Main signs of root rot in DWC

I may have root rot again on another plant, its hard to tell. I never got root rot in DWC in the past 8 years and I've had temps as high as 80 degrees in my rez. I'm thinking it could be an equipment problem or something. I have a few questions below.

1) What are the main signs of root rot in DWC. Do the main stems turn purple? Ph issues? Plant not drinking, etc.
2) I use the 10 gallon totes you get at home depot. After time do the lids lose the ability to block light bc they are getting older?
3) I use the hydroton clay pebbles and have had the same bag now for 3 years. I wash them off before every time good, but the clay always got in my rez a little and never caused any issues. Could the hydroton clay pebbles be bad?
4) Could bad nutes be causing root rot. However it didn't do it another rez/tent. I use GH technaflora nutes.

Meast21 said:

I may have root rot again on another plant, its hard to tell. I never got root rot in DWC in the past 8 years and I've had temps as high as 80 degrees in my rez. I'm thinking it could be an equipment problem or something. I have a few questions below.

1) What are the main signs of root rot in DWC. Do the main stems turn purple? Ph issues? Plant not drinking, etc.
2) I use the 10 gallon totes you get at home depot. After time do the lids lose the ability to block light bc they are getting older?
3) I use the hydroton clay pebbles and have had the same bag now for 3 years. I wash them off before every time good, but the clay always got in my rez a little and never caused any issues. Could the hydroton clay pebbles be bad?

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Forget about checking signs on top. Pythium root rot affect the roots so that's where you should look.

Main signs is clear snot on roots that turn into brown. Roots are brittle and fall apart if you pull lightly on them. Bad smell and underdeveloped roots.

You need to implement som preventative measure like using oxidizer like bleach or running Southern AG garden friendly fungicide containing bacillus amyloliquefaciens. 3-5ppm of residual chlorine is recommended in DWC, here's the dilution calculator: Chlorine dilution calculator

Wastei said:

Forget about checking signs on top. Pythium root rot affect the roots so that's where you should look.

Main signs is clear snot on roots that turn into brown. Roots are brittle and fall apart if you pull lightly on them. Bad smell and underdeveloped roots.

You need to implement som preventative measure like using oxidizer like bleach or running Southern AG garden friendly fungicide containing bacillus amyloliquefaciens. 3-5ppm of residual chlorine is recommended in DWC, here's the dilution calculator: Chlorine dilution calculator

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I use UC roots and have had no problems the past 8 years... Could the hydroton clay pebbles being doing it or the old rez totes I have be doing it?

For myself ph falling .5 to a full point in hours

Then my tote smelling like , roots or say potting soil.

Next level would be anything looking like snot on my clean white fish bone looking root.

I wash my pebbles and reuse.

I have pool shocked but now prefer to use orca mycorrhizae.

And yes , you can get rot in your cup. I would just inoculate weekly well till I couldn’t anymore. This will be very late in flower cycle.

smokey0418 said:

For myself ph falling .5 to a full point in hours

Then my tote smelling like , roots or say potting soil.

Next level would be anything looking like snot on my clean white fish bone looking root.

I wash my pebbles and reuse.

I have pool shocked but now prefer to use orca mycorrhizae.

And yes , you can get rot in your cup. I would just inoculate weekly well till I couldn’t anymore. This will be very late in flower cycle.

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What you mean in my cup?... I don't reuse clay pebbles.

I mean that you can get root rot in your cup that contains a very small amount of root and pebble.
If you run sterile ( pool shock ,h2o2 ) or live. You want your water splashing on your pot a bit so that nothing bad lives there and if not you should imho, take a Dixie cup out of your water and pour it through to make sure your killing everything and or making your live system, live everywhere.
Once a week.

You should not be getting root rot in a properly set up system, so you need to work out what happened, but you can't use bro science, so it's a bit tricky. Maybe try a shallow water culture not susceptible to root rot like DWC.

Meast21 said:

I use UC roots and have had no problems the past 8 years... Could the hydroton clay pebbles being doing it or the old rez totes I have be doing it?

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Probably the UC Roots that's no longer viable. It contains pure hypochlorous acid which is very unstable and has terrible shelf life. I would use regular bleach (sodium hypochlorite) instead which get broken down to hypochlorous acid and hypochlorite ion in solution. Longer residual effect and shelf life, save your money.

maybe you have bad tap water full of life.

main sign of root rot is your roots rot hahah they get a dark brown color and the water should stink

I knew a guy who grew in DWC.
I thought he was growing rice, until one day he showed me what looked like it was supposed to be a bud.
I took his sorry ass under my wing and taught him to grow in soil, where plants thrive.

Just kidding.... sorta.

Purple stems, mentioned the way you just did, almost always points to a nutrient deficiency.
See, here's the thing:
Temperature, even a couple degrees, can affect the nutrient uptake of the plant from your nutrient solution.
The Ph swings a little and the plant can no longer uptake half of what you are supplying. (prolly your issue with purple stems)
Root rot is invasive. Again, you said. Did you sterilize the hydroton before use this time? You can't wash it enough to kill pathogens. You must sterilize it.
I think what you are suffering may be the cumulative effects of bad practice.
Failure to sterilize your medium and temp and ph fluctuations.
No offense meant, just honest blind diagnosis.

i allways start my rockwool in boiling water. maybe next time try that