In my current grow I have had more problems than I'd like to admit. Short story; started with 6 plants. Now only 2 remains. Mostly heat is to blame. Room temp and water temp. Still in seedling stage, got a few more days at least until they can be qualifified as veggies.
Anyway, now Im left with one Girl scout and one Northern Lights. The Northern Lights started last week to show problems in the roots. It was brown and escalated every day. Getting more and more and darker brown in colour. I have fixed the main cause of it, which I think is way too warm water in my DWC buckets. But the problem didnt go away just like that. So in pure desperation I did something that seems to have removed the issue entirely in matter of a day or so. The plant is growing and the roots seems just as good as the other one which has displayed no problems.
What I did was:
1. Removed the plant with the plant pot from the bucket. I started to clean the roots as gently I could with my hands to see what I could remove of the rot. I also seperated the roots that was intertwined as much as I could and removed any roots too damaged.
2. Then I put the roots directly, but gently, under running cold tap water. This removed the remaining brown slime and color of the roots.
3. I washed the plant pot as much as I could with tap water, not satisfied with this. I feared the bad bacterias would still remain in the plant pot. But maybe I got lucky here... Difficult to wash the plant pot properly when the roots grow through the medium (rockwool in this case, which I will never use again...) and the pot.
4. I put the cleaned plant with plant pot and cleaned roots in a new bucket full of only cold tap water. I left it there for a couple of hours, for the remaining of the following steps.
5. Washed the original bucket and made sure it was completely clean. And by clean, I mean CLEAN. I used chlorine which kills pretty much all biological material. Rinsed and repeated. Including the air hose and the air pump. Then when it was clean I left the bucket and the gear in fresh tap water and some more Chlorine for a couple of hours.
6. Then I rinsed it a couple of times and made sure there was no chlorine (or bacteria) left in the system.
7. Started over again in the clean fresh bucket. Fixed light leaks and insulated the bucket and lid with light reflective material.
First it was again only cold tap water with the plant and air stone. After about another hour I increased the water temp to more normal temp (18c) and then I finally added nutrients and corrected PH which at this point was a bit high of course. But the plant wont die of exposure to high (7.2) ph for some hours. It WILL die of root rot though...
So now everything seems fine. All the levels are good and the roots still look fresh and healthy. I just wanted to share this method. What do the people here think? Did I just got lucky or is this good? Might seem like a lot of hassle, but it really wasn't. And it seems to have saved my plant.
Anyway, now Im left with one Girl scout and one Northern Lights. The Northern Lights started last week to show problems in the roots. It was brown and escalated every day. Getting more and more and darker brown in colour. I have fixed the main cause of it, which I think is way too warm water in my DWC buckets. But the problem didnt go away just like that. So in pure desperation I did something that seems to have removed the issue entirely in matter of a day or so. The plant is growing and the roots seems just as good as the other one which has displayed no problems.
What I did was:
1. Removed the plant with the plant pot from the bucket. I started to clean the roots as gently I could with my hands to see what I could remove of the rot. I also seperated the roots that was intertwined as much as I could and removed any roots too damaged.
2. Then I put the roots directly, but gently, under running cold tap water. This removed the remaining brown slime and color of the roots.
3. I washed the plant pot as much as I could with tap water, not satisfied with this. I feared the bad bacterias would still remain in the plant pot. But maybe I got lucky here... Difficult to wash the plant pot properly when the roots grow through the medium (rockwool in this case, which I will never use again...) and the pot.
4. I put the cleaned plant with plant pot and cleaned roots in a new bucket full of only cold tap water. I left it there for a couple of hours, for the remaining of the following steps.
5. Washed the original bucket and made sure it was completely clean. And by clean, I mean CLEAN. I used chlorine which kills pretty much all biological material. Rinsed and repeated. Including the air hose and the air pump. Then when it was clean I left the bucket and the gear in fresh tap water and some more Chlorine for a couple of hours.
6. Then I rinsed it a couple of times and made sure there was no chlorine (or bacteria) left in the system.
7. Started over again in the clean fresh bucket. Fixed light leaks and insulated the bucket and lid with light reflective material.
First it was again only cold tap water with the plant and air stone. After about another hour I increased the water temp to more normal temp (18c) and then I finally added nutrients and corrected PH which at this point was a bit high of course. But the plant wont die of exposure to high (7.2) ph for some hours. It WILL die of root rot though...
So now everything seems fine. All the levels are good and the roots still look fresh and healthy. I just wanted to share this method. What do the people here think? Did I just got lucky or is this good? Might seem like a lot of hassle, but it really wasn't. And it seems to have saved my plant.
