hey guys, i have had a serious run of slime and other crap, tried the tea in the beginning, had all kinds of problems, and fought it off in the end with the physan 20 and dm zone. I am sterile right now, it has been about 10 days since i have seen any slime, and i am going to do a res change after i get an answer on a few questions.
I have two 33 gallon rdwc systems. A central res, with two 10 gallon rope totes, piped with 1" vinyl hose, and recirculating with a 396gph pump, that falls back into the res. I did have two airstone in the res, but removed them. I have 4 large pop can airstones in each 10 gal container. These setups are identical in design. They each have a 70litre pump that splits into 8 lines, and feeds the 8 stones in the buckets.
When i started all i had was a 15l 4 site pump and 2 stones in each bucket, and another 4 site that gave two lines each to the res's. Hope that made sense.
I was getting slime and used the h202, but really wanted to use the bennies. I brewed a couple batches and tried using it but got blasted with a biofilm of some sort. My ph went to 4.2 and i dumped the res's and cleaned did all the normal things, boiled airstones for 20 min then put them into h202 bath etc. Refilled the system with the bennies and nutes, and things were back on track with nice new roots growing. They started eating well again and i added some kool bloom and big up powder and the next day i had the worst nastiest crap on my roots i have ever seen. I don't actually think this was root rot, i did at the time, and treated with physan 20 for 24 hours at the emergency dosage, and then broke down the systems, cleaned and sterilized everything, replaced hoses and fittings, made new manifolds etc and bought a chiller for 400 bucks.
But the reason i dont think it was slime or root rot was because it seems that something happened with the nutes, that created a reaction, and forced all the color out of the gh micro and bloom, and got really thick, like dried marroon colored plastic. It was nasty. took a lot of flushing to get it off, rinsed under hose in shower.
These are the same roots, same plant hours after adding the big up powder, but i also had sm-90 and superthrive in there at full strenght and i heard they react somehow.
Anyway i have read this entire thread and the same hiesenburg threads on other major sites, and liked this one the most. I have the cyanno in my well. I use ro filtered water at 3 ppms to start. I have just about everything for roots lol. Aqau shield, great white, orca, voodoo juice, rapid start, thrive alive red and green, superthrive, Ancient forest, etc etc.
I havent used any since i got the first run of what i thought was slime. just gh 3 part and the micro bloom formula at 120 mls micro and 180 mls of bloom in 33 gallons. I tossed one of the plants in the other system and removed a bucket from ther system and mixed the nutes for that res accordingly. I also used 3ml's of physan 20, and 1 ml per gallon of zone, and have been running very consistant numbers. Ph is staying right around 6, with a drift up to 6.3 or so over the week in one res, and rock solid in the other from 6.0 to 6.05 over the week. The ppms have gone down a little and they have drank a few gallons of water this week. I have the chiller running, and the water has been staying between 63 and 69.
The problem is is that i have not seen any real developement in the roots at all. They are as clean as i could get them, and they were really matted together, so getting to the center of them is impossible. I am seeing a few new fuzzy white roots in the net pots well above the water line, but that is it. So i am wondering if this root mass is just dead, or what?
The plants exhibited every defficiency there is, and i have removed a lot of leaves after the root issues, thinning them out a bit, and they look pretty well considering their trip. The best ones are very green, just not growing really, however they are in flower and the hairs are coming, and lots of preflowers.
But the roots worry me, they seem to be just laying there, no growth, no stimulation at all.
before
after
They pretty much have stayed the same since these pictures.
Can I post a link to another site where i have a journal for reference?
What i am asking here, is for hiesenburg himself to take a look, or any of the many other guys i have seen giving sound advice, and there are a ton of you, to answer a couple questions and give me some guidance. I have spent a small fortune on this room and setup, and want these plants to finish the best they can.
I would like to know what the heck happened when i got that nute seperation, and what happened. I have tons of pics i can upload and anyting else you wanna know just ask.
I would also like to know if it would be a good idea for this next res change, to follow the tea route again, to get my roots growing again, or if they are too far gone? I have tea brewing and it will be 48 hours when i change the res, clean, sterilize, dry. Then Ro water and tea for 12 hrs, flushing plants during this time with flora kleen, then ro water and tea, and then add the plants back to the system, waiting on nutes at half strength for a day or two?
Does this sound right?
Sorry if this seems to be a ramble, but there is way more info than i could type in a short sentance. I just wanna know if this would be a good idea, to get my roots going again, and if its worth the risk?