Need some help/Gen Organics/Microbes/Citric Acid/Foaming

Hey all. 1st post. 1st grow. I have some plant problems, which I will probably post in more specific forum (toxicities or deficiencies or a mix).They are in week 2 of veg.

I'm growing a Organic grow in a 4 by 8 Aeroponics table - 32 sites. Right now I have 6 blueberries and 10 Apollo 11's from Joeyweed. All parts of table and 70 gallon reservoir are light sealed (algae impossible). Reservoir is aerated with bubble wand. Reservoir temperature is 25 degrees Celcius. Have been controlling will frozen icecream pails in reservoir. I'm trying to keep it around 23 but I need more pails. takes a while to freeze that much water.

Nutrients: I changed from Medi-one 2 weeks ago because of filter clogging & because of some stupid mistakes with presumably incompatible supplements from other formulations, leading to my girls getting sick, especially the blueberry's. I also changed from my smaller 2 by 3 table with T5's and 30 gal res to my larger table with HPS and 70 gal res. Now I'm using the General Organics line, grow, seaweed, bioroot, calmag, formic acid, humic acid plus microbes as of yesterday.

So, just yesterday I changed to citric acid as a pH adjuster because I read the regular pH down can ruin the organic mixture. Yesterday, I also purchased and added the microoganisms. Today I have a wildly foaming mixture in my res and my plant roots have foam clinging to them. It's like the stuff you see in a hot tub - bubbly white foam. The res smells a bit like a gym locker. I'm hoping this is the microbes and is a good sign. I really have no idea!!! Please someone tell me if this is normal. Has anyone done organic aero before?

Experience and wisdom please!!!

On a side but related note, I did some home brewing recently (because I was experimenting with CO2) and noticed a similar thing with the yeast. But there's a difference or two between a batch of yeasty brew and a rhizomatic fungus cultured aerated bubbly reservoir.

Could it be the citric acid? General Organics says you don't need to mess with pH with their line but I am skeptical. How can you not adjust the pH and expect healthy plants? My pH keeps climbing too. I adjust it from 6.5 down to 5.8 with citric acid and a few hours later it's back up to 6.5....??? Always thought it was rockwool causing the ph climb but the pH has never climbed this quickly and those rockwool cubes should be neutralized by now, shouldn't they?

Or is this normal??? Aieeeeeee! Insanity! Please help if you know the source of the foam or pH problems...thanks!

Its the citric acid you added. You dont need to adjust PH with GO.

Jerry Garcia....a user here uses it. I just switched to too.

Hey man, I really appreciate your response. I just want to clarify, are you and/or Jerry growing organic in aero? If so I think we're pioneers man cause I've not found much on organic aero, other than some vague stuff. I suspected the citric acid being the culprit. I'm still wondering about the gym sock smell in the res. When I lift under the table it has a nice earthy smell, though the roots seem a little slimy but still white and not sick looking and there is a thick brown slime on the net pots, which may be anaerobic secondary metabolites. Based on what I've been reading part of the problem may be organic matter in the res but I think my filter is catching them and the particles aren't going into the table. I'm concerned that any bad microbes feeding off the nutes in the res may go into the table but hopefully my rhizomes are kicking their asses.

So I've been postulating that processing the nutes in advance, like organic tea, compost tea, etc may be the way too go. If they do it with compost way can't you do it with a known formulation? I'm thinking of batching the nutes 3 to 4 days in advance with aeration in a brew reservoir, then using a pump with filter to strain the physical organic matter out, leaving behind only metabolized nutes in ionic dissolved form (hopfully losing their carbon componants in process & becoming ions). From there I'd check TDS and see what's lost based on my TDS comparisons to volume to date. Of course this does not tell us what trace and NPK ratios are but neither does compost tea have this information, unless you have a lab analysis performed, which I will likely do when I get a return on investment.

Good to hear from you. Cheers!!!

http://www.gchydro.com/information_roots.asp

http://www.ehow.com/how_5222720_make-actively-aerated-compost-tea.html

I found these threads helpful ^^^

PS: I'm still blown away by the no ph adjustment thing. Will stop adding citric and nervously watch what happens...

I dont do aero i do handwatered in soil-less, but mixing nutes is where i would notice foaming. You should search his thread and see his grow.

will do that!

Just an update. I found another reference to another guy using GO in aeroponics...so I'm no pioneer anymore...awww shucks. The good news though is I saw some awesome big bud pictures using the system from 2 grows under his belt. I also read that he spoke with a GO rep who stated that while pH adjustment is not necessary in soil/soilless, it is necessary in aeroponics with GO products. And GO will work in aero provided you control the pH. You must do the 2 or 3 pH adjustments a day and then weigh how long you want to keep that up before getting tired and switching systems. I want to continue to provide a smoke report. In meantime, I'm continuing the citric acid. The foam is minimal now. The problem is the bubblewand/airstone = too many diffuse bubbles. You need large bubbles.

Don Gorgon: let me start by saying no hate here. I'll follow that with organic aeroponics is a contradiction. Organics relies on the soil food web, you have none. The microbes you are adding are soil organisms, and the majority will not survive. What will survive, bacteria usually, will constantly try to form a biofilm, and this will clog your equipment. Any fungal hyphae you hope to culture has no hope in your aero environment. If you truly want to do organics you will need to grow in either soil, or an organic soil-less media (soil-ish ie peat, coco, and barks). Even organic hydro is a contradiction, as there can be a biological film, but that hardly means a soil food web.

As for citric acid, that a good pH adjuster, but your pH is rising because citric acid doesn't "work" as long as a mixture of citric acid/nitric acid/phosphoric acid. BUT good news is your water wants to be 6.5 which is PERFECT for soil!

foam is okay. not great. foam should be in the tea brewer. do any of the products you are using contain yucca extract?

Mucho gracias Don Rise. My spanish sucks! I know there are some tempermental reactions on this board. I see no hate in your reply. Thank you. As with this I am learning. I agree that science supports soil/soilless organics.There is overwhelming evidence. I have not found many grow journals of aero-organics, this is true. Logic aside, I dare to dream...stupidly perhaps...I don't know. I was a dreamer who did not know that it could not be done. I chose organics because I heartedly believe you are what you eat. And I chose aero because I have a love for sci-fi and the marvels of science...not to mention the benefits. Now I am awake in reality gleaned by horrified awareness and ridiculous amounts of reading when my girls got sick. And so, my distain for chemical fertilizers remains. I am married to this road less traveled to see with my own eyes. I don't know if I'm facing impossible odds or not but I paid a substantial bill to set up my aero. It may be of interest to watch my progress. Plan B would be to go soil-less, pop out the emmiters, and flood the the table.

Fortunately, the plants are improving from their sad state. Growth has resuming and they are hungry again. This is due to recalibration of feeding and pH regimes. The roots are friggen marvelous! A little bit of some kind of brown residue is stuck to the sides of the netpots...perhaps this bioslime you speak of, which I understand from my schooling to be secondary metabolites of micro-organisms. Or it could be the common brown algea. I will post pictures soon.

Not at all contending your point, but more for good posture in a ship of fools, I just have to point out that many many many non-organic growers add culture to their hydro/aero-tables with belief that it benefits their root zones. I would bet good money actually that manufacturers of bennies probably do most of their business with these people...and as the bennies fall from a spoon into the swirling chemical pool that is their reservoir, I can almost hear them scream, for they go to death purer than any death imaginable. Yet chemical growers continue to pay huge sums on bennies & tea because they believe its good. A placebo effect of the nuture if not the nature.

So in any case, I'm changing back to medi-one because the pH buffers a little lower. The filter will have to be cleaned for the first few days several times and should clear up, I hope. So I'm trading off filter changes for a manageable ph.

We'll see, I guess that's the best I can say right now.

Gorgonic said:

Plan B would be to go soil-less, pop out the emmiters, and flood the the table.

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De nada, lol. I was saying Don Gorgon, he is a character from this really bad Jamaican movie called 'Rude Boy'. Don Gorgon runs things, lol.

I know MANY who do flood/drain in soil-less, some do organics. The lack of emitters means all the difference. You can use humic acid, molasses, and other gummy stuff... getting to hardcore food-grade organics, which is really IMVHO where we should be heading. Good enough for me to eat, good enough to feed/smoke. But IMVHO you will have to change up your res often with ANY organics... the 'shit' goes bad... seriously organics rots and stinks after a few days. My plant derived organic food advises 24 hours... but that is the extreme... I'm into extreme lol

Gorgonic said:

Fortunately, the plants are improving from their sad state. Growth has resuming and they are hungry again. This is due to recalibration of feeding and pH regimes. The roots are friggen marvelous! A little bit of some kind of brown residue is stuck to the sides of the netpots...perhaps this bioslime you speak of, which I understand from my schooling to be secondary metabolites of micro-organisms. Or it could be the common brown algea. I will post pictures soon.

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Biofilm presents itself. Slime is the matrix they use to secure themselves, they are there for the round, and may or may not be beneficial. Please do post.

Gorgonic said:

Not at all contending your point, but more for good posture in a ship of fools, I just have to point out that many many many non-organic growers add culture to their hydro/aero-tables with belief that it benefits their root zones. I would bet good money actually that manufacturers of bennies probably do most of their business with these people...and as the bennies fall from a spoon into the swirling chemical pool that is their reservoir, I can almost hear them scream, for they go to death purer than any death imaginable. Yet chemical growers continue to pay huge sums on bennies & tea because they believe its good. A placebo effect of the nuture if not the nature.

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Poetic, nice. I'm sure something lives and at the very least they may eat harmful microbes while dying.

Gorgonic said:

So in any case, I'm changing back to medi-one because the pH buffers a little lower. The filter will have to be cleaned for the first few days several times and should clear up, I hope. So I'm trading off filter changes for a manageable ph.

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sorry, don't know much about filters. are they getting slimed up, or particles from the organics?
PEACE.

going aero with organics on your first grow is like trying to be a astronaut after watching armageddon.


the gym smell is from your roots decaying, along with the brown slime. playing additive alchemy, plus organics, youre going to have more issues. the foam is a accumilation of additives and organics not disolving properly because they are atomized from the aero sprayers.

running aero with organics is going to be problematic. aero may be the fastest growth, but its not designed for organics and definitely not for newbies. researching aero, i realized it was more trouble than it was worth. trading off filters will lead to clogged sprayers. clogged sprayers leads to plants dying.

i humbly suggest saving the aero until youve dialed in your plants, let alone the grow.

please go to plan b before you run into more issues, otherwise your in for some heartache.

Thanks ima! I did not think about the atomized nutes making foam. I was thinking he's using wet betty or cocowet, and that was foaming from agitation.

Check your sprayers, although that may mean getting sprayed... at least it's organic

Gym smell... roots decaying. Not good. Are you using hygrozyme or any of them -zyme products to "eat" the dead root matter? Are you switching up emitter heads routinely? How far are you into the cycle?

Originally Posted by Gorgonic
So in any case, I'm changing back to medi-one because the pH buffers a little lower. The filter will have to be cleaned for the first few days several times and should clear up, I hope. So I'm trading off filter changes for a manageable ph.''

what youre cleaning out of the filters is exactly what youre paying to put in.

This is the aero-table assembly with 3 600 W HPS light assembly (affectionately dubbed "The Dragon"). Of 10 of Joey Weed's Blueberry's and 10 Apollo 11's; 6 Blueberry's and 10 Apollo's germinated. The seeds were over a year old and stored in a bedroom drawer...so success probably would have been better with fresher seeds. Though they not advertized as feminized, at least 8 of the Apollo's are female and at least 5 of the 6 surviving blueberry's are female. One Apollo was male and one of each have yet to show sex. Thanks Joeyweed!

Keep in mind when viewing this that you're seeing reflections off the mylar table covering...

Close-up's of 2 of my my not too happy ladies (confirmed sex). The Apollo (1st pic) is typical for state of health on my Apollo's. They didn't suffer from overfertilization as badly as the blueberry's but took a hit in some form of nutrient lockout combination, causing the leaf symptoms you see. I will post the notes on what I fed to cause this but I'm really comfortable at the moment and will have to go look at my notes first, lol... After flushing and adjusting nutrient level, the new growth has improved, though you can see curled down tips and pale leaves on some. The Blueberry's were hit hard. I feared death for them all. The specimen you see (2nd pic) was the most glorious of them prior to the incident. All of it's top growth shrivelled and grew crunchy and bottom leaves became like you see them in the pic. The new growth is improving but again, you can see the pale leaves and turned down tips. It is starting to branch out, which is nice.

I changed the reservoir last night and changing nutrient back to Medi-one, adding nutrient to 380ppm, slightly above the last value (350 - Gen Org). Only water was consumed last night but they were hungrily feeding before the rez changed and I expect some feeding when the lights come back on tonight.

Some root shots. They have plenty of hairs but you can see the brown color. It isn't rot. It's staining and some sort of coagulated crap. Not so much slime but more like a congealed substance. Perhaps brown algae.

Now the bag is a half baked idea I added today, after reading of your replies. I got it from a brewery store. It's fine mesh nylon. All I have for medium at the moment is hydroton so I added that with hopes that I'll colonize some good fungi. It's positioned half wet and half dry, so when the pump kicks in it gets to be dry for a couple seconds. Perhaps I should add better medium... I am thinking of adding my nutes to the bag from now on so that the organics don't get extracted by my filter. A concern is that bacteria like organics so I might want to make nutrient tea "in situ" and then pulling the bag out with the undissolved organics rather than leaving the bag in....but it's better having them in the bag than floating around and getting caught in the filter.

Like I said it's half baked. I'm trying desperately to stay aero and organic. Not ready to give up yet.

And just to answer questions:

-No hygrozyme...is this safe for an organic grow. I will look this up

-They are in about week 3 of veg now but they were all fucked up for at least a week when "the incident" occurred. No growth occurred in that week as they clung within an inch of life.

-The foam is all gone now that I started using larger bubbles - took out the bubble wand.

-I think the bag is going to solve my filter clogging issues.

-I'd rather take out what I paid for and keep it organic than go chemical. I just don't know what I'm taking out in respect to my nutrient composition when reading TDS and how to adjust my formulation. if necessary. I could be taking one particular element out en mass and this is a huge concern. I don't know at this point.

-No Yucca, Senior Rise

Gorgonic said:

And just to answer questions:

-No hygrozyme...is this safe for an organic grow. I will look this up

-They are in about week 3 of veg now but they were all fucked up for at least a week when "the incident" occurred. No growth occurred in that week as they clung within an inch of life.

-The foam is all gone now that I started using larger bubbles - took out the bubble wand.

-I think the bag is going to solve my filter clogging issues.

-I'd rather take out what I paid for and keep it organic than go chemical. I just don't know what I'm taking out in respect to my nutrient composition when reading TDS and how to adjust my formulation. if necessary. I could be taking one particular element out en mass and this is a huge concern. I don't know at this point.

-No Yucca, Senior Rise

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Hygrosyme is OMRI, so technically organics, but who knows whats in it.
I would try setting a pantyhose with peat moss, or something like that, in the res to provide a home for any beneficial bacteria and Trichoderma. But myco-fungi needs to be in contact with roots to grow. So there is little hope for that. But benni bacteria is still something.