DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

propertyoftheUS said:

Thank fu#@!>& god I found this forum!!!! I gave up growing hydro because of that fu#@!>& slime!!!! I tried everything to get rid of it and nothing worked. And it wouldnt completely kill the roots untill the girls had been flowering for 4 weeks so it just pissed me off to no extent every harvest I had was shitty except the first one. Now after reading this I know it was the organic nutes I switched to that started the ball rolling!! Then after I tried switching to Flora series nutes I started adding Superthrive to the mix which just purpetuated the cycle again!! It got so bad I gave up all together, sold off all of my equipment for pennies on the dollar just so I didnt have anymore reminders of my failures. This Thread here is the equivilent of hitting me with the paddles 2 years after I died and it reviving me!!! The only growers guid I possesed at the time was Jorge Cervantes indoor medical grow bible and I read the disease chapter over and over to no avail!!! Mr. Heisenberg, and all the others whom worked with you on this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!!! I feel like a brand new man!!!

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Ya buddy!, when i used any organics they stuck in my root system and still are there to this day. Even after i switched to synthetic after. My pepper plants are fruiting regardless. I just stay away from organics in water. I havent had any issues with superthrive in synthetic.

Heisenberg said:

Bennies will survive, but at 85 your bennies are competing with your roots for oxygen, so I would use a very lite application. With those temps you will barely be able to support root growth so be sure to leave a bit of a gap between the net cup and the waterline for extra air intake. Careful roots do not dry out in those temps. Increase bubbles if you can.

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Thanks Heis, i treated the reservoir with a minimal amount of bleach for the last 48 and luckily we had a cold front come in and my grow temps have managed to go down a bit (73-79). Ill keep everyone on how my everything works out.

Be careful with the bleach, works good for regular root rot but not slime in my experience. I tried the bleach (1/2 ml per gal) in both my veg and flower systems because I started to get "non-slime" root rot. In my veg system 24 hrs later it was slime city!!! worst case of slime I've had yet!! Rinsed and dosed heavily with aquashield and pondzyme while waiting for my tea to brew which save the girls(I'd have probably lost the crop if I'd have had to wait the whole 48 hrs it was so bad).

I'd say bleach is ok for non-dwc environments where slime is not an issue but in dwc we really need to be using bennies. Personally I use pondzyme and aquasheild for maintenance but 1st sign of issues I start a batch of tea!

I have questions for those that are using their own variation on Heisenberg's recipe.

What are you doing differently, and why?

I'm using ebb & flow, not DWC, but I think a tea could still be beneficial.

Word up, roll it up..

Been using the tea for a few months now with great results, down right saved my grow THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!.

I run individual buckets and my roots stay a off white-tannish color with the tea but this 1 plant (cali conn blue dream haze) her roots stayed a darker brown the whole grow. Her and her roots grow daily and shes the best plant of the crop its just the color of the roots had me on edge the whole grow. The root mass feels very firm.

Heres a few pics. What do you guys think?

Hey Johnny blaze those roots^^^^^ look amazing!!! Yeah the tea is absolutely amazing!! I've been using it myself

I have a question about brewing the tea. Is it OK to put the bucket into the grow room? My basement is cold, and the instruction to say to brew at "room temperature".
And a related question... When I refrigerate the left over tea, how cold does it need to be? If my basement stays in the low 50's, is that cold enough? I just put the bucket in the corner for the one batch I've made so far.

Heres the other one in flower. Should I be concerned with how brown these roots have gotten? I suspect there stained from a few really dark batches of tea that I used some kelp in the brew but Im not sure about that.

My tea recipes
zho-mycogrow-great white-subculture b <(I alternate these every batch not together)
molasses
ancient forrest
aquasheild
nitrozymes <(just started this last week)

johnnyblaze313 said:

Heres the other one in flower. Should I be concerned with how brown these roots have gotten? I suspect there stained from a few really dark batches of tea that I used some kelp in the brew but Im not sure about that.

My tea recipes
zho-mycogrow-great white-subculture b <(I alternate these every batch not together)
molasses
ancient forrest
aquasheild
nitrozymes <(just started this last week)


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i think your crazy for running molasses personally. Thats probly whats making them brown but maybe your just finnishing them right now. I sure hope so. Ive never done it but been told on many occations that it WILL kill your roots if you add sugars like that. Who knows...

Ninjabowler said:

i think your crazy for running molasses personally. Thats probly whats making them brown but maybe your just finnishing them right now. I sure hope so. Ive never done it but been told on many occations that it WILL kill your roots if you add sugars like that. Who knows...

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he is adding the molasses to the tea. the molasses feeds the bacteria as they multiply. within 48 hours, its eaten up.

johnnyblaze313 said:

Heres the other one in flower. Should I be concerned with how brown these roots have gotten? I suspect there stained from a few really dark batches of tea that I used some kelp in the brew but Im not sure about that.

My tea recipes
zho-mycogrow-great white-subculture b <(I alternate these every batch not together)
molasses
ancient forrest
aquasheild
nitrozymes <(just started this last week)


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Looking good johnnyblaze!! And yes the roots are just brown from the tea. GREAT root zone!!!'

Right I dont add mollasses directly to my reservoir I feed the tea with it then add the tea, the scientist tell me all the molasses is gone after the tea is brewed . They are almost finished 2 more weeks.

Alright thanks downinit! I felt like they where good but I still had some white root envy. I needed to hear it from someone with experience this is my first grow with the tea.. Thank you again.

dangledo said:

he is adding the molasses to the tea. the molasses feeds the bacteria as they multiply. within 48 hours, its eaten up.

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Oh ok, i missed that part, all i saw was kelp and molasses and i started to panic. Sounded like daily feed. My bad. I thought anything non synthetic was a risk.

I was wondering if it is okay to still use multizen in my rez?...or should it be added to the tea or neither?

Hiker said:

I have a question about brewing the tea. Is it OK to put the bucket into the grow room? My basement is cold, and the instruction to say to brew at "room temperature".
And a related question... When I refrigerate the left over tea, how cold does it need to be? If my basement stays in the low 50's, is that cold enough? I just put the bucket in the corner for the one batch I've made so far.

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I brew my tea in my flower room, which stays around 78f. This is a good temp for brewing. The average refrigerator is about 35f, so 50 is not quite cold enough.

johnnyblaze313 said:

Heres the other one in flower. Should I be concerned with how brown these roots have gotten? I suspect there stained from a few really dark batches of tea that I used some kelp in the brew but Im not sure about that.

My tea recipes
zho-mycogrow-great white-subculture b <(I alternate these every batch not together)
molasses
ancient forrest
aquasheild
nitrozymes <(just started this last week)


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Nice mass and some of the browning is from nutes and age, but you need more oxygen in your bucket IMO.

bhd! said:

I was wondering if it is okay to still use multizen in my rez?...or should it be added to the tea or neither?

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You will have to test the multizen once your slime is gone. If you are using synthetic nutes you do not need the multizen at all. It's for breaking down organic compounds.

Thanks for the response. Actually I currently don't have slime thanks to you from a couple grows back. I've been adding seaAgri's sea-90 to my tea...is this beneficial to put in the tea or could I just put directly in the rez? Thanks again.

bhd! said:

Thanks for the response. Actually I currently don't have slime thanks to you from a couple grows back. I've been adding seaAgri's sea-90 to my tea...is this beneficial to put in the tea or could I just put directly in the rez? Thanks again.

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I would use it in the res. Test it in one bucket first if you can. I don't think it would trigger slime but better to be safe.

Good luck.

Heisenberg said:

I brew my tea in my flower room, which stays around 78f. This is a good temp for brewing. The average refrigerator is about 35f, so 50 is not quite cold enough.

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Thanks Heisenberg. I just don't know how I feel about having it in my fridge. For now I can put it outside I suppose. I suspect if it freezes, the bacteria and fungi will die?

hey man nice post

would the slime be white and like jello?

i got it plant a seedling water only 2 days old

Hey Heisenberg. Getting slimed here. Sucks cause the temps are like 66F and I was running aquashield and great white throughout. Over summer I was dealing with 75-80F water and not adding anything and I was getting lucky and not having any issues, this grow and im running into first MG def. and now rot issues. Its not too thick but roots are brown and falling apart. I see new growth coming out the netpot as fuzzy white roots, but the brown is getting worse. I hope she is savable as the growth was amazing. Would these root issues be systematic?
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What happened I think was I let a plant that was having issues go longer than it should have and that plant developed brown roots and the res was smelly and it affected another plant that was doing good. I chucked both those plants. Now its starting to affect this plant, I think from sharing the meter.


Roots 4 days prior to the browning. Is this the onset of brown slime?

This is the roots of the other surviving plant. This plant is still doing ok. I see foam in the res but I think thats from the tea.
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Dosed them 36 hours ago with 1c per gal. My tea wasn't foamy after brewing, does this mean it didn't brew right? I ran outta air stones so I put just the air tubing in the sock, but it kept rising to the surface and making like a gurgling sound so I don't think my solution was aerated enough.

I'm going to get stones once hydro restocks and make another batch.