DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

SHABOOGY1 said:

So is it okay to introduce the myco to my res when it comes or should i wait to for the next batch of brew???

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The mycogrow has no 'food' in it like other inoculants so adding it directly to the res will do very little. It's best to wake the microbes up in a brew and then add them.

Heisenberg said:

The mycogrow has no 'food' in it like other inoculants so adding it directly to the res will do very little. It's best to wake the microbes up in a brew and then add them.

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Thanks for all of your info,,, without you i would have been doomed... Im forever in your debt!!!

Where do you get your Mycogrow and Ancient Forest??

Heisenberg said:

Tnks MM




Well the tea made with the mycogrow product seems to be working at least as well as the ZHO+aquashield. I used it on a new clone that was a bit slower than the others in root development and just a few days later it has a very nice root ball. I am now using this in my tea permanently. Since this product is only $6 and replaces two others, the tea is now cheaper than ever to make. The most expensive part with each batch is buying the filtered water.

My personal numbers:
2 gallon water - $2
Mycogrow - $6/20 = .30c
Ancient Forest - $14/100 = .14c

So each batch costs about $2.44 and inoculates 32 gallons of water. Obviously if you are in a situation to provide your own water the price goes down to pennies. How much would you have paid for a sure-fire way to beat the slime when you were at it's mercy?

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Kronoloctipus said:

Where do you get your Mycogrow and Ancient Forest??

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You can order the mycogrow from fungi.com and purchase the AF from your hydroponics store or fleabay...

My initial point that I wanted to bring up with the comment that spawned the whole organic/non organic thing (which would be great conversation to have if we were hanging out, but I am not going to get into typing all that on here, lol) was that basically that we (humans) intervene in systems that we don't know everything about. This is often very good, but it is incredibly important for us to not loose sight of the fact that we pretty much never know everything there is to know about about even one system...and even less about how that system interacts with other systems.

Furthermore, we often try to determine if our intervention is going to be potentially harmful based on an incredibly limited perspective, and then down the road, we find out the ripples from our intervention have unforeseen and unintended consequences.

It would help us as a species (EDIT: as a planet) a lot if we could keep that in mind, generally speaking. Humans aren't wired to be really good at preparing for and averting long term negative consequences, and it is catching up with us all.



I guess I am trying to plant a seed (ahem) in this community, that is already clearly geared towards changing the status quo, because it just aint good enough.

Just as an FYI. My clone roots were covered in slime and gunk. I mean COVERED. So much that I thought it must be something else. Added a batch of the tea. (3 gallons in a 25 gallon rez). And added a fucking huge airpump (110 l/m) and 4 airstones. Opened things up 4 days later.. Bright white roots!!!

Air stone test tonight

legallyflying said:

Just as an FYI. My clone roots were covered in slime and gunk. I mean COVERED. So much that I thought it must be something else. Added a batch of the tea. (3 gallons in a 25 gallon rez). And added a fucking huge airpump (110 l/m) and 4 airstones. Opened things up 4 days later.. Bright white roots!!!

Air stone test tonight

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im have been waiting on those test results. very interested in how that turns out. the airstone hype about 30% increases in yeild makes me want to by the more expensive ones. i just wonder if its all a marketing ploy.

got a question about sediment on the bottom of my res, its not slime its brown and its not effecting my ph range is this normal?

is it like a scaley algae almost if so then ive got it at the bottom of my tank too if i mix the rest vigorously it comes off in large flakes. it seems to be mostly clear with random spots of brown

Ps about the airstone im really beginning to believe that i need a commercial grade air pump and that if i get it my problems should mostly go away just to the tremendous amount of air being pumped

I see sediment in my buckets, sometimes worse than others, and it's never caused a problem. I have always attributed it to the tea not being filtered enough, but i'm sure there is more to it than that. In any case it's nothing to be alarmed about if your PH levels are fine and you do not detect a bad odor.

Very informative thread, will be trying this after my current grow. I use a cooler also for my reservoir, my temps stay around 68 only because of the frozen 2 liters I change out. And man that is getting old, fast. Appreciate the knowledge...

Heisenberg said:

I see sediment in my buckets, sometimes worse than others, and it's never caused a problem. I have always attributed it to the tea not being filtered enough, but i'm sure there is more to it than that. In any case it's nothing to be alarmed about if your PH levels are fine and you do not detect a bad odor.

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no bad odor at all

Got eveything set up for th airstone test, just need to find the time to do it. Having just messed around with several stones and weak and strong pumps, I will say that I suspect that it has allot
More to do with the pump than the stone.

My 110liter pump is a MONSTER and will make water boil even with the cheapest stone. Logic dictates if you want more air...then pump more air. And they are not that much cash really.

fallinprince said:

is it like a scaley algae almost if so then ive got it at the bottom of my tank too if i mix the rest vigorously it comes off in large flakes. it seems to be mostly clear with random spots of brown

Ps about the airstone im really beginning to believe that i need a commercial grade air pump and that if i get it my problems should mostly go away just to the tremendous amount of air being pumped

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I found out from this thread that I needed at least 1 watt of air per gallon, and I wasn't using even half that amount. I bought 2 (in case one punks out on me) Sunleaves 950 gph air pumps ($49 each with shipping on Ebay) and these things ROCK. Lots of air. Two things that took getting used to was the noise/vibration (they are much louder than the cheap POS plastic pumps, and I can feel the vibration like slight bass from a stereo, even though I have it hung) and the heat coming off if it. I thought the heat would transfer to my rezes, but I see no difference in rez temps using it. You're going to need more air using bennies, and these big metal pumps are supposed to last a long time (just need to change the diaphragm every so often), so you may as well pick one up...

Micheal Myers said:

Very informative thread, will be trying this after my current grow. I use a cooler also for my reservoir, my temps stay around 68 only because of the frozen 2 liters I change out. And man that is getting old, fast. Appreciate the knowledge...

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Hey, MM. Before I started using this tea, I grew only in insulated coolers: a couple small ones, and a HUGE 150 liter Coleman Marine cooler. I grew 4 plants out of the Coleman, but it got pretty crowded with the top only being 2ft x 4 ft. I swapped frozen bottles at least once a day: 2 liters in the Coleman, and brown 16 oz. peroxide bottles in the smaller rezes. At one point, I had about 10 frozen water bottles at any given time in my freezer and my friends would be like, 'what the fuck are all these bottles for?' I told them that they're better than using ice when I pack my coolers with food going to the lake, as you don't have ice melting and wetting everything. That story got harder to swallow in the winter Out of the tea's many benefits, my favorite is not having to dick around with the bottles, and I'm proud to report that there isn't ONE frozen bottle in my freezer anymore. Good luck!

legallyflying said:

Got eveything set up for th airstone test, just need to find the time to do it. Having just messed around with several stones and weak and strong pumps, I will say that I suspect that it has allot
More to do with the pump than the stone.

My 110liter pump is a MONSTER and will make water boil even with the cheapest stone. Logic dictates if you want more air...then pump more air. And they are not that much cash really.

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well thats where it get confusing. obviously more air is better. but you could be pumping a ton of air per min into a rez but if its not making bubbles that benefit the plant then its worthless. would a small micro boss hog diffuser produce more usable air then say one of these big diffusers? i want to use these monster 24 in diffusers to lay in the bottoms of the totes in a recirculating dwc. one for every plant and one in the control. maybe just the 12 inchers for every plant, but definately the 24 in the control. now obviously these tubes are going to produce more air. but is it usable air? i can pick up the all of the diffusers i need for under $100. but the boss hog or whatever its called would cost me 3 times that. i just dont know the science behind the bubbles which is why im really interested in your results. not only that but how much is to much air? at what point (oxygen level) are you just wasting electricity pumping unused air into the water? like nutes the plants can only eat so much. this whole diffuser business leaves me with more questions then answers.

wow that is a shit load of air

I checked out a different local hydro store over the weekend and the owner is a major Tea Head. He makes and packages a fine powdered Tea "Starter" or booster. Kelp, some fish, molasses, spirulina and yeast. (might be missing something) I was just picking up some Ancient Forest but man did we get on the subject of making Tea and this guy loves the topic. He just uses the AF mixed with some rich local compost and the Tea Starter. Told him it sounded real interesting but I had a recipe and the ingredients for it, might think about his Starter down the road. He says, "Here, just take it. You'll love it." Dude kicked me down a $20 bag of this stuff. I turned back and bought him out of 4" air stones.

Question, I am running this in RDWC. This seemed to surprise him that I use an unfiltered tea in a recirculating system. Does anyone see any negative affects of using these alternative ingredients?

He claims to get 1 billion microbes per tablespoon in 36 hours. The stuff foams like nuts. You can just make out the level of the Tea at about the 3 gallon mark.

Dam mine didnt foam like that wow
Thats messy

Yeah he told me it would explode with an algae bloom at about 18 hours. That's the part that concerns me. Why do I want to introduce that to my reservoir?