Plants and Physan 20

I have some questions about this product.

1. Can anyone who has used this product tell me how they used it to kill that damn slime?

2. Is it safe for the plants?

TIA

1ml per 10 gal of water is enough to kill the slime. Soak the roots for 12-24 hours. It does not harm plants at this level unless they are already extremely stressed. If you don't sterilize completely the slime will be back in a few hours. If you do sterilize 100%, the slime will most likely be back in 24-72 hours. You can try to fight it off with h202 and other sterilizing products, or you can save yourself some time and learn how to make a microbe tea. Displace, starve and attack the slime with beneficial bacteria and fungi, and practice proper res maintenance.

at least 1 wt air pump per gallon
multiple air stones
no light reaching the water
water temps around 68f
NO organic material in res ever

Also, be careful disposing of the physan waste water, they say it can kill a septic system in no time.

Thanks Heisenberg! I was starting to wonder if anyone knew how to use it. The res temps are now good, that and light issues were part of the problem. I finally got both of those issues under control. Right now I'm using the H2O2, but I plan to switch to beneficials soon. I've considered making the tea that you speak of, and I've also considered Subculture-B from GH. I can't seem to find some of the products needed to make the tea myself. Besides...I think that Subculture-B has the same bacteria as a EWC tea. Another issue that I have solved is the air pump. I was running only 7w for a 18 gal tank. I have a 35W pump on the way.

Sub-b has only a small fraction of the bacteria as the EWC tea, and has no fungi. If I had to chose just one, I would chose sub-m as it has
trichoderma fungi, which are the real killers of the slime. Everything else just works to displace and starve it. Aquashield is a much cheaper alternative for bacteria. Sub-m/sub-b can also be bread in the tea style making them last longer. All the items for the tea can be found on google shopping search, although it's best if you can have a hydro store order the ancient forest, as shipping makes it expensive. You could also substitute the ancient forest with a cheaper EWC, as long as the EWC hasn't been sterilized.

The good news is that you should see real improvement just from getting the light, temps and oxygen under control. You may find that you were dealing with regular old 'res gunk' instead of the dreaded brown slime.

Heisenberg said:

You may find that you were dealing with regular old 'res gunk' instead of the dreaded brown slime.

Click to expand...

Ya...this stuff is almost clear, more like a yellow or clear snot. When floating in the water, it sometimes appears to have hairs growing out of it. Also it likes to grow on the air stones.

I'm wondering if your situation has improved?

I have ordered the products that I need to bread beneficial bacteria, but the algae continues to plague my res. I even received the Physan 20 that I ordered, and put it in the tank almost 48 hours ago. No improvement, and the algae continues to grow at will. So today I increased the dose of H2O2. Whatever this stuff is, it is not brown. I just cleaned the airstones, but I plan to take a picture of it next time and post it. If someone can tell me what I'm dealing with, I might be able to control it until I have the products to make that tea. When I clean the res, it seems to take about 3-4 days before this stuff grows to a point that I become worried.

The Physan is intended as a temporary soak to sterilize the root zone. You must also scrub and sterilize any equipment and containers that came into contact with the water. If the physan didn't kill your slime then you didn't use it properly. You must remove dead and dying roots before the soak, throw out the old air stone, ect. The water should get a little foamy or fizzy. Even if the physan did work, the slime is likely to quickly return.

You will have good luck with the EWC tea, however it is still extremely difficult to purge the slime from a root zone once infected. You will need to soak the roots in the physans for 12-24 hours, sterilize everything, and then fill your res with just plain pure water. Add in the microbes and let it set for a day or so before adding any nutes. Even with the EWC tea it is still important to practice proper res maintenance; temps, oxygen, ect. Never add anything organic to the res. Never try to feed the microbes in the res, just add more.

I was plauged with the slime for months. I spent a lot of money on sterilizing products and broke my back scrubbing and sterilizing day after day, and in the end the slime just kept coming back strong as ever. The EWC was like a magic bullet that made the nightmare go away. It did take some playing around with it... I even got slimed again once when I changed the res over to new water (I didn't use enough tea). That time I actually just added more EWC tea to the res and in a matter of 12 hours I watched the slime diminish and get eaten away. Just remember, with sterilizing products or with EWC, root disease will always be there in the background just waiting to gain a foothold and take over. Your best defense is proper res maintenance and good healthy plants. Strong healthy plants will shrug off the slime on their own.

Also, if all else fails, I discovered that plants grown in an ebb and flow type set up don't care about the slime. The res will still get slime in it but since the roots sit in air most of the time, it doesn't effect them.

Whatever I'm dealing with, I don't think it has anything to do with root rot. There is no slime on the roots unless it simply gets on there from splash. The plants are still very small, and the roots aren't even in the water yet, or are just growing into the water. This slime is in the res only. Here is a couple pictures of what I'm dealing with. BTW...I do have plenty of air pump, and multiple stones, I simply turned them off to take these pictures.



I suspect that this is simple algae. But I've blocked as much light as I can, and it still came back. H2O2 does nothing as well. As for the air stones. I did replace those because when I tried to clean them between res changes I accidentally broke both of them. But replacing them every time this stuff grows is just to much, I don't buy the really cheap airstones. I didn't scrub the res, I simply replaced it. I do think I was successful in cleaning everything. But like you said, it will come back. Mine came back after four days when I last changed the res. I know that I will just have to control it the hard way until the EWC products get here. Thanks for all the advice.

Yea that looks like plain ole algae. Algae is undesirable because it can clog things up, but it really doesn't attack the plants or roots, like slime will. You need to block out 100% of the light before you do anything else. I use a hot glue gun and tin foil to cover every inch of my res. The EWC tea will discourage algae but if you have light leaks it will come back eventually no matter what.

I agree that light is a big issue as to alge but what are your Res Temps if there above 70 algae will grow Good Luck

I keep ice bottles in the res, so my temps drop down to about 60-65 at night, and heat up to between 65-75 during the day. It's all dependent upon how many times I change out the ice bottles. On my next grow I plan to use coolers, no light, and I've read that they keep the res cooler.

I know its been awhile but how'd u do