countering root rot/high res temps

root rot is caused by low levels of dissolved oxygen. so would more air stones conbined with a more powerful pump counterbalance res temps of ~75-78 degrees F?

im currently using a 45 Liters/min pump with a single 4 inch circular air stone. Should I stick with this, or would I get better results using 2x 6inch regular airstones?

more air won't fix a temp problem. add frozen 2l or consider chillers, there are small ones out there if u look hard enough.

Im going to refer to an old post on this site: https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/8621-how-keep-your-reservoir-cool-2.html

read post #20 and post #28
I quote:
START QUOTE

Some good info here but the thread starter began the thread out with lots of bad info that pretty much makes almost all the other information moot. A properly set up and run system does not need cool reservoir temperatures so as to have reservoir water with a higher DO. Nutrients are actually taken up better at warmer temps about equal to the plants temperature. Plants roots really do not need a lot of DO, so the temp is not an issue. The issue is large masses of roots suspended in water (DWC) or laying thick in the bottom of a tube or a through can not get access to enough water with DO as most water never comes into contact with the center of the large root masses in ost sysytems. Indreasing staurated oxygen by lowering the ten mps still dies nor bring the root masses center roots into contact with more water so the whole issue of temps and higher DO therefore is entirely moot. The difference in bacterial growth between 68 degrees F and 90 degrees F is pretty negligible. Build and operate better systems and quit thinking lower temps and higher DO is the answer to bacterial problems such as root rot. It is not the naswer. syatems such as samll y tube aeros, NTF am nd poorly circulated DWC with too many plants can easily develop root ri ot even with low temps and g high DO. Poor designs and poor operation is the problem not reservoir temp and reservoir DO. If the DO all around a root mass is high but the DO of the water in the center of the root mass is zero or near to zero there will be root rot. Lowering the temp and thereby possibly raisng the DO around the rooyts does not mean the center of the root mass receives any more watercirculation than before so it wil still have zero or near to zero DO water there, so root rot will develop. This hold true for DWC, NTF, and small tube aero systems.

There is only about 4% more DO in 64 degree F water than in 74 F (9.45 ppm verusus 9.08 ppm), there is only 21% percent more at 84 than at 64 degrees (9,45 verus 7.54 ppm). Plant roots do not even use all the DO in water with a DO of 3 or 4 ppm when the water is only suppling DO to a 10 ml layer. However water at even 9.45 ppm DO will not be supply enough oxyen for a thick mass of roots when it is very, very slowly moving through the roots in small quantities. So a lower temp is not the solution. The solution is if you have thick masses of roots get water into the inside of the root masses or grow with an aero system that has tall enough tubes where there are not thick masses of roots laying in the bottom of the tubes. If your growing NTF think 10" or 12 " wide throughs at least. Even then grow small quick plants at high temps using ventilation or CO2 and a dehumidifier.

Yes there are ways to deal with DWC systems to other than trying to maintain low temps to boost DO. The problem is not so much low DO or high temps but the problem of not getting adequate volumes of water with DO to the center of your root masses. Lowering the temp and slightly incresing the DO is not a solution as if that water still does not get to the center of the root masses in adequate volumes to carry the slightly increades DO you will still have the same problems. The samall amount ofbenefit in health to your plant roots due to the cooler temp water having a higher DO will actually be more due to a slower growing plants neding less DO rather than because of higher DO in the reservoir. It doesn't help to have a higher DO if the plants still do not get adequate enough water carrying DO. It doesn't make since to have intense lighting and lots of nutrients available if you going to grow slowly at cooler temps where the intense lighting and quality nutrients are just wasted due to cooler temps. I have seen also seen people using CO2 and dehumifirrs and air conditioning and running their rooms at 86 degrees temperatures but using a chiller to run a resrvoir temo at 68 degrees. Then they woder why their plants are still not growing fast or putting out high yields. Go figure.
END QUOTE.

Im thinking about just getting some hygrozyme/hydroguard and putting it in my res and let it sit at ~78 degrees. anyone have any experience with res temps in the high 70s?

high 70's? Yep and not good. had to transplant back to soil becouse it sometimes got a little over 80f and any roots actually in the water had rot but the roots on the sides of net pot that didnt actually touch the water were alot healthier. So, from my experiences high res temps = root rot. I tried putting in 2 huge airstones and with the temp that high it really didnt matter
You could always make your own res cooler ouy of a mini fridge.
Hope this helps, but i dont think it was what you were wanting to hear.sorry

BigBudE

My take on it....

The problem with high res temps is that it encourages microbes to grow in the nute solution. This probably will not effect healthy plants with good roots. However if pathogenic microbes are given the chance to take over, due to sick, very old, very young, or damaged plants, you could end up with a bad problem that doesn't go away, and greatly effects yield.

There are two ways to approach this situation. You could try running a completely sterile res. This is fairly cheap and easy. There are many products like zerotol, sm-90, super oxy, dutch master zone, ect that will do a pretty good job of keeping the res clean and sterile. Some people simply add h202 every few days. Anyone interested in this route should do some real research on it. I personally recommend Zone.

Some people are unlucky and due to some random factor they have a terrible time trying to keep the res sterile, and when combined with high res temps, the result is slimy, mushy, dying roots. At this point the strategy becomes trying to add beneficial microbes to the water that will displace the harmful ones. Harmful microbes tend to be anaerobic, so adding bennies and keeping lots of oxygen in the water will encourage an aerobic microbe solution, which is nomally enough to keep the bad stuff away. However, the bad stuff will always be there, especially at high res temps, just waiting to gain a foothold when an air pump goes bad, or something similar.

Some people buy their bennies in bottles or powder form. Great White powder and aquashield liquid compost seem to be favorites. A really cheap and easy way to add bennies is to make a 'tea' from earth worm castings. You'll get a freshly active, and more diverse army of bennies from that than from all the bottled stuff combined, and for a tiny fraction of the cost. Ancient forest from GH seems to be the preferred product for this. If you want to go all out you can add the aquashield, great white, and roots excelurator to the EWC tea to cover all the bases. Again, anyone interested in this route should do a lot of research on it before they implement it.

I personally would try the sterile route first because its cheap and easy. But if your like me, and most people, once a problem creeps up sterilization and then inoculation with bennies is what will fix it.

i actually do have some great white powder. is it appropriate to use it in hydro applications?

also, what about products such as hydroguard and hygrozyme, are these products useful at all at preventing root rot at higher temps?

and bigbud, although you were using 2 air stones, how much air was your pump actually moving? for comparison purposes, mine is rated at 45 liters/min.

howdyguhk said:

i actually do have some great white powder. is it appropriate to use it in hydro applications?

also, what about products such as hydroguard and hygrozyme, are these products useful at all at preventing root rot at higher temps?

and bigbud, although you were using 2 air stones, how much air was your pump actually moving? for comparison purposes, mine is rated at 45 liters/min.

Click to expand...

Im not a 100% sure on how much air its rated for.. I bought a $120.00 one that has 8 places for hoses and it feels like a hell of a lot of air. The next time i get around to it I'll look and find the box and let you know the exact specs. H202 helps some. or you can use the store bought hydrogen peroxide. The store bought is only 3% and the H202 (at hydro shops) is around 45% either way it'll help a little.
My girls probally could have survived but at a fraction of its potential so im gonna stick with soil at least during summer months. My room is a outdoor/indoor room, I live at a farm. so i didnt have AC.
There is something else that WILL help for high res temps (a few degrees at least) for around $20 bucks.
Go to Menards and around the duct supply area they have something for insulating ducting that is a roll around 14'' to 16" wide and around 20'ft long that has around a 1/4" thick insulating foam that sticky on one side and on the other is like reflective metal tape. Wrap it around your res a time or two will help (lowerd mine 5 degrees) every little bit helps!
BigBudE

what nutes are you using i noticed higher res temps and organics is a not a fight worth havin chem nutes can tolerate higher temps . i went from injuana juice line complete to the conni line with from AN for the summer as thats when my temps rise and i havent got any root rot this year i dont think im gonna switch back the shit is worth the money imo if u already have root rot do not add any zymes they will feed the problem i still use some organic additives but if i see a sign of rr i cut them out and it dissapears over nite this solved my issues i run 5gal bubblebucket with 12in micro pore airstones with a heavyduty pump.so DO was never an issue the water bottle is an great idea as long as u can switch it out multiple times a day . best of luck solving ur issues
peace stonE
oh... homedepot has a reflectivve foil tape that has 1/4' of insulatin on it i wrap my buckets in it with 2 layers and my tempts stay at 72-74 its in the plumbing dept and used to insulate pipes its good shit to have around

currently using foxfarm grow big for hydroponics. cleaned out my res today, the water looked nasty. previously was filled with 7 gallons of distilled water + nutes @ 150ppm.

filled it with tapwater today (which sits at ~ 150ppm) and added nutes to level of 250ppm. a leaf on both seem to be yellowing, but root growth seems to be occurring.

howdyguhk said:

currently using foxfarm grow big for hydroponics. cleaned out my res today, the water looked nasty. previously was filled with 7 gallons of distilled water + nutes @ 150ppm.

filled it with tapwater today (which sits at ~ 150ppm) and added nutes to level of 250ppm. a leaf on both seem to be yellowing, but root growth seems to be occurring.

Click to expand...

This may be a dumb question but are you checking your ph on a regular basis? What size/age are your plants? no matter what kind of nutes i used ,I usually always used Bcuzz ROOT when they were in veg. That stuff helps grow roots and helps current roots grow really really well. But that is just me.

theyre clones about 4 inches tall. transplanted 5 days ago when roots were visible through the rapid rooters. pH was around 5.8-6.0 using distilled water for the first 5 days, then I changed my res using tap water a few hours ago, and realized that my pH was now around 8.

to lower the pH, I squeezed the juice from a whole lemon into my res, which lowered my pH from 8.0 to 5.8
I hope its not too drastic of a change for the plants, theyre starting to get droopy, and they still have yellow leaves.

I also swapped out my 4inch round airstone for 2 x 6inch stick airstones.

I see a light brown color on some of my roots, just kind of hoping itll go away after the res change, addition of an airstone, and Great White Mycorrhizae (put in like a tablespoon in my 10 gallon res filled with ~7 gallons)

I just buried my first aero grow due to root rot. My babies were in their 3rd week of flowering and BAM, 7 plants, 1 a day, bit the big one. I tried everything to save them, but they were jacked. I'm still convinced that aero is the way to go so I'm getting ready for grow II. My res temps run the same as my tiny room, about 80 day and night, similar to yours. After asking here and reading something there, I'm gonna try some frozen water bottle cocktails and hygrozyme this time around. I also let my roots kind of mingle amongst each other, they became all intertwined, so I guess when one got the rot it wasn't too hard to spread the evil brown cheer, so I'm thinking of keeping them a little less community oriented.
My question is....how much hydrogen peroxide should be used in an 8 gallon res to fight the bad guys? And, how often?
Thanks!