach. Now how much can you spend at the nute store on all their expensive snake oils????


Lots of snake oils, indeed... But one that does work is Dutch Master Zone.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 13, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> I'd probably have the same luck w/o the light leaks! New totes going in today.
> 
> 
> 
> Lots of snake oils, indeed... But one that does work is Dutch Master Zone.



Yep, light leaks will kill ya. I taped my totes w/metalized duct tape to keep the light out when I was doing the nft thing.


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## legallyflying (Jul 14, 2013)

Can I ask what brand of pool shock your using? I saw hth pool shock and googled it.. There are like 5 different types of pool HTH pool shock. Guess I'm not 16 anymore. When I was a kid there was only one type of pool shock. 

Kind of like everything I guess. Went to the convienence store for some Doritos the other day.. Sweet chili Doritos, spicy hot wing Doritos, chili lime Doritos, salsa verde Doritos (as fuckkng if).. I was a little drunk " where the hell are the Dorito flavored Doritos?" "Rwat flavor dorito u wooking fo?" "Nacho cheese, man, just plain old dorito flavored Doritos". "Ohh, we no have rhat one"

Sigh.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 14, 2013)

dorito flavored doritos hahaha. I know what you mean there brother

I'll check in a little bit on the pool shock. I believe it is just hth pool shock. 48% cal hypo. I got a two pound bottle at meijers for like 10 bucks or something.

edit: it is actually spa shock.


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## MoJobud (Jul 14, 2013)

You can get it at most walmarts. Mine has a blue band going across the top.


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## flyingsteve (Jul 15, 2013)

MoJobud said:


> You can get it at most walmarts. Mine has a blue band going across the top.


Wal-Mart has the shit for like $2.50/lb bag



joe macclennan said:


> Yep, light leaks will kill ya. I taped my totes w/metalized duct tape to keep the light out when I was doing the nft thing.


I wrapped my (clear) totes in insulation tape. There were very small gaps between the tape apparently... But the worst of the light infiltration seemed to be around the edges of the lids and around the net pots. I put the new (not clear and spray painted) totes in yesterday and paid extra attention to light leak spots. I even realized that the end caps on the chiller heat exchanger were an easy place for crazy light leakage to occur so I foil taped them, too. If my tank doesn't begin to smell like a pond in a few days then I'll know I got all the leaks sealed up.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 15, 2013)

flyingsteve said:


> I put the new (not clear and spray painted) totes in yesterday and paid extra attention to light leak spots..



I tried spray paint on the totes. It always ended up flaking off. Even with the stuff that was supposed to be for plastic. 

Man youve been battling this for a while. You are due for a break. Hope you get it. 

thinking good thoughts for ya brotha.


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## flyingsteve (Jul 15, 2013)

joe macclennan said:


> I tried spray paint on the totes. It always ended up flaking off. Even with the stuff that was supposed to be for plastic.
> 
> Man youve been battling this for a while. You are due for a break. Hope you get it.
> 
> thinking good thoughts for ya brotha.


Thanks!!

It does flake off and I got the shit for Plastic, too... Nothing likes to stick to PE plastics. It's been like 24hrs since they've been put in to their new home and so far nothing has changed. I'm running a mix of tap/RO water with an initial PPM of 250 and I put in another 250ppm of FloraNova Grow. All the clones have roots but they're all being shy to grow down below and up top.


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## GreenDyl (Jul 15, 2013)

Any clue what the dosage would be for 78% cal hypo? Got it from my local pool shop. Not Hth brand though


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## machead (Jul 15, 2013)

Hi

This sounds to good to be true put am going to give this a shot too as am always fighting the brown slim!

I'm from the UK is this the right thing to buy? An should i just does what they recommend?

Thanks

if scroll down on this page gives you the info

http://mistralni.co.uk/products/calcium-hypochlorite?gclid=CLbf6ajJsrgCFYRP3godVioAMA


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## GreenDyl (Jul 15, 2013)

Nvm went to Walmart and got the 48% shit


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## legallyflying (Jul 15, 2013)

Why the fuck do you guys shop at Walmart? Seriously


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## cannabineer (Jul 15, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> Why the fuck do you guys shop at Walmart? Seriously


Out here in the 'Stan it is the only game in town. Alternative: drive an hour-plus. cn


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## GreenDyl (Jul 15, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> Why the fuck do you guys shop at Walmart? Seriously


 lol I usually don't but I really wanted to get a specific product


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## flyingsteve (Jul 16, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> Why the fuck do you guys shop at Walmart? Seriously


Where else are you gonna go to buy pool shock, duct tape, and condoms at the same time?

But seriously, fuck wal-mart.


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## MoJobud (Jul 16, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> Why the fuck do you guys shop at Walmart? Seriously


Because I'm not about to drive around town looking for a $2 bag of pool shock. I have $hit to take care of. I eat red meat and I am a capitalist.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 16, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> Why the fuck do you guys shop at Walmart? Seriously


I'd rather not but it seems they have achieved their monopoly on the american shopping experience. At least around here. Honestly I prefer to shop online. Esp. if I can get free shipping. Sometimes I just need my stuff NOW tho.


cannabineer said:


> Out here in the 'Stan it is the only game in town. Alternative: drive an hour-plus. cn


what he said^^^^


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## Sir.Ganga (Jul 16, 2013)

After reading this entire thread I remember why I went to Rockwool slabs. I pulled my hair out for years with slime, plugged lines, chillers, and one problem after another depending on the season...My GOD its stressing me out ALREADY! LOL. It was a blessing when I met the man that turned me on to the rock...You really should look into it, basically it grows its self with very little trouble like the kind in this thread. If the trouble gets to ya look into Rockwool it might be right for you too?


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## joe macclennan (Jul 16, 2013)

Sir.Ganga said:


> After reading this entire thread I remember why I went to Rockwool slabs. I pulled my hair out for years with slime, plugged lines, chillers, and one problem after another depending on the season...My GOD its stressing me out ALREADY! LOL. It was a blessing when I met the man that turned me on to the rock...You really should look into it, basically it grows its self with very little trouble like the kind in this thread. If the trouble gets to ya look into Rockwool it might be right for you too?


i've used rw for years. Way higher success ratio in rr plugs. In fact I have a few in rw now. Only because I had extra starts and ran out of rr's tho.


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## legallyflying (Jul 16, 2013)

Ditto. Rockwell is good and all but the rapid rooters seem to hold slightly more water. For whatever reason I dig the rapid rooters. But, as a throw back to my aero cloner days, I still boil the water that I soak the RR in. 

Maybe I'll try the bleach and go back to DWC. Love the growth rate and yield for DWC but it IS exponentially more work. Especially when you have a bigger operation. Air pumps, air stones, hoses, chillers..blah blah blah. 

One tip though for those running many buckets with air stones. I used that 1/2" funny pipe...the stiff black plastic stuff for drip irrigation, and made one big loop around the room. Then I used the little drip taps to punch into the line right at each bucket and run the air hose to the bucket. Way cleaner than those stupid manifold that have airlines running all over. In addition, each site gets equal air as the hose lengths are all the same.

Cheers


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## joe macclennan (Jul 16, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> , I still boil the water that I soak the RR in.
> Cheers



7ml/gallon h202 and phd ro water all I use. I do have some free rooting hormone samples from the hy store i've been thinking about trying. The recommended application rate is 1ml/gallon. 

I see 80% with roots @ 5-14 days in the rr's 90%+ success not unusual, and it often takes 14 days+ to see any roots in the rw. Usually only see around 
50-60% success in rw as well.


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## Nizza (Jul 16, 2013)

i like to use black 3mil plastic and a spray adhesive, and then you use that thin shiny insulation shit (keep it cool) around it later on . the black plastic will really ensure the light isnt going through your tote and yes i experience the cracking of the spraypaint too i think its because the tote flexes when its filled with water, expanding the tote and cracking the paint everywhere.

the black plastic is kind of hard to work with, i just cut a bigger piece than i need, put it on, and trim it after it dries

I've really been thinking of using the spinout product that you paint inside the bucket that basically air prunes the roots so that it prevents "spinout"
its some sort of paint that has copper ions that stop roots from growing withing ~1/4" of it. works good for 2-3 grows i've heard, but someone said it says "not for fruit bearing plants" 
does this mean it's unsafe for cannabis?? 
Uncle ben says it isn't any more toxic but i'd like to hear other peoples opinions on this subject because im seriously thinking about using the product


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## legallyflying (Jul 17, 2013)

Your seriously thinking about putting copper inside your container... how root bound are you actually getting?


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## sbirch (Jul 17, 2013)

Dutch Master Zone? Maybe Ill try it, is it as cheap as bleach.. Kidding, maybe I still will, my rez temps are 80 and have been for weeks. But maybe it's luck. Whats in dutch master zone anyway?


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## legallyflying (Jul 17, 2013)

DM zone is essentially chloramine. Or that's what I have heard several times. Chloramine..for those that lack the ability to google it, is chlorine bonded with ammonia. Much more stable, does NOT off gas or come out of solution like chlorine does. 

Rez temp of 80! Yeah, you could say that your lucky although several not so flattering adjectives come to mind first.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 17, 2013)

legallyflying said:


> DM zone is essentially chloramine. Or that's what I have heard several times. Chloramine..for those that lack the ability to google it, is chlorine bonded with ammonia. Much more stable, does NOT off gas or come out of solution like chlorine does.
> 
> Rez temp of 80! Yeah, you could say that your lucky although several not so flattering adjectives come to mind first.



I believe chloramine is less effective as a sterilizing agent than chlorine or cal.hypo. But, yes more stable.


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## legallyflying (Jul 18, 2013)

I can attest to that. Our city has low levels of chloramine..and Cyanobacteria 

If I don't do something to combat the slime I get it EVERY time. The price of having fresh clean water I guess. Some of the best tasting water in the country supposedly. Anywho, it's 16 ppm out of the tap


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## joe macclennan (Jul 20, 2013)

well sumbitch fucking root aphids are back. Well, I think they have been here i've just been misidentifying them as fungus gnat larvae. It appears you were correct 1itsme. I've been doing weekly drenches with a mixture of azaguard/evergreen and cinnamon oil in flower for what I thought were the gnat larvae. It's been keeping them down but not quite eradicated. Interestingly I was using gnatrol as a drench in veg. up until a few weeks ago too and it must have been effective against the little buggers. Shits expensive tho.I skipped a few weeks just cuz I was lazy more than anything and noticed quite a few larvae clumping together in the bottom of my ebb buckets after flood. so I got my loupe out to look a little closer and sure as shit aphid babies. FUCK I've seen no adults or fliers so the evergreen/pyrethrin cinn. drenches must have been doing ok but not quite good enough. Guess I'm gonna have to step it up. I did a drench in veg with the Imidacloprid and evergreen mixed together. I tested the mix on a few yesterday and they seem to be doing fine with this mixture. I hate using that imid cuz it's some strong stuff. Gots to do what I gots to do. I may end up dumping some of the sns203 into my rez. too. idk. I hate to add stuff like this to clean rez. tho. Maybe I'll wait till the end of the rez. life and do it. I'm increasing the evergreen dose at every drench. no slime or bullshit tho thanks to the cal hypo. 1-2 ml/gallon


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## El Tiberon (Jul 21, 2013)

I haven't used my frozen jugs in the res in weeks. Not a sign of algae. The pool shock works really well. Res temps have averaged more than 80 degrees. The only problem I am having is all the rain we are getting here is knocking the flowers off all my vegetables. The aero system as a whole is performing very well. Well more than 1 inch a day of growth and to be honest it is closer to 2 inches a day.


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## joe macclennan (Jul 21, 2013)

wow tiberon 80+ in an aero system huh? That's a testament to how well the pool shock works in itself.Awesome+++


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## El Tiberon (Jul 21, 2013)

There are more videos there that show the system from the beginning to yesterday. Click the You tube button and it will be easy to find them. I make one video each week to record the testing of this system. 

[video=youtube_share;GuJwprstqIg]http://youtu.be/GuJwprstqIg[/video]


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## El Tiberon (Jul 21, 2013)

This was 8 weeks ago and included the time I had nute issues and fighting the algae. The growth is amazing to watch. This should prove to people that even in the heat of the dirty south, algae can be easily controlled even with high water temps. I would not recommend that people use different plants in the same rails. There are too many different nute levels plants require to be perfect with the grow. This system will be packed up and taken to Cali, Colombia with me for further testing. 

[video=youtube_share;ucrR55fIVIE]http://youtu.be/ucrR55fIVIE[/video]


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## legallyflying (Jul 22, 2013)

Bummer about the root aphids Joe. I heard they are neary impossibly to get rid off! 

Let me know how it goes, they can be devastating to a harvest for sure!


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## joe macclennan (Jul 23, 2013)

yeh, I caught em before too much damage was done this time. Reallly no yellowing whatsoever on plants. I just noticed a few of em floating in my ebb buckets. I'm hitting my veg. plants hard with imid/spectrazine . I did my moms with this concoction tonight. If I don't see any ill effects tomorrow gonna do the rest of veg. with it. Thinking about doing an orthene drench next week in veg. To rotate something else in and stave off any possible resistance. I've never used orthene in this way, but the label says it can be used as a drench. I did my flower tables with a azaguard/evergreen/sns-203/cinnamon oil drench tonight as well. I upped the evergreen to 7ml/gallon. Hopefully it isn't too much. we'll see. Fucking bugs


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## joe macclennan (Sep 10, 2013)

so anyway, been awhile since I've posted here and figured i'd give an update. 

The slime is non existent anymore, and I haven't had to add any bleach since like three weeks ago. Even then I applied the diluted solution of pool shock 2grams/gallon water. @ a rate of 1ml/gallon rez and it cleared it right up likity split. Only one dose needed upon new rez and it lasted all week slime free.


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## Hammer_time (Dec 17, 2016)

i had to be a dumb ass with a silly question. When everyone is reffering to the amounts of chlorine to put in there nut solution is it the dissolved chlorine solution or straight out of the chlorine pack.

Can someone put up a noob formula.

eg.
when using pool shock that is at 45% availble chlorine, then mix 1 oz to a gallon of water then use the MIXED solution at 1ml per litre etc etc.

and same for the liquid version.

I think it will help to let people know what % of cholrine to mix when and how please.


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## Hammer_time (Dec 17, 2016)

GreenDyl said:


> Any clue what the dosage would be for 78% cal hypo? Got it from my local pool shop. Not Hth brand though


any answer to this question?


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