In my experience since writing this thread, the biggest factor for bringing on slime for me is temperatures. If you already have an established consortium of bennies they will help guard against high res temps, but if you currently have slime you have to get your res temps down for them to have a chance. I've said before that correcting res conditions is the first thing that should be done. If you have slime then it's a good bet that res conditions are bad, but it's not a sure thing. You may have perfect res conditions and simply added the wrong product which brought on slime. In any case, bennies will have limited effectiveness unless you get your res temps down to low 70's.
I no longer brew tea for maintenance. I use kangaroots for some base bennies when I place plants into flower, and only once. I do this to ensure I have vigorous roots and also to prevent gnats breeding in the water. At 10ml per 5 gallons, a bottle lasts a long time. Before plants go into flower, I use no bennies. Instead I use rhizotonic which causes an explosion of roots. This is sloppy - I should be using some bennies on young plants. Since I do not, I have been slimed the last two summers. That has happened because I have forgotten to turn on the exhaust fan for my tent the last two summers (don't need it in the winter or spring) and the tent has gotten hot. It's usually less than 24hrs before I have discovered the problem, but, both summers, that short time was enough to bring on slime. It's interesting to note that it only affected newly rooted cuttings. The mothers in the tent were unaffected.
Now, I recommend people follow my original instructions for fighting slime because every situation is different. However, my situation is such that I did not even change the res on the effected plants. Turning on my fan takes care of the temp problem, and I simply brewed some tea and added it. I didn't even rinse the slime from the roots. Two days later I can clearly see new root growth coming through the slime.
Anyway, my main point is that bennies can help you get things back to normal, but they will not circumvent improper res conditions, especially high temps/low oxygen.
"Slime" is a generic term. All that we can be sure of is that it's non-beneficial microbes growing out of control. Not everyone has the same type of slime. In my experience, slime is generally not pathogenic, but it does strangle roots cutting off their oxygen, and this can quickly lead to root rot (Pythium, Verticillium, Phytophthora, and Fusarium) which can eventually enter the plant's system.
