CaMg Deficiency and Brown Roots? DWC

Id try your hardest to get everything in the res sterile. Algae loves organics.
I reckon rinsing the roots, and changing the res over 2-3 times a day will help clean it out.
Lowering your res level a little will give your roots some more oxygen and stem the spread a little.
Good luck mate.

He is running microbes now. Do not try to sterilize or that slime will come back with a vengeance. If you want to do sterile I suggest do it on the next grow cycle after running the system with bleach for 24 hours 20ppm

I do think he needs to change it over a few times a day though. Cant give that shit a chance to fester.
Gotta be on the case. It can be a nightmare.

You guys are very helpful! <3

I didn't update as things were good and thread was a few pages back. But since you guys came back, and I had a few more ups and downs.....

@kingtitan Your post would have been super helpful a few days earlier ahaha <3.. My last res. change I emptied the res about 70% (up to the top of my pump), then looked at the res and though *HOLY That looks super dirty, there are EWC and bits of roots everywhere!*, I do not have a fish net right now so I though hmm.... roots looking good, tea is working, I will dump the entire thing and clean it and then put a new res and refill with a good amount of tea again.
A few days later it looked like the black gunk was getting to two of the girls again, so last night I just took the girls out and rinsed their roots a bit, and then back into the res + I added some more tea. They seem to be okay again. (I did not change the res, just rinsed the roots a little.)

*I will make sure I don't dump more than half this time!

I also have stuck to the basic line (silica, camg, micro, grow, bloom, rapid start.)
No other organics, molasses, humid acids, flora blend etc. at all.

@Tim1987 I don't think it needs to be cleaned with the Tea from what I've read. The tea feeds off the slime and sort of helps balance things out. I need to generate the benny-army in there, and emptying the res that last water change turned out the be rather counter-productive.
I did notice they were looking much better when I had brought the water level down about an inch, to where roots were still near the top of the water but the RW cube was not getting as wet. Maybe 2-3" below the net pot is where the water line is right now.

As much as slime sucks, it's been a GREAT learning curve!


Roots of the girls on the Left. (most affected.)

Roots of the girls on the Right, least affected. (ALL the girls roots are like the one on the right. The rest of the yellow tinge is more bad lighting (sorry, a little heavy to lift them for me)...The black stuff is probably slime? though.)

Bottom of this pic are the girls labelled "Left" and top of this pic are the girls labelled "Right". The bottom right is slightly smaller but I believe it's just a Bubba Pheno - those are usually slow veg'ers.

They look good, the roots look good too, just discolored by nutrients or the shock from the water change, the roots will need to get colonized again so keep away from doing washes.

Slime will be clear to tan/brown. black is usually fusarium or pythium that has set in but if its not bad the plant will keep on. If the roots are black and mushy pull those off.

Great that is reassuring!

And thanks for clarifying that, I was still a little iffy on exactly what the black was.

No mush at all. The roots are strong, fibrous, ropey. Just that black gunk near the top, but they are growing down white.

I will build that army now.

Good to hear and see they're better dude.
Thanks for the info about the tea too.
Happy grow.