Aero Grow Babies with Suspected Root Rot-Any Help Appreciated

Trichy Bastard

Well-Known Member
High guys... I haven't grown in 20 years or so, but used to get fine results with hydro back in my teen years. I am trying to use a dominaero propagation chamber to get some seedlings started (documented in journal). There is an ultrasonic fogger on 24 hours, and some low pressure spinners 15on 30off. My res was in the 95 temp range for a week until the chiller came-caused me issues. I have one indica and one sativa that made it- about 2.5 weeks old, but they haven't shown any growth in over a week or more (I'll seperate them eventually). They're stuck at an inch tall, first set of serrated leaves- look green and all, but it's frustrating. I've tried upping the nutes, Dutchmaster A+B and a small amount of silica to about total 400ppm from 150ppm (.7 scale) r.o.. water, and still no change. I added peroxide to the res and that seemed to make somewhat of a difference. The leaf tips look slightly burnt- but they showed that even when the ppm was 150- so I doubt it's nute burn. I think it's the dreaded root rot. Ph stays between 5.7-5.9- outside sunlight, - so I can't think of any other logical explanation. I'm not going to bother wasting anymore good seeds till I dial everything in right. I already have a feeling that this complicated approach I am challenging myself with is gonna be fussy to get dialed in. Right now I am soaking them in a 4:1 water to 3% peroxide solution. And the roots are bubbling- so I'm nearly positive on the root rot. Does anyone think there is anything else I could do- or if they will even survive? :wall:

Pics to follow... For some reason i cannot upload via i.e.9 (it just hangs on the upload)- so I have to relog in with firefox to upload- anyone know about that too?
 

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Trichy Bastard

Well-Known Member
By the way- I am not using any organics- so the root discoloration is indicitave of root rot. But honestly- the photos made it look much worse than it does to my normal eyes... After letting them soak for an hour or so in the peroxide it has bleached them mostly white again.
 

sparkafire

Well-Known Member
Dude this is a tough one you have so much going on to figure out the best way to help. I am going to sribe and wait and see what others say.
 

Trichy Bastard

Well-Known Member
Dude this is a tough one you have so much going on to figure out the best way to help. I am going to sribe and wait and see what others say.
Ha- thanks man. I'm pretty sure that root rot got the upperhand when the res was too warm. The other 7 seedlings perished, and these last 2 are putting up a fight. I think the environment is good now, but I gotta shake the rot. I have been soaking them in exceedingly stronger amounts of peroxide, looking for some sort of toxicity, but so far it has been the only helpful thing. I wonder if I should just soak them in pure 3% for a while and either it kills em, or heals em...
 

fallinprince

Active Member
r you using a store bought 3 % hydrogen peroxide? or are you talking about a self diluted form? if you are using the store bought kind. Its not a stable dosage and you would get much better results finding a 35% solution and reducing it yourself, or so im told.

also consider Superthrive its listed as helping with that (you can find this most gardening stores) a little goes a long way. its used to help the growth of seedlings and clones.

ps. how does your chiller work? can you adjust the temperature? or is a set gain in temperature? and how much did you spend? if you dont mind me being nosy
 

Trichy Bastard

Well-Known Member
r you using a store bought 3 % hydrogen peroxide? or are you talking about a self diluted form? if you are using the store bought kind. Its not a stable dosage and you would get much better results finding a 35% solution and reducing it yourself, or so im told.

also consider Superthrive its listed as helping with that (you can find this most gardening stores) a little goes a long way. its used to help the growth of seedlings and clones.

ps. how does your chiller work? can you adjust the temperature? or is a set gain in temperature? and how much did you spend? if you dont mind me being nosy
Yes, unfortunately living on an island has it's drawbacks. Highly oxidizing materials are hard to find out here due to shipping restrictions. I think there is a single hydro store here that might sell the food grade stuff- and it also won't contain any possibly toxic stabilizers- so I should go that route. Thanks for the superthrive tip- hopefuly its not a benny formula- the ultrasonic transducers will kill them apparently if so.

I found a great deal on a JBJ artica nano chiller. I am only chilling 10-15 gals with an ambient temp that goes up to 95f. But this little 1/15 hp is doing it no problem. It only took about 30 minutes to bring it from 95f down to 68f. yesterday I set it low to see how low it would go- the t-stat goes to from 99f-32f - but the actual temp would not go lower than about 60f. Thats because my res is black, in real sunlight, and if I insulated it I am sure it would get much lower. I did alot of research, and while JBJ is the most expensive- it also seems the best, and the industry leader. It's specs said it could chill about as adequate as most 1/10 hp out there. It has a titanium exchanger- so it will not leach/corrode in salts/nutes. It is virtually silent- and I consider it a great score, I found a company on ebay selling them for $50-150 cheaper than anyone else ($299usd )- 100% positive feedback seller- and they even did free ground shipping, or ultracheap next day air for 10 bucks more!!! It clicks on within a 1 degree variance of the set temp- and although I don't have any prior experince to compare it to- I would consider it likely the best brand, and the best price out there from this seller... "Premium aquatics" -they have ebay listings too. I've read alot of people saying that a chiller although pricey, in retrospect, was one of the best purchases they ever made. In my case it was obviously essential. Homebrewer seems to be okay with his higher temps- but he does ebb/flo- so the rockwool evaporation would keep the roots much cooler than the res temp. Anyone doing some sort of aeroponics, or dwc or however the roots would be in constant contact with the res fluids- should definitely consider maintaining a good temp in my opinion. The fluids will hold much more soluble o2 and also keep algea n stuff to a minimum. Hope this helped p.s.- all it is is a cooler with an input/output nipples- you just have to hook up a $10 160/gph pump and some 1/2in hose from and back to the res to recirculate. The pump stays on at all times- and the chiller clicks on automatically when the temp requires it- also the chiller has a constant readout of the actual solution temps- it's kinda nice to glance at and know. I guess the other cool thing is that if your ec/ppm meter doesnt have atc (automatic temperature compensation) - having a constant res temp would make it easy to manually calculate ec/ppm yourself with the same multiplier each time- or you could even just know what your target ppm reading is at that particular never changing temp...
 

fallinprince

Active Member
wow intense read. first super thrive is supposed to be vitamins and hormones so no bene's to be killed by the fogger.

Superthrive saved my ass for a long time when i was failing a soil grow its supposed to be great for cloning some people swear by a (bubblerbox + superthrive+ph'd water)only method so i dont see why it wouldnt excel at keeping your youngins alive.

i was thinking about getting a 10 site fogger for my setup (giving me roughly 2 1/2 discs per bar) and putting it in a box that sits above the setup and blows fog into the main bars.
If i do that though i think im gonna need a cooler it also doesn't help that those foggers produce there own heat. sometimes i feel like i'm living in a desert ;)

Yeah knowing your res temp is that temperature no matter what you do with heat would be nice even inside. Im really interested in your grow because ive always been interested in fogaponics but stayed away due to reliability complaints and lack of funds. Next grow however ill hope to fix that

PS can you link this thread into your signature?
 

brownbearclan

Active Member
I'd use 29% H202 or higher at anywhere from 1-5ML per gallon of water, don;t even bother with the regular store bought 3% stuff, it has too many fillers and causes as much problems as it fixes. Peace. =)
 

Trichy Bastard

Well-Known Member
Cool- well I must say that at this point I believe fog is best blown in to the plant chamber from a seperate reservoir. The transducers do make a little heat- but if the warmer water is remotely located- and only the fog vapors get to the plants it should be much cooler due to the evaporation factor. I'd try it without a chiller and then measure the rootzone air temps- you might be okay... I have learned that fog simply does not vaporize enough nutrients and water to be solely used throughout a full grow- but it's a great supplemental thing- and can't be beat for cloning. I am almost done completing my high pressure aero blueprints (which is still hailed as the single best resulted way to grow- but usually complicated and expensive). I have found some cheap but quality solutions and I'd be happy to share the design here with you or anyone else interested... I think I have all the info I need, and I'm going to try to do remote fogging in conjunction with the sporadic high pressure 50 micron bursts all in a drain to waste system that will keep res/nute/ph issues pretty much as simple as it gets, all while possibly saving money on nutes even over a traditional ebb n flow design. I think this will be the most simple- but highest quality way to grow- I'm actually really excited!
Sorry if I'm clueless- but what would be the benefit of adding this particular thread to my signature?
 

Trichy Bastard

Well-Known Member
I'd use 29% H202 or higher at anywhere from 1-5ML per gallon of water, don;t even bother with the regular store bought 3% stuff, it has too many fillers and causes as much problems as it fixes. Peace. =)
Thanks man- I am just coming to that conclusion as well- although it could be an emergency life saver for a middle of the night disaster... but that's about it. The benefit is quickly being undermined with the toxic buildup of the stabilizers I think...
 
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