Foam in res (again!)

Hey guys,
From what I can tell i have bactiria in the res. my setup is as follows:
I have 3 DWC Buckets, each has 2 3" air stones wish about 1.25 gallons of water a piece. These are vegging under a 400w HPS. My res is filled with just under 1/4 nute solution of the following:
FoxFarm Grow Big: 1/4 tsp
FoxFarm Big Bloom: 1/2 tsp
Hydrozyme 6mL
h202: 1 cap full

The h2o2 + the airstones should be killing the bactiria, but it isnt! I keep having an issue with this and its becoming quite annoying as well as expensive since im switching the res every few days.
I even went beyond the recomendations and pourded abour 8oz of distilled water with a capfull of H2o2 (PH balanced to 5.9) through the hydroton and Rockwool.

My cleaning regiment has been as follows:
Pour out old crap
rinse with tap water
Isopropyl Alcohol to clean and disinfect the entire bucket inside and out
clean airtubes with rubbing alchohol
rinse all cleaned areas with Brita filtered water
replace nutes and H2O2


I dont think im missing anything... And i havent heard of anything else to do.... Please help!
+rep to all decent responses! kiss-ass

keep the temp down around 68.

Hygrozyme 8 ml per galon.

No light in/on res.

Good Luck.

sounds like u needa use a bigger res sir.little amounts of water will go bad faster.even wen i used a bucket i had atleast 4 gallons for 1 plant.ill never use a res under 5 gallons. i would say fill that suker to 3 gallons or even 4 and i bet this problem will go away.my first grow was SH bubbleponics similar to what ur using always had 5 gallons never had a problem

YEah im gonna try to make thses work for about another couple weeks then im gonna switch to 5 gal buckets.
Does anyone else have any methods for fixing the problem? ide love to try something new to help fix this... it seems like every day im changing at least 1 res

Keep ur res temps down, use frozen milk jugs and replace ever 12 hours. Anything over 70F and ur fucked

Air stones can actually be bad for res's because ur constantly introducing pathogens into ur res's via the sucked in air

Usually its the temps though, keep them at 62 and there is no way anything will infect ur res

try WaterMax By Bobs Brew makes . Rid my res. of all my problems

Aren't Fox Farm nutrients organic. Organic nutrients often foam as organic fertilizers contain both dissolved organic componds and suspended solids. Many of the dissolved organic compounds are in the form of oils. Organic oils coat air bubbles. Coated air bubbles do not collapse as readily as regular air bubbles. Many of the suspened solids in organic fertilizers are broken down by microbes into nitrites and then nitrates. Hence more oils.

There are two forms of bacteria that cause foaming (Nocardia and Microthrix) as they have hydrophobic cell surfaces so air bubbles attach to their surfaces so they float to the waters surface. They are highly susceptible to toxins (ie Chlorine or H2O2) so this means lite amounts kill them but not the beneficial bacteria that do the nitrite and nitrate conversions. Nitrate is the preferred form of nitrogem for plant uptake. Other than killing of the Nocardi or Microthrix (floating bacteria) the only way to control the problem is eliminate the organic oils. However eliminating the oils means eliminating most of the nutrients. Nocardia are caused by excess oils, long and increases in temperature. Microthrix Parvicella are caused by excess animal and vegetable greases and oils, but prefer colder temperatures. Both require high DO. Both bacteria are present in organic fertilizers as the fertilizers are not disinfected or sterilized.

IMHO organic nutrients are not a best choice for any system using bubblers (airstones). Google aquarium protein skimmers. With reef aquariums the skimmers are just a column of plastic tubing with water running through it and bubbles introduced at the bottom. The dissolved organic compounds (oils) stick to the bubbles surface and float to the surface as a foam where they are skimmed off, ie protein skimming. Basically they are doing on purpose to removed unwanted nutrients what your bubbles are doing in an attempt to remove your nutrients. However you are not skimming them off. If you did skim them off you would find that you were removing about half of your nutrients with the foam.

WaaterMax is made to repace the electrolytes removed by an RO filter or by water distiallation. Essentailly is is just magnesium carbonate and a calcium carbonate with phosphate precipitated on to its surface. It will not a effect the foaming at all. It will act as a pH buffer however.

fatman7574 said:

Aren't Fox Farm nutrients organic. Organic nutrients often foam as organic fertilizers contain both dissolved organic componds and suspended solids. Many of the dissolved organic compounds are in the form of oils. Organic oils coat air bubbles. Coated air bubbles do not collapse as readily as regular air bubbles. Many of the suspened solids in organic fertilizers are broken down by microbes into nitrites and then nitrates. Hence more oils.

There are two forms of bacteria that cause foaming (Nocardia and Microthrix) as they have hydrophobic cell surfaces so air bubbles attach to their surfaces so they float to the waters surface. They are highly susceptible to toxins (ie Chlorine) so this means light amounts kill them but not the beficial bacteria that do the nitrite and nitrate conversions. Nitrate is the preferred form of nitrogem for plant uptake. Other than killing of the Nocardi or Microthrix (floating bacteria) the only way to control the problem is eliminate the organic oils. However eliminating the oils means eliminating most of the nutrients. Nocardia are caused by excess oils, long and increases in temperature. Microthrix Parvicella are caused by excess animal and vegetable greases and oils, but prefer colder temperatures. Both require high DO. Both bacteria are present in organic fertilizers as the fertilizers are not disinfected or sterilized.

IMHO organic nutrients are not a best choice for any bubbler type system.

Click to expand...

Every one had good answers .. but wrong...
Except for ^^ Fatman, hit the nail on the head.

Your problem is your nutes, you are growing in a hydro system with soil nutes, thats right fox farms is TERRIBLE with for hydro..