DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

Bwpz said:

Is it bad to use non-organics in an organic grow? I've used Cal-Mag in my organic hydro system just this past reservoir change...

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Generally speaking, the choice to between an organic grow or an organic base grow (meaning you use some synthetics) is up to you. Chemically, organic simply means one thing, it contains a carbon molecule. When you step outside of the scientific world, the word organic gets a little ambiguous, and means different things. You can decide how important they are to you. Your plants do not really care.

Calmag has been suspect in the past for triggering slime, but again some people use it with no problems. It doesn't seem to be a consistent trigger. That is how I came up with the theory of the organic version causing problems, but it may be something else. Furthermore, the non-organic version which contains EDTA is known to be somewhat harmful to bennies, perhaps causing them to starve quicker. Since the nutes I use have EDTA and my bennies do just fine, I have always dismissed this as a concern, but perhaps it's worth thinking about when first inoculating. I personally would leave out all additives except for a very light synthetic nute blend until things were under control. Keep it as simple as possible. Once the plants are healthy AND you have your nutes dialed in, then start with additives.

Mr. H,

On another note, during your research with this type of cyanobacteria and tea, did you also test and research the effects of pythium. You say that once res conditions are fixed it goes away... can you go more into depth on your information on that. Also, once slime suffocates roots to the point pythium gets a break, and it is there with the slime... does the tea affect the pythiums spore reproduction rate as well? how does that work if not? Perhaps the sterilizing process kills both but what about my situation. I sterilized, tea'd, then was reinfected with slime from organic nutes, NOT resterilized and is now adding tea again. are the spores from possible rot being taken care of by the bennies?

Green melody said:

Mr. H,

On another note, during your research with this type of cyanobacteria and tea, did you also test and research the effects of pythium. You say that once res conditions are fixed it goes away... can you go more into depth on your information on that. Also, once slime suffocates roots to the point pythium gets a break, and it is there with the slime... does the tea affect the pythiums spore reproduction rate as well? how does that work if not? Perhaps the sterilizing process kills both but what about my situation. I sterilized, tea'd, then was reinfected with slime from organic nutes, NOT resterilized and is now adding tea again. are the spores from possible rot being taken care of by the bennies?

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Pythium is pretty much ubiquitous to the environment. Unless you have a hermetically sealed lab, you will reinfect your equipment after sterilizing. So the spores are always there lurking and waiting to gain a foothold. The good news is pythium does not like to even try to gain that foothold in oxygen rich water. So, often pythium is a sign that you are doing something wrong, and once corrected, the pythium suffers.

As far as the tea goes, most of the microbes do not attack pythium directly, but the do compete with it for food and surface area to grow on. The tea eventually wins out as long as there is plenty of oxygen. Some nematoads probably munch on the pythium spores, but the trichoderma will attack it directly and aggressively. It will engulf, strangle and suck the life out of pythium in a relatively short time, about 10 days to completion.



Pythium does not stop new root production either, so it's probably not your problem.

ELWOOD73 said:

Heisenberg I got a quick question for you and btw I gota say thanks for this thread I was wondering what Is you current recipe cuz I have notice you were evolving it and I was just curious and thanks and for your time

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No real changes, I update the front page as needed. The recipe is very flexible as far as ingredients, but the process is not. You must have tons of bubbles and wait 48 hours to make a good tea.

Heisenberg said:

No real changes, I update the front page as needed. The recipe is very flexible as far as ingredients, but the process is not. You must have tons of bubbles and wait 48 hours to make a good tea.

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Oh ok Im only on page 18 and this is why I was wondering again thanks so I saw on post 168 you said Ancient Forest Humus is ok cuz I looked everywhere for AF EWC and couldn't find it lol thanks again Heisenberg I really appreciate it I lost 2 girls already and hope to stop the loss

Heisenberg said:

No real changes, I update the front page as needed. The recipe is very flexible as far as ingredients, but the process is not. You must have tons of bubbles and wait 48 hours to make a good tea.

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Would a 35w air pump with 6 hoses coming out (2 would be used for the tea) be sufficient? I'm using medium air stones, the round ones.

ELWOOD73 said:

Oh ok Im only on page 18 and this is why I was wondering again thanks so I saw on post 168 you said Ancient Forest Humus is ok cuz I looked everywhere for AF EWC and couldn't find it lol thanks again Heisenberg I really appreciate it I lost 2 girls already and hope to stop the loss

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Look for Wiggle Worm EWC, not AF EWC. AF is good too, though.

Heisenberg said:

Generally speaking, the choice to between an organic grow or an organic base grow (meaning you use some synthetics) is up to you. Chemically, organic simply means one thing, it contains a carbon molecule. When you step outside of the scientific world, the word organic gets a little ambiguous, and means different things. You can decide how important they are to you. Your plants do not really care.

Calmag has been suspect in the past for triggering slime, but again some people use it with no problems. It doesn't seem to be a consistent trigger. That is how I came up with the theory of the organic version causing problems, but it may be something else. Furthermore, the non-organic version which contains EDTA is known to be somewhat harmful to bennies, perhaps causing them to starve quicker. Since the nutes I use have EDTA and my bennies do just fine, I have always dismissed this as a concern, but perhaps it's worth thinking about when first inoculating. I personally would leave out all additives except for a very light synthetic nute blend until things were under control. Keep it as simple as possible. Once the plants are healthy AND you have your nutes dialed in, then start with additives.

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great advice. i love your tea heis. i have since stopped using most additives anyway. no more root stimulants, no more zymes etc. as far as im concerned the tea does all that anyway. plus i have started adding additives to my tea instead and have been getting great results

as far as root sterilization before immersion into the tea-infused res, you said spraying 3% h202 directly onto the roots is okay. You also mention soaking the roots in a strong h202 solution for a few hours. I don't really have a way to soak the roots other than manually because my lids are cut down and won't fit on buckets anymore. Do you think it would be fine just to pour 3% h202 over the root ball into the sink for each plant after pulling out as many infected roots as I can? I would sink-hose them down before and after as well.

if you cant soak your roots just put the strong h2o2 into your res and run your pumps so it is running over your roots for a while

Well guys, the slime slayer has be re-slimed.

It started in my cloners. I haven't used tea in my cloners for months because I haven't seen any slime in years. I became complacent and ignored my own advice. I believe the cuttings are technically biological material. This allows enough for the slime to get a start. Even then, it takes certain conditions, like heat, for the slime to grow. Deep summer offers those conditions, since I can't afford to cool the room I clone in. My veg buckets were just fine this summer because they had old beneficial colonies, but by not treating my clone water I gave the slime an opening. From there is quickly spread to my other clone buckets, an then into my veg trays, overcoming the colonies. As I have always said, fighting slime is a completely different ballgame than preventing slime.

My mothers are already recovering nicely after a fresh tea treatment. (I also got some aquashield to treat the res while I waited for the tea to brew). The cuttings however did not recover, had to throw them out. I also have a small tray of freshly rooted cuttings, they have a very small root base, like only 4 or 5 roots with no branching yet. They also became slimed. They however did not respond well to tea treatments. They started to come out of it, and then I changed the res. Just as you guys said, 4 hours after the res change and the slime was the worst I have ever seen. Huge thick globs of stringy snot was free floating through the water. Further tea treatments did nothing.

So this is where I am today. I have one small rooted clone soaking in h202 right now. I put the others into the res with my mothers, since that water looks great. Keep in mind with my mothers, I didn't even change the slimy water, I just rinsed the roots under the sink and added tea to the res. The slime cleared up in two days. I am hoping it's enough to overcome the slime on the small clones. We shall see.

I believe that the less roots, the less housing there is for beneficials to take hold. In normal conditions they still eventually form a network, but when slime is present, they can't gain an advantage. This may mean that we can help smaller plants by moving a large colonized plant into the same res. Remains to be seen.

I also noticed that as my tubs became more and more infected, they foamed. This was a prolific foam and almost looked like a bubble bath, covering the entire surface area. This is not normal foam. As the tea took hold in my mother's tray, the foam became less and eventually went away. This tells me that slime doesn't need any housing to grow. It actually colonizes the water itslelf, of course housing makes it all the worse. This is a different nature of slime than I dealt with before, much more prolific.

I will overcome this latest bout and report my findings to you guys.

have you tried a surfactant to destroy the slime then a rinse and colonise with bennies?

2easy said:

have you tried a surfactant to destroy the slime then a rinse and colonise with bennies?

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You know, just after I threw out my clone water it occurred to me that I could have used it to test this approach. I currently don't have any slimed reses, but i'll try it if I have a chance in the future.

Meanwhile the small clone I placed in the res with the mothers is showing zero signs of slime, and has even grown tiny little bumps on the sides of roots, the start of branching. When the bennies are already dominate, the slime doesn't have a chance. I am now brewing a fresh batch of tea and I have placed several medium sized lava rocks into the brew. When I make a new res for the young clones I will xfer these rocks over. Hopefully that, with the addition of actual tea, will give the bennies the edge needed to colonize a fresh res. I placed the other clones which were in h202 into the mother's res. They are looking droopy and sad after the treatment, meanwhile the single clone that just got rinsed and not sterilized is looking great.

just finished the tea, didn't smell too bad at first, but after it was put in the new res, and after cleaning and re-filling (took a couple hours), my room has developed a slightly bad odor (similar to puke but much milder). I'm hoping the smell will go away after the chiller gets a chance to cool down the res to 68F (couple hours) and pumps oxygenate the water (I think it developed when I mixed the warm water in with the warm tea). I think im gonna set the water to 65F for the meantime actually.

Also, do you guys cover your tea in the fridge? Could it infect my food?

Well, my battle against the slime has failed.
After 10 days, i did see new white growth on my plants, but this time the slime turned them about a day after they pop. I followed the tea to a T, and i had good biofilm on my stones after brewing, the tea kept my water very clean, but it seems not enough for 50 plant sites... possibly the reinfection rate for a large number of plant sites is a pretty big battle. even tea added to each site every 1-2 days wasnt quite enough. AND, the netpods are COMPLETELY suspended right now, i thought slime couldnt affect aero plants like that?

Anyway, next time, tea prevention... this time.. transplant in to perlite/coco/ancient forest/myco mix. In each pot there will be 50% coco, 40% perlite, 9% ancient forest, and 1% various mycos.

Any suggestions on the transplant MR. H?? I know its tech not the thread for this but i feel like this could apply considering i will like to use the tea during transplant. how do you think the tea will do during the microbe fixing process in the medium? I know after the first transplant watering to let the medium dry very well. anything else you think i should add? i normally use a B1 and plain water during transplant, but i was thinking about using the res water it lives in plus a little more tea, to avoid the drastic change in different water. possibly spray roots directly with mycos before planting?

pimp juice said:

just finished the tea, didn't smell too bad at first, but after it was put in the new res, and after cleaning and re-filling (took a couple hours), my room has developed a slightly bad odor (similar to puke but much milder). I'm hoping the smell will go away after the chiller gets a chance to cool down the res to 68F (couple hours) and pumps oxygenate the water (I think it developed when I mixed the warm water in with the warm tea). I think im gonna set the water to 65F for the meantime actually.

Also, do you guys cover your tea in the fridge? Could it infect my food?

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I wouldn't be concerned just yet, but If your odor persists or gets worse then something is wrong. The tea shouldn't go bad just from mixing it with warm water, but the bennies do place a huge demand on DO. Your chiller will retard the microbes, so you may want to add a bit more tea each time.

I am finding my latest round of slime takes mega doeses to get under control, but then again I am not sterilizing at all.

You can cover your tea in the fridge but do not seal it. None of the microbes in the tea will go airborne, but if you spill some then of course clean it up and throw away anything contaminated. You are however exposed to these microbes anytime you go outside and mess with dirt, so your body is used to them. Be sure to clearly label the tea though to avoid accidents. One time I grabbed a jug of actual green tea and had treated three buckets before I realized it. Plants didn't seem to mind at all.

Green melody said:

Well, my battle against the slime has failed.
After 10 days, i did see new white growth on my plants, but this time the slime turned them about a day after they pop. I followed the tea to a T, and i had good biofilm on my stones after brewing, the tea kept my water very clean, but it seems not enough for 50 plant sites... possibly the reinfection rate for a large number of plant sites is a pretty big battle. even tea added to each site every 1-2 days wasnt quite enough. AND, the netpods are COMPLETELY suspended right now, i thought slime couldnt affect aero plants like that?

Anyway, next time, tea prevention... this time.. transplant in to perlite/coco/ancient forest/myco mix. In each pot there will be 50% coco, 40% perlite, 9% ancient forest, and 1% various mycos.

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Well sorry it didn't work for you. All the feedback I have gotten has suggested that very large setups can actually use less tea, as long as each root ball is treated. Sounds like you did everything you could though. I have never seen slime effect a root that was not submerged in water. I have seen slimed rootballs that have nice white roots above the airline. Sounds like you are dealing with several problems combined.

Any suggestions on the transplant MR. H?? I know its tech not the thread for this but i feel like this could apply considering i will like to use the tea during transplant. how do you think the tea will do during the microbe fixing process in the medium? I know after the first transplant watering to let the medium dry very well. anything else you think i should add? i normally use a B1 and plain water during transplant, but i was thinking about using the res water it lives in plus a little more tea, to avoid the drastic change in different water. possibly spray roots directly with mycos before planting?

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When I planted slimed plants into dirt they absolutely loved it, and it was just cheap potting soil. I think they were so stressed by slime that the stress of transplanting was actually a relief. I actually xfered them back to hydro once I got the slime taken care of, and kept the strain around for another year. My friend uses tea in his soil and it works beautifully. He compares it to roots excellurator. In soil you wont have to treat with tea nearly as often, once a month in some cases. The microbes can breed in the soil indefinitely. You can even feed them there now with some sweet or some molasses water.

Heisenberg said:

Well guys, the slime slayer has be re-slimed.

They started to come out of it, and then I changed the res. Just as you guys said, 4 hours after the res change and the slime was the worst I have ever seen. Huge thick globs of stringy snot was free floating through the water. Further tea treatments did nothing.

This tells me that slime doesn't need any housing to grow. It actually colonizes the water itslelf, of course housing makes it all the worse. This is a different nature of slime than I dealt with before, much more prolific.

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So what are your thoughts on this?

Perhaps tap water (even good areas, i live in Lake Tahoe)(that all have issues with controling cyanobacteria) one would assume if its true that if it can colonize in water alone, it is very very present straight out of the tap. When we change our res water (the benny water that has been starving the slime infested water and reducing those numbers), the new water possibly takes away that balance because there is more slime available to multiply, and the tea cant take hold yet?

Heisenberg said:

Well sorry it didn't work for you.

My friend uses tea in his soil and it works beautifully. He compares it to roots excellurator. In soil you wont have to treat with tea nearly as often, once a month in some cases. The microbes can breed in the soil indefinitely. You can even feed them there now with some sweet or some molasses water.

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Well it wasnt the tea that failed, it was the most affective method and i used all of them. I will definately be using it on the next grow as preventive. Amazing how bacteria can keep water so clean. I think most people associate a live rez with biofilm and gunk. Not the case, even running the tea in a large aero setup for a month, not one clog. Only biofilm on stones.

Can i use Root Excel with all other bennies in a coco mix?