Have to Pull a Male Today. How Do I Separate Roots?

Hey guys I have a small Aerogarden grow going, so far so good. ((https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/410802-dees-1st-grow-aerogarden-bagseed.html)) Out of my two plants (Debra/Crystal) it looks like only Crystal is female. So Debra's gotta go! Their root systems really got intertwined this week, any suggestions on separating them successfully??? Here's a pic from last night, Crystal is the big girl on the left. Debra is the little one with balls.
???

I'm screwed, aren't I?

Well, here goes nothing. I'll separate what I can by hand and then go in with the scissors. I wonder if it's better to cut more of the female's roots (since they can grow back) in order to ensure I don't leave excessive dead matter in the res, or to treat her more gingerly sparing her roots at the expense of having to leave some roots from the male plant in there. I'm not experienced enough to know how much cutting her roots can take before she suffers as a result...

DeeWelch: if they're not out of control it would be best not to cut anything. It'll take a little patience to do it but you should be able to separate them. Times like these it's good to have a friend around to help.

i would cut the male at the trunk and keep changing the water every few days with added h2o2 to help clean the dying roots out.

If it were me, I would NOT leave the male roots intact in the garden... that is just me....

Yeah, maybe leave it alive at the stem so it can't knock up your girls. Give you some time to untangle without immediate root rot

Leave it alive at the stem?

Thanks guys! I was able to separate more by hand than I expected by kind of "fluffing" the roots around underwater while gently pulling them apart with my fingers. The couple of cuts I had to make with scissors were mainly to the male plant's roots. Once they were separated I put the female (Crystal) into a fresh batch of nutes and H2O2. I'm going to change it out a couple of times this week until I'm satisfied that all the male roots are gone. I've heard Hygrozyme helps break down dead roots so if things start to not look good maybe I'll pick up some of that, but I think I removed enough that the H2O2 should be just fine. Time will tell.

MrDank007 said:

Yeah, maybe leave it alive at the stem so it can't knock up your girls. Give you some time to untangle without immediate root rot

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I've heard about keeping the male cut way back but alive so that you don't have to separate out the roots, but the idea kinda scared me. It seems like there would be a lot of upkeep required in keeping it alive but not producing pollen, and shitty consequences if you failed. It might be a tactic better suited for a plant that hermied later in flowering? I dunnow. Besides, I can't have girls with balls on my main stage, even if they do hide them well. It's not that kind of club.

Checked the res yesterday and found that my airstone had knocked a lot of leftover roots from Debra loose. I did a swap for fresh water and H2O2, and I'll do one more change today or tomorrow back to water/nutes/H2O2. Keeping my fingers crossed. Here's a pic of the reservoir today, and one of Crystal I took during the res change. Thanks for the help so far!
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I am in a similar situation. I had 3 plants going in my aerogarden until a week ago when I cut down one which was a male. I left about an inch of the stem and didn't touch the roots. I also have not yet flushed the reservoir like I hear discussed on here. Has anyone had an experience with not flushing the reservoir. My 2 females seem to be doing pretty well with buds (white hairs) forming all over the place (they were 8 weeks old yesterday). I'll put up some pics later this weekend. Any advice anyone can provide on the need to flush and how to do it would be appreciated. I'm scared to mess up what looks to be a good grow so far. Thanks,