Rockwool soaked in undercurrent

I had nothing but issues in my grow starting with root rot and spinning from there. Finally gave up after a month of wasted effort and money.

The thing that got my attention right away was that my rockwool cubes were completely soaked! The thing is for the last three days I had switched my totes from airstones to waterfalls. The water level had never been higher than an inch below the net cups.

The net cups are three inch, the rockwool is one inch and there is hydroton completely surrounding the rockwool with a layer below as well. Even when I was running airstones the rockwool shouldn't have been soaked I would think. I have no idea how they could still be soaked after having zero water introduced to them for 3 days. I did notice that my lids were still very wet after removing the airstones as well.

Temp 75, humidity 70%, water 68-70, nutes .4ec and ph was 5.8 not that nutes or ph would matter in this situation.

Anyone have an idea what could have been causing my rockwool cubes to get soaked? I'm in the middle of sterilization right now but would like to get going asap. No reason to start back up if I cant figure this issue out though.

Don't use rock wool period if doing rdwc. Just Aero clone your clones and soon the roots into a tip to stick through a hole at the bottom of the netcup. It helps to cut out one rung from the bottom so there's a twice as large hole for the tip. Get the stem down to the bottom and fill with hydroton.

I start off with clones I'm not set up yet to be able to start off with some seeds.

I understand hydroton is not the best thing to start off with but people have been using High drawing with great success I did last grow.

If I had a choice I do what your way but I can't find clones around here that are aeroponic.

I still don't understand how hydron could be wet if the water is not touching it and there's no bubbles does that make any sense?

Guess I'll have to look into starting from seeds from now on. I'm not a green thumb as it is starting off with seeds shit.

Dude make your own clones... It's so easy.


5 gallon bucket and lid, pump, some 360* green spray nozzles, some 1/2" vinyl tubing, a few 1/2 90's and tees, a pump that fits the 1/2" tubing, a neoprene kneeling foam pad to make collars out of and a 1"-1.5" hole saw. To cut the same size Hole in the lid to stick the collar in to.

There's plenty of DIY threads on here how to make one. Use some rooting powder to dip the soaking cuts into after they've sat in a glass for a minute or two rightb after cutting from the plant. So easy.

Put the pump on a timer 15/15mins on and off. 2 weeks later they're rooted.

shawnery said:

If I had a choice I do what your way but I can't find clones around here that are aeroponic.

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get an x acto knife and gently cut your clone out of the rockwool and transplant to hydroton. i did it that way when i could only get clones in RW.

rkymtnman said:

get an x acto knife and gently cut your clone out of the rockwool and transplant to hydroton. i did it that way when i could only get clones in RW.

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Man , do you know if their ok to get soaked after they get rooted.

Ive got some trying to root after some stress and their in rw i didnt know howto get it off. Its how it came.

projectinfo said:

Man , do you know if their ok to get soaked after they get rooted.

Ive got some trying to root after some stress and their in rw i didnt know howto get it off. Its how it came.

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i just sliced from top to bottom. just a bit at a time. and peel the rw away as you slice. after that, transplant to hydroton and they will be sad for a day or two but then they take off.

rkymtnman said:

i just sliced from top to bottom. just a bit at a time. and peel the rw away as you slice. after that, transplant to hydroton and they will be sad for a day or two but then they take off.

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How did you not destroy the root system? It seems like they hold on pretty tight to that stuff.

shawnery said:

How did you not destroy the root system? It seems like they hold on pretty tight to that stuff.

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very gently. like i said in the other reply, they will be sad for a day or two after you cut them out. but rw holds too much water to be a good medium for dwc

shawnery said:

How did you not destroy the root system? It seems like they hold on pretty tight to that stuff.

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oh and the clones i got were only in 2"x2" cubes of rw too.

You think I could save my current girls, not horrible but obviously deficient and about 12 inches tall, if I removed all the rockwool and transplanted to hydroton or to much plant to start rooting now, all the roots would have to go.

shawnery said:

You think I could save my current girls, not horrible but obviously deficient and about 12 inches tall, if I removed all the rockwool and transplanted to hydroton or to much plant to start rooting now, all the roots would have to go.

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without a pic, it's hard to say. how long are your roots?

shawnery said:

You think I could save my current girls

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and hell yes. these bitches are tough. you can treat them rough and they still turn oout OK

Roots are toast and have had root rot of some sort so they all need to go. Here are two photos of the best and the worst.


these were both transplanted st the same time and the tiny one has the longest roots. I'd say the longest roots were about 10" but again they were nasty from the top down.

rkymtnman said:

and hell yes. these bitches are tough. you can treat them rough and they still turn oout OK

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Mine are just in little one inch starter cubes.

They took a beating i thinknil play it out. My last crop had a few in rw and did fine

what size netpots are they in? take it out and replant into a bigger netpot with a bunch of hydroton at the bottom. get that rw out of the water and let the roots dangle into the water. keep an air gap.

That's the thing, they were never in the water and for the last 3 and half days I wasn't even running airstones just waterfalls. The water was 1 inch below the net pot with no water hitting it at all. Yet 3 and a half days later the rockwool was soaked like a poured a gallon of water on it.

3 inch.


Makes zero sense with everything I know about undercurrent, learning so?!

shawnery said:

That's the thing, they were never in the water and for the last 3 and half days I wasn't even running airstones just waterfalls. The water was 1 inch below the net pot with no water hitting it at all. Yet 3 and a half days later the rockwool was soaked like a poured a gallon of water on it.

3 inch.


Makes zero sense with everything I know about undercurrent, learning so?!

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They're like sponges. The moisture built up from the splashing of the waterfall is absorbed by it.

Not that kind of waterfall, no splashing at all, but maybe if no other ideas.

The thing that still gets me is my last run was the same rockwool net cup setup and didn't have the same issue.

For some strange reason this grow was different for some reason? The last grow was my second and I got .85gpw. Not the 1gpw standered but I was happy for my second grow. Not saying its special just pointing out it was at least respectable with the same net cup setup.

Just lucky that time?

Since when is 1gpw standard?

Also I don't think it's the RW if the plant has roots established in the system already.

What are your water temps? How does the stem look a tiny bit into the rockwool?