root slime? DWC and organics dont mix?

hello everyone thanks for reading. and thanks for any help I may get.


First off this is not my first merry-go-round. I've done hydro top feed buckets for years... I recentlly went to DWC. thats where the problem starts. I have a certain number of 5 gallon buckets all connected by 1 1/4 inch pvc pipe with a water chiller at 67 degrees powered by a pump that creats a constant flow.
My first grow was good using "FloraNova" by general hydroponic (organic mix). Now I am using "House and Garden". many in my area consider this the best? any ways. My second grow I noticed a slime, I posted pictures (picture of root rot above), read advice, read more on rollitup.org, decided to scrap all babies (only two weeks old) and start over. So I disasembled entire unit,cleaned all buckets, pipes, baskets, hoses, airstones everything. Then I ran industrial strength h202 at 3mils/gallon for 24 hours. Then indroduced nutes (house of Garden) some of house and gardens additives have organic materials I think? Like root excelerator and seaweed extract. I also added ORCA for my benificial Bacteria as well as superthrive......But two days after planting babies I noticed a little slime on some white roots (the other picture above).

Can anybody offer some advice?

also I have completely cover buckets to make light proof.

Have you tried adding something like hygrozyme to the buckets? A cheaper more concentrated version would be Pond Zyme, usually found in the Fish/pet section of Wal-Mart, etc.

from my experience,,, you don't EVER want to introduce anything organic in dwc or any other form of hydro... check out this thread https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html and i guarantee you won't go wrong... Happy Growing!!!

Have you looked at the sticky at the top of the forum? Heisenberg has a treatise on pesky cyanobacteria (slime) and biological strategies for combating them with a "ta" of bennies (beneficial microbes). Better than chemical sterilization, because it's the gift that keeps on giving..

As many have noticed, it's impossible to keep a sterile res. No mater how well you clean and what you add, there will be bacteria and other microbes in there. Adding some H2O2 or chlorine can make it harder for the microbes to grow, but the amount that would be needed for an enviroment where they can not grow at all would kill your plants. Adding anything organic will feed those microbes and might just give them an oportunity to thrive and do bad things to your plants. On the other hand, idea behind adding bennies is to create an enviroment with lots of different microorganisms thatare not harmful to your roots, and will eat all the food and take all the space so bad stuff has limited opportunity for growth. Again that will not work if you provide a bacterial swiss table with plenty of food for everyone.Also, even the "beneficial" microorganisms will start hurting your plants if they are alowed to breed too much or long enough that one culture outbreeds all others. Idealy they should starve and die in 3 days, when you add some more tea and replenish them with some fresh tea.

So whatever route you take, organics are a bad idea.

Anyway, I highly doubt they even do that much for a plant in a dwc bucket. If done properly, that plant already has ideal amount of nutrients ready for consumption, ideal enviroment for gas exchange, ideal amount of light... I don't think any suplement will push that plant much further...

Try GH Flora series or Dyna-Gro. Note, FloraNova contains a small amount of organics and is known to fuck up many-a-grow.

I use House and Garden Nutes. I've found that I need to dial back the darker products like Amino Treatment and I have completely gone away from the Algen Extract. I still use roots excellorator at full strength (1.1 ml/gal). I also use mychorriza beneficials (currently using Mykos WP) and aquashield which is a liquid compost. My guess is that Superthrive is causing your problem.

Don't Beneficial bacterias have organic materials? Such as the tea suggested to make? Are those bad?

Well, bennies themselves are organic obviously, but other then that, no, they shouldn't. Some of the ingredients in a tea are organic (molases), but those should be spent by the developing bacteria in the brewing process.

So the hydro store in my neighborhood gives away tea twice a week. I added some per Directions laid down by Heisenberg. Now it looks like stuff floating around in the water? Is that normal?

Not really.... root bits are normal if you had rot.

Perhaps it's the biofilm or foam created by bacterial activity. If roots are doing OK, you shouldn't worry.

They are new babies.....very small roots, no rot was present. Just added tea made by my hydro shop. Are there different teas? Maybe the tea they make is different? The guy at the store said tea is only for soil. But I. Added it anyway thinking he wasn't sure what he was talking about because he hadn't read Heisnburgs article.

Tea varies greatly according to who makes it.. There are millions or billions of different species of bacteria fungi etc.... Typically you bubble 3-4 ingredients in a bucket of water to make tea. The problem is everyone uses different ingredients, different quantities of ingredients, and bubble for different amounts of time.

Hydroburn said:

Tea varies greatly according to who makes it.. There are millions or billions of different species of bacteria fungi etc.... Typically you bubble 3-4 ingredients in a bucket of water to make tea. The problem is everyone uses different ingredients, different quantities of ingredients, and bubble for different amounts of time.

Click to expand...

This. A thousand times this.

It's also a false assumption often repeated that organics will muck up DWC root systems. They can for sure, but Rock nutrients for example have organic components. H&G roots excl also does. I've used each multiple times with no slime issues ever.

Spliff I bet you would have been fine adding some aquashield to your game.

Yeah that cocktail you're putting in there is wreaking havoc on your roots. Plants dont need all that junk. Throw them away and save your money. I've got a shelf full of useless crap i was tricked into buying too. Now that i know what im doing i dont need any of that crap!
Good luck

I would use the tea as previously mentioned, and ditch the superthrive.

Superthrive has never done anything but add problems to my hydro setup. I use the tea once or twice a week as a preventative and have yet to have slime since making the switch.

I had the same issues you're experiencing. I tried changing rez, H202, enzymes, none of it helped. Made some Heisenberg tea, chopped off the rotten roots, and within a week I had new white roots showing. It's been over a month, and I am currently in my second week of flower with no slime issues at all.

I had the same problem, the guy at the hydro store, when I told him I was new and how I planned to grow he said oh yeah, this is what you need. Well needless to say I have not been back there, lol.

Here are a few pics.





GR