DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes
- Thread starter Heisenberg
- Start date
Onekama
Member
So I'm 6 weeks into veg. I have had no issue's until yesterday, I changed my res and some pieces of chunky brownish goo floated out of my drain. I cut out my scrog screen to investigate my root ball and I can see no slime taking hold on my roots. There IS slime however on my recirculate tube located outside my grow room. I bought some DM ZONE and added it to my water. I was going to scrog for another week/2 but Im going to leave the screen out and start flower today.
My question is; Because I have such a healthy root ball should I just stay on course with the DM Zone and hope for the best, OR start the bacteria soup recommended in this thread?
My question is; Because I have such a healthy root ball should I just stay on course with the DM Zone and hope for the best, OR start the bacteria soup recommended in this thread?
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't. I don't know of any instances where slime takes hold on an already healthy and established root ball. Slime preys on sick, weak, stressed or young plants. When I gave the dose for prevention, I was speaking to those who have already had slime and want to prevent its return. (because once you have it, it seems to always lurk) If you have never had slime and want to prevent it, pay attention to the conditions of your grow environment. Keep the temps cool, the area clean, and the water oxygenated. You may choose to use tea, but don't feel like slime is a given unless you use bennies. Most DWC growers never see slime. If I were you and I was seeing root growth and foliage growth, I would stick with DM zone or nothing.
As i've said before, not every biofilm you see is an indication of the dreaded brown slime. The way you know you have brown slime is that roots stop growing. If you can see new tips or any growth at all, you probably do not have the curse we talk about in this thread. (or it's already on its way to recovery)
I've also said that h202 will prolong your fight. You guys who are jumping to h202 as a fix are most likely hurting your roots more than you are hurting any infection.
I hadn't made tea for over a year myself. I have been using rhizotonic on my clones and then, once they enter the flower room, they get 1 treatment (5ml) of kangaroots per 3 gal. Nothing more the rest of the grow. I had an issue recently with my veg tent getting hot, and it brought on slime for three mothers. (small root balls) I put them into flower and the kangarootz was enough to get 2 of them out of it. The third had a clogged airstone that I didn't catch, and so the slime really took hold. I was left with mushy looking roots that weren't growing. I did nothing to kill the slime, didn't even change the water or rinse the roots, I just brewed a batch of tea and added two cups. (and fixed the air stone issue) Two days later I saw new root tips. A week later and it was a healthy rootball again.
Also, those who are dealing with a powdery like coating on roots that shakes off could be experiencing diatoms. Diatoms seem to be aggravated by silica additives. The tea seems to be very limited in its usefulness against diatoms.
Onekama
Member
Thanks for the reply! This section of your comment interests me the most. I do have a slimy film on sections of my tubing inside my res. I apologize if you have answered this a million times but this thread has grown to 100's of pages. Do you have a recommended solution for the biofilm appearing (Great White mycorrhizae powder maybe) Or is this something that I should also ignore. I could scrape some of the slime off of my hose in my res for a picture if you think that you could help make a diagnoses better.
Thanks again.
hydrolyzed
Active Member
Well I have officially lost the battle. Maybe I have some super strain of the slime, or my technique is flawed somewhere regardless of my trying to cover every base. I am thinking, as some have said in this thread, that maybe the cyanobacteria is small enough or structured in a way that it can "hide" in the pores of the rubbermaid containers and PVC of my systems even after serious Physan20 sterilizing. I cleaned every nook and cranny and replaced any PVC pipe that I couldn't scrub vigorously (pretty much all my 3/4" feed pipe for the recirc system). I can't blame the tea, I think you just need to replace every bit of plastic that ever touched the slime infected water to be 100% successful, at least with my seemingly crazy strain of the slime. I mean meters, measuring cups, RO feed lines etc. I am just guessing here and am really at a loss. I can not blame the tea, and oddly enough, my veg system which is identical to my flower systems just smaller (same tubs, recirc, air, layout, temps etc) has not had the slime since switching to tea, but then again it never had a serious crop killing case of it like my larger systems. I did everything properly with new, white root fresh plants from the veg system before putting them into the flower systems....12 hours with just RO/UV water and 1 cup/gallon tea, then add nutes, no organics..I am just running FloraDuo A/B and cal/mag.
One system immediately got slimed again and the plants died within a few days, when they were bright white roots, perky lush growth before. The second system with 2 more fresh healthy plants from the veg system, the plants blew up and took off for 2 weeks, eating 40-50ppm a day until the other day on day 23 of flower after I did a rez change, the roots from the net pot to the water line (about 4") started turning brown, then the roots under the water started looking a little brown. I have a drip system set up on each net pot to constantly drip the tea innoculated water over the grow stones and exposed roots to make sure the tea touches all parts of the root system from the stem down, so I don't think it was an issue of the tea not getting to those areas. This was right after a rez change too, which has happened a few times before when I was using sterile additives trying to combat the tea. The roots kept looking decent and the plants kept drinking, but the PPM's stopped dropping and fans started turning bright yellow which in my experience is the first signs of slime before you can even see it on the roots. A day later, yesterday, the smell appeared, and then I noticed the telltale translucent milky slime, right where the thick roots leave the netpot ...I touched it and rubbed some off and smelled the all to familiar HORRENDOUS stinky sewage/rotting flesh smell of the slime. Right now it's just on the bottom of the netpot and roots but I know it's only a matter of days before it's covered the entire stem and root ball. As a last ditch effort tommorow I going to pull the 2 plants out (going to be a bitch since they are flowering 6' tall 5' wide bushes) and vacuum out all the grow stones from the net pots and dip the whole root ball/stem/pot into a strong physan 20 solution for a few hours then use a hose to hose off all the stinky slime and rinse and replace in the system with fresh water and tea one more time in a attempt to save them and at least get SOMETHING off of them since this will be my 9th consecutive total loss of harvest and my patients are really suffering finding meds elsewhere. This last attack happened right after the res change...
This lead me to think it was my 2 55 gallon water storage barrels were maybe breeding cyanobacteria for the few days the water sits in them before I use them... but the only thing they ever saw was RO water, never had nutes in them before, and I use the same barrels for res changes on the veg system which never had issues after changes, so I think I can rule out the barrels also. Also I would think if the cyanobacteria had no food since it was in sterilized RO water, it wouldn't do much.
Not sure why this happens right after a rez change like others have been saying...it cant be the water itself because it's RO/DI filtered to 3-5 ppm then UV sterilized with a sterilizer 10x oversized for the flow it sees so I'm sure the water is pretty "dead" by the time it comes out.
I am thinking (and hoping) that once I replace my WHOLE systems, meaning the 50g rubbermaid tubs, all the PVC, reservoir, bulkheads, pumps, pretty much ANYTHING the water has ever touched, including my RO system itself and all accompanying lines, all measuring cups and meters, that it will solve the problem. I think even that is overboard since I still use the same cups and meters for the veg system which does fine...but it can't hurt I guess.
Is there something that happens in the plants that causes the slime to go crazy right around week 2-4 of flower? It seems a lot of slimers stories on here start with "so everything was going great till a few weeks into flower"....this makes me wonder if my successful veg system is just teasing me and if I tried to flower them in their they would also get slimed.
I've lost about 120 plants to this over the last 6 months and am pretty upset to give up on my beloved RDWC systems I've been loving since I started growing, but this is just too much for now so I switched to coco in pots for now. I'm thinking I will do a few runs with it just to replenish my stock and then maybe try building one brand new system and seeing how it goes.
Slime sucks!
One system immediately got slimed again and the plants died within a few days, when they were bright white roots, perky lush growth before. The second system with 2 more fresh healthy plants from the veg system, the plants blew up and took off for 2 weeks, eating 40-50ppm a day until the other day on day 23 of flower after I did a rez change, the roots from the net pot to the water line (about 4") started turning brown, then the roots under the water started looking a little brown. I have a drip system set up on each net pot to constantly drip the tea innoculated water over the grow stones and exposed roots to make sure the tea touches all parts of the root system from the stem down, so I don't think it was an issue of the tea not getting to those areas. This was right after a rez change too, which has happened a few times before when I was using sterile additives trying to combat the tea. The roots kept looking decent and the plants kept drinking, but the PPM's stopped dropping and fans started turning bright yellow which in my experience is the first signs of slime before you can even see it on the roots. A day later, yesterday, the smell appeared, and then I noticed the telltale translucent milky slime, right where the thick roots leave the netpot ...I touched it and rubbed some off and smelled the all to familiar HORRENDOUS stinky sewage/rotting flesh smell of the slime. Right now it's just on the bottom of the netpot and roots but I know it's only a matter of days before it's covered the entire stem and root ball. As a last ditch effort tommorow I going to pull the 2 plants out (going to be a bitch since they are flowering 6' tall 5' wide bushes) and vacuum out all the grow stones from the net pots and dip the whole root ball/stem/pot into a strong physan 20 solution for a few hours then use a hose to hose off all the stinky slime and rinse and replace in the system with fresh water and tea one more time in a attempt to save them and at least get SOMETHING off of them since this will be my 9th consecutive total loss of harvest and my patients are really suffering finding meds elsewhere. This last attack happened right after the res change...
This lead me to think it was my 2 55 gallon water storage barrels were maybe breeding cyanobacteria for the few days the water sits in them before I use them... but the only thing they ever saw was RO water, never had nutes in them before, and I use the same barrels for res changes on the veg system which never had issues after changes, so I think I can rule out the barrels also. Also I would think if the cyanobacteria had no food since it was in sterilized RO water, it wouldn't do much.
Not sure why this happens right after a rez change like others have been saying...it cant be the water itself because it's RO/DI filtered to 3-5 ppm then UV sterilized with a sterilizer 10x oversized for the flow it sees so I'm sure the water is pretty "dead" by the time it comes out.
I am thinking (and hoping) that once I replace my WHOLE systems, meaning the 50g rubbermaid tubs, all the PVC, reservoir, bulkheads, pumps, pretty much ANYTHING the water has ever touched, including my RO system itself and all accompanying lines, all measuring cups and meters, that it will solve the problem. I think even that is overboard since I still use the same cups and meters for the veg system which does fine...but it can't hurt I guess.
Is there something that happens in the plants that causes the slime to go crazy right around week 2-4 of flower? It seems a lot of slimers stories on here start with "so everything was going great till a few weeks into flower"....this makes me wonder if my successful veg system is just teasing me and if I tried to flower them in their they would also get slimed.
I've lost about 120 plants to this over the last 6 months and am pretty upset to give up on my beloved RDWC systems I've been loving since I started growing, but this is just too much for now so I switched to coco in pots for now. I'm thinking I will do a few runs with it just to replenish my stock and then maybe try building one brand new system and seeing how it goes.
Slime sucks!
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
It would be impossible to speculate without knowing the details of your grow. What you see may not even be a biofilm, but just scale or scum of some sort. If you do not feel this is affecting plant health I would treat it as a curiosity. I would start a test bucket if possible and see how a microbe product affects your system. Many people report super clean systems with a product like great white, while others find it leaves a slight biofilm on some things. If what you noticed seems to grow, get worse or start appearing elsewhere I would start to take it seriously.
Heisenberg
Well-Known Member
Sounds like a nightmare!
The slime showing up after res change is a very common report, and usually, but not always, signals that an additive is the culprit. Calmag has also been blamed to cause slime, but I can not verify since I have never used it. Certainly others use it with no problem. The slime showing up above water first is very odd, and I suspect the constant drip has something to do with that. These are a few of the variables I would try to control for before I replaced everything.
If re-contamination was your problem, then your veg should be affected as well. So either your veg room is an anomaly, or you have a different issue than re-contamination. Something is different between the two areas. Some variable in the environment or the process. I am guessing that since you have been dealing with this for so long you have already tried switching nutes. I found this statement about the florduo: "FloraDuo is a two-part nutrient thats teeming with diverse and high-quality components, as well as special bio-activators that improve overall plant health and promote nutrient absorption." "Bio-activators" in a slime-prone grow would make me nervous unless I knew exactly what they were. Have you tired using the same formulation you use for bud in a test bucket in your veg room, or vice versa? What happens if you place a bucket in the grow room with just water? Does it form slime?
hydrolyzed
Active Member
Nightmare indeed, thanks for taking the time to read my book.
I started the constant drip because when the slime first started showing up (was using Zone at the time for about a year with no issues, same three nutes only Duo A/B and CM+) it was only the stems that were affected. I didn't have any type of top drip system it was a standard plants in netpots and the bursting bubbles from the airstones misted the air gap enough to keep things moist like most peoples DWC systems.... The plants would look great one day,then wilted and dead the next. Upon the first few occurrences, only 1 or 2 plants in the same 8 plant system would die and when I checked them the roots themselves were fine, but when I cut open the net pots and shook away all the hydroton,the stem itself was covered in the slime and black from the outside in, pretty much cutting off the plants access to its own roots causing the overnight wilt and death. I thought this was caused by the solution containing the Zone not getting into the hydroton filled pots enough to reach the stem and prevent it from catching a disease (didn't know about cyanobacteria yet) So i built a drip system that just dripped solution from 1/4" lines into the top of each pot to keep the stem a little moist and keep the Zone running over...this didn't help and the problem just got worse until all 8 plants would die at once and it was then that I learned about CB in this thead. I wanted to continue the top drip system for the same reason as above...I wanted the tea to be constantly touching the stem and air gap roots....since the directions make it a point to pour some tea directly into the crown/net pot so I figured why wouldn't a constant drip of tea containing solution be even better? The two dying plants now have the same stem rot looking problem but I wont know until I get the stones out tommorow to check out the stems and see if they are even worth saving.
The veg being OK perplexes me. I use the same meters, same change water from the same holding barrels, same measuring cups, same batches of tea as what I'm putting in the failing systems,and same nutrients from the same bottles, just a less amount. My veg mix is 1ml/gal Duo A, 3ml/gal Duo B, and 2ml/gal CM+. Flower is the same, just double the amount of Duo A/B. I forgot to mention, my cloner which is a simple 5 gallon bucket with a fountain pump and 360degree sprayer (my macgyver powercloner) that also had slime before, is doing fine with the 1oz/gallon tea you recommend till roots show, then 10ml/gal rhizotonic you also recommend. The whole bucket/pump/sprayer are the same as when it was slimed and all the clones died back when I was using chlorine, but I used the same Physan 20 sterilizing amounts and procedure I used for all the systems so if one things fails they all should and vice versa, or so I thought. This is what makes me think either A. the CB can "live" in the pores of the plastics and my flower systems had a seriously strong case of the slime and it's just living in the plastic still and it's so much that the CB still overcomes the tea or B. Something happens to the plants/roots in the flowering stage that makes them more susceptible to the CB.
Like I said this all started while using Zone without issues for over a year then the stems of a few plants suddenly started rotting in the bottom of the netpot/right above the water line. Added drip system, didn't help. Switched to tea, helped a lot, made plants recover and grow new roots until those too succumbed to the CB, and now the two plants that were doing great suddenly seem to have the stem rot issue again. So frustrating.
Something that might be super important....I started growing RWDC three years ago and always used Aquashield from day 1 since Ive always heard it was a life saver for people battling pythium since way back in the day when it was called hydroguard. During those beginning times I didn't even have a chiller and never had one problem with the roots or plants. The one thing I didn't like was my solution always smelled like a fish tank, the roots weren't bone white like I saw in sterile systems, and my pH would fluctuate a little more than I would have liked, those little things made me want to try sterile solutions, so I switched to Zone, which as I said above worked fine for awhile. During this time I also tried running Physan 20 in the solution with the plants which seemed to work OK but I wasn't sure of it's systemic properties so I stopped. I then found Cultured Solutions "UC Roots" which is hypochlorous acid (pretty much the active ingredient once bleach breaks down) and started using that for awhile until seeing no difference and switching back to zone for cost reasons. This is when I really started seeing the stem rot issues and shit started going downhill.
thinking back, and having the knowledge I do about CB now....I think that my water supply might always have had CB in it but the aquashield since day 1 had kept it away...but then when I switched to Zone and especially when I ran the Physan 20, I might have killed off ALL the residual beneficial bacteria I had, leaving the door open for the Zone/Chlorine resistant slime.
I have aquashield and have been putting 10ml/gal into my tea brew and also adding 10ml/gal in along with the tea, which I read wasn't a problem at all. I'm thinking about just running the aquashield in the new mix if I decide these plants are worth saving. Also Botanicare just released Hydroguard again, which is Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens instead of the regular bacillus subtilus in aquashield. They are still selling both, and the hydroguard costs double what the aquashield does, so I'm thinking maybe that will work even better than the aquashield...or maybe I can even run both? I'm thinking since my super brew of tea didn't worth...a few singled out strains of bacteria wont work either
....i think the mycogrow probably has Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens anyways so maybe it's a lost cause to try just hydroguard and AS. As another last ditch effort if I want to save these two....while buying all my coco stuff there was a Hydrofarm rep at the store and I was explaining the whole Tea thing to him and he gave me a sample of what is called "Super Organic Stimulator" by Micro-TES systems or something....it looks like just another benny additive in a bottle like the flying skullz Z7, hydroguard/AS, pondzyme etc and says
"SOS contains 19 specialized species of highly concentrated beneficial bacteria that address the challenges facing the hydroponics grower. One species is Bacillus Subtillus B. Subtillus promotes root growth by creating the enzyme, Auxin, a root stimulator. It is highly tolerant to acidic pH, heat and salt. SOS's other beneficial species of bacteria and enzymes speeds the assimilation of nutrients by the plants (nitrogen, phosphate, potassium and trace minerals), resulting in stronger and faster root, stalk, leaf and flower/fruit development. SOS reduces fertilizer usage significantly. SOS also breaks down toxins that may be present in the water and inhibit certain types of root fungus. Also, your hydroponic unit will no longer become salt encrusted. If your hydroponics unit is salt encrusted when you begin using SOS, fertilization can be suspended while the salt build-up is being converted into bio-available nutrients for your plants"
This sounds like it has enzyme producing stuff that you say causes the slime to get worse so I'm not sure if I should even use it, and it seems to have stuff that aquashield and the tea already have also...just a thought since it was a free sample.
Honestly though if the CB I have survived the Tea brewed perfectly with the proper ingredients and amounts of molasses etc, I think I'm just fucked.
Thanks for reading.
Hydrolyzed..,.
trust me when I tell you ...the bad shit your battling IS in your water. I have a 5 stage R.O. water filter with UV light sterilizer and this crap can somehow get past everything in that filter set including the UV and not only survive....once its in your rez ...it can thrive.
I use house and garden aqua flakes A & B only. I make my tea using 60 Ml aquashield, a heavy capful of companion, a scoop of great white and two tablespoons of molasses. I put 4 handfuls of ancient forest in a knee high pantyhose stocking and tie it off in a nice tight ball that rests nicely on a 6" disk air stone. I use a womans hair net to keep the stocking of ancient forest held to the airstone and I put it in a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of R.O. water and I add a fish tank heater set at 76 degrees and brew for 2 days.
I'm running an N.F.T. system with 3 lady's in each trough and I add 2 cups of tea at rez change thru the top of each rockwool block for a total of 6 cups and 3 days later I add another 6 cups the same way and run that for 3 days and then change my rez and start the whole cycle all over again.
This bug were all suffering from not only invites pythium to the party if not kept in check with tea......it also can hide dormant inside your moms and thus the clones you take from those mothers. It waits until conditions are right ( usually Flowering ) and then it comes out of hiding and try's to replicate and spread its numbers... The tea works when used with a good two part food a shot of cal/mag and nothing else.
The one thing that I have learned is that you have to run your E.C. much lower with Tea than you normally would without the use of Tea. The Tea breaks down the food (especially nitrogen) and your plants will actually eat to much at one time. We see it as an E.C. drop so we naturally add more food but just like a dog who will keep eating until it pukes...plants will do the same thing and they will puke back thru the root system and into your rez and you will see it as a huge rise in E.C. with a sharp rise or fall of Ph and a nutes lockout occurs. The roots system suffers from a kind of acid reflux when the plant pukes and the roots cant take the sudden sharp rise in E.C. and Ph and the root system shuts down ...turns brown and dies off. I just learned this painful lesson and I'm slowly learning what not to do.
The key is not to act in an "Impulsive" manner or jump to any conclusions or make any sudden impulsive moves.
Here's what we know....we know that ....
#1....There's some kind bug in the water that gets past 5 stage R.O. water filters with UV sterilizers
#2....This Bug is very tenacious and loves to deplete the oxygen out of the rez water and loves to co-exist with his buddy Pythium once the O2 is gone.
#3....The Tea eats the bug in the water and colonizes in the root zone promoting new root growth and protects the roots from the bug and other bugs
#4....The Tea needs lots of air bubbles both in the brewing process and in the rez as well as in each dwc bucket in order to survive and eat the bad bug.
#5....The Rez MUST be Replenished with fresh Tea every 3rd day and the rez changed every 6th day to keep a diverse community of Bennys
#6....You have to run your food level much lower when using Tea. The tea breaks down the food and plants will over eat to the point where they puke up what they gorged themselves on and your E.C. will Rise and your Ph will drop.
#7....The Tea will protect the roots from high food levels going in but not coming back out after the plant pukes from eating to much.
#8....If your roots are brown but not slimy and new root growth is nice and white.....It's OK...Dont Freak out. They have taken on the same color as the Tea.
#9....If when using tea you feel a slimy film on the outside of your hoses, pumps and other non-organic items after a couple days.....thats the Benny's
#10...No Organic Nutes...No Bio Stimulators....No enzyme additives....No superthrive or like products. Follow the KISS Principal..."Keep It Simple Stupid"
#11...The bug is Bigger that .05 microns but the spores are much smaller
I'm no expert and I'm not trying to come off like I am. I am only telling you what I know for a fact as of right now. I changed my 1st pre-filter water cartridge which was a 10 micron cartridge and went down to a .05 micron filter. After 3 1/2 - 4 weeks this new .05 micron was completely plugged and would not let any water pass. The spores of this bug are not affected or killed by UV light sterilizers.
http://www.appliedmembranes.com/6_stage_ro_w__uv1.htm
trust me when I tell you ...the bad shit your battling IS in your water. I have a 5 stage R.O. water filter with UV light sterilizer and this crap can somehow get past everything in that filter set including the UV and not only survive....once its in your rez ...it can thrive.
I use house and garden aqua flakes A & B only. I make my tea using 60 Ml aquashield, a heavy capful of companion, a scoop of great white and two tablespoons of molasses. I put 4 handfuls of ancient forest in a knee high pantyhose stocking and tie it off in a nice tight ball that rests nicely on a 6" disk air stone. I use a womans hair net to keep the stocking of ancient forest held to the airstone and I put it in a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of R.O. water and I add a fish tank heater set at 76 degrees and brew for 2 days.
I'm running an N.F.T. system with 3 lady's in each trough and I add 2 cups of tea at rez change thru the top of each rockwool block for a total of 6 cups and 3 days later I add another 6 cups the same way and run that for 3 days and then change my rez and start the whole cycle all over again.
This bug were all suffering from not only invites pythium to the party if not kept in check with tea......it also can hide dormant inside your moms and thus the clones you take from those mothers. It waits until conditions are right ( usually Flowering ) and then it comes out of hiding and try's to replicate and spread its numbers... The tea works when used with a good two part food a shot of cal/mag and nothing else.
The one thing that I have learned is that you have to run your E.C. much lower with Tea than you normally would without the use of Tea. The Tea breaks down the food (especially nitrogen) and your plants will actually eat to much at one time. We see it as an E.C. drop so we naturally add more food but just like a dog who will keep eating until it pukes...plants will do the same thing and they will puke back thru the root system and into your rez and you will see it as a huge rise in E.C. with a sharp rise or fall of Ph and a nutes lockout occurs. The roots system suffers from a kind of acid reflux when the plant pukes and the roots cant take the sudden sharp rise in E.C. and Ph and the root system shuts down ...turns brown and dies off. I just learned this painful lesson and I'm slowly learning what not to do.
The key is not to act in an "Impulsive" manner or jump to any conclusions or make any sudden impulsive moves.
Here's what we know....we know that ....
#1....There's some kind bug in the water that gets past 5 stage R.O. water filters with UV sterilizers
#2....This Bug is very tenacious and loves to deplete the oxygen out of the rez water and loves to co-exist with his buddy Pythium once the O2 is gone.
#3....The Tea eats the bug in the water and colonizes in the root zone promoting new root growth and protects the roots from the bug and other bugs
#4....The Tea needs lots of air bubbles both in the brewing process and in the rez as well as in each dwc bucket in order to survive and eat the bad bug.
#5....The Rez MUST be Replenished with fresh Tea every 3rd day and the rez changed every 6th day to keep a diverse community of Bennys
#6....You have to run your food level much lower when using Tea. The tea breaks down the food and plants will over eat to the point where they puke up what they gorged themselves on and your E.C. will Rise and your Ph will drop.
#7....The Tea will protect the roots from high food levels going in but not coming back out after the plant pukes from eating to much.
#8....If your roots are brown but not slimy and new root growth is nice and white.....It's OK...Dont Freak out. They have taken on the same color as the Tea.
#9....If when using tea you feel a slimy film on the outside of your hoses, pumps and other non-organic items after a couple days.....thats the Benny's
#10...No Organic Nutes...No Bio Stimulators....No enzyme additives....No superthrive or like products. Follow the KISS Principal..."Keep It Simple Stupid"
#11...The bug is Bigger that .05 microns but the spores are much smaller
I'm no expert and I'm not trying to come off like I am. I am only telling you what I know for a fact as of right now. I changed my 1st pre-filter water cartridge which was a 10 micron cartridge and went down to a .05 micron filter. After 3 1/2 - 4 weeks this new .05 micron was completely plugged and would not let any water pass. The spores of this bug are not affected or killed by UV light sterilizers.
http://www.appliedmembranes.com/6_stage_ro_w__uv1.htm
Heisenberg (or anyone using tea successfully), my last brew of tea caused pH to go from 6 to 6,7 in a day and made quite a lot of foam in my res, while the last one had no such drastic effects. Is that normal, or does it indicate too much sugar left in my brew?
Bigest difference I can think of is that my last batch was brewed at a bit higher temp (75 to 80F) and this one at 71 to 72 F. It would make sense either that higher temps caused bennies to grow faster and use up more sugar, or that the lower temp was better for the microbal growth and thus had a greater effect once used.
Bigest difference I can think of is that my last batch was brewed at a bit higher temp (75 to 80F) and this one at 71 to 72 F. It would make sense either that higher temps caused bennies to grow faster and use up more sugar, or that the lower temp was better for the microbal growth and thus had a greater effect once used.
hydrolyzed
Active Member
Thanks for all this info. I have begun research on the spore sizes of cyanobacteria but it seems it is not a spore producing one. I might have something else, as I am reading that the endospores are very resistant to UV light and even have survived in outer space for years. This sounds bad for me. I can remember now, not exactly sure of the timeline but i think right around when this started happening, my city changed it's main water supply from our own reservoir to another cities miles away and they also changed their chlorine injection system at the same time.....maybe that has something to do with it, but there are many growers around me on the same city water as me without the slime problem so then again I'm not sure.
I pretty much did exactly what you do and still got slimed....made the tea the same way, inoculated the same amounts in the same time frames, and ran a super low EC, about 0.5EC, didn't make a difference. I didn't add more food when I saw it dropped..I never do, I just change the res when it's scheduled to be changed, never add anything back to it. I have plenty of air...a 500w regenerative blower for 350 gallons of water.
I wish there was a way to really sterilize the water other than buying a gigantic pressure cooker and cook the water at 20PSI for hours...that's the only way I have found to defeat endospores that we know of at this point, that is if I even have a problem with spores.
Added some pictures I took today. Two plants in the same system, the front large one is obviously dead/dying and doesn't look savable...the one in back, for whatever reason, looks fine even though it's in the same solution as the dying one. Maybe it will die soon, too. From the pics its obvious the slime is back as the roots leaving the netpot obviously have a milky stinky slime on them. Can't believe NOTHING worked to get rid of it. So sad.
I pretty much did exactly what you do and still got slimed....made the tea the same way, inoculated the same amounts in the same time frames, and ran a super low EC, about 0.5EC, didn't make a difference. I didn't add more food when I saw it dropped..I never do, I just change the res when it's scheduled to be changed, never add anything back to it. I have plenty of air...a 500w regenerative blower for 350 gallons of water.
I wish there was a way to really sterilize the water other than buying a gigantic pressure cooker and cook the water at 20PSI for hours...that's the only way I have found to defeat endospores that we know of at this point, that is if I even have a problem with spores.
Added some pictures I took today. Two plants in the same system, the front large one is obviously dead/dying and doesn't look savable...the one in back, for whatever reason, looks fine even though it's in the same solution as the dying one. Maybe it will die soon, too. From the pics its obvious the slime is back as the roots leaving the netpot obviously have a milky stinky slime on them. Can't believe NOTHING worked to get rid of it. So sad.
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hydrolyzed
Active Member
Doing more reading, a bacterial spore is 1 micron in size. RO membrane pore size is .0001 microns. If this is the case, how are the spores getting past the RO filters?
Onekama
Member
I have done a mid week drain in preparation for flowering. I pulled out a piece of tubing that lives inside my main res, wiped down about half of it, and snapped some pics. All other grow details are in the second grow in my signature. Any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated.
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hydrolyzed....
when you start a new batch....put a 4" or if possible a 6" air stone in the bottom of each bucket running on its own pump ( http://www.hydrofarm.com/product.php?itemid=7644) and make sure your dwc is a constant recirculating system and Ill bet you a dollar to a donut you don't get slimmed anymore. Your root mass isn't getting the proper amount of air and all the tea in the world isn't going to help.
when you start a new batch....put a 4" or if possible a 6" air stone in the bottom of each bucket running on its own pump ( http://www.hydrofarm.com/product.php?itemid=7644) and make sure your dwc is a constant recirculating system and Ill bet you a dollar to a donut you don't get slimmed anymore. Your root mass isn't getting the proper amount of air and all the tea in the world isn't going to help.
hydrolyzed
Active Member
I have 4 24" inch airstones in each 50 gallon tote with over 20 CFM of air going into 350 gallons total from a 1/2HP blower...that's a lot of air, and it's cooled air at that so it's not heating up my solution, which stays at 70F. Thanks for trying to cover every base, it's what I've been doing since day 1 of the slime. Still researching more about filtering and it seems no bacteria can make it through an RO filter, and even the most resistant endospores known (bacillus) are killed by about 20 micro watt seconds per square cm, and my sterilizer is irradiating the water that flows through it with about 100, so 5x the lethal dose for spores.
Not saying there isn't something I'm missing here since it's obviously SOMETHING since I keep getting slimed, just not sure what at this point.
hydrolyzed......I don't care how much air you have in the rez......The problem is in each bucket. You need a 4" - 6" disk type air stone in the bottom of each bucket on its own 20 watt air pump. This shit were up against love's stagnant water or air. I know a 4 " disk air stone on its own pump seems completely overkill but that's what I did and after 3 1/2 years of battling this thing ...I finally had a batch without the slime and it looks like I'm actually going to be able to get a harvest.
The water in the bottom of the buckets need to constantly recirculate back to the rez. Water left standing in the bottom of each bucket better be bubbling huge amounts of air. Water left in the drain lines had better be moving with a quickness to stay oxygenated. Failure to do any of these rules will result in slime.
Forget what you used to do ....forget what you used to get away with. We are battling some kind of new Alien Superbug. I have never seen anything like it. This thing wants pythium to take over because the pythium is producing something that this superbug likes to eat and this alien superbug likes to suck out all the oxygen out of the water so the pythium can flourish. The only thing that wins is massive amounts of air and tea.
The water in the bottom of the buckets need to constantly recirculate back to the rez. Water left standing in the bottom of each bucket better be bubbling huge amounts of air. Water left in the drain lines had better be moving with a quickness to stay oxygenated. Failure to do any of these rules will result in slime.
Forget what you used to do ....forget what you used to get away with. We are battling some kind of new Alien Superbug. I have never seen anything like it. This thing wants pythium to take over because the pythium is producing something that this superbug likes to eat and this alien superbug likes to suck out all the oxygen out of the water so the pythium can flourish. The only thing that wins is massive amounts of air and tea.