Root rot Problem (i think)

[cartoonpenguin]

Hey guys - i just started growing recently -and I've been experimenting a little bit before i throw many good seeds down the drain. I tried 2 plants first - started them out in peet mos pellets and then transfered to 2 5 gallon buckets dwc hydro -grown in hydroton pellets - i used a 400 watt metal halide - and i used aeration tubes in each and more than strong enough pumps - had alot of probs with ph i think mostly due to the solid nutrients i was using - but when i finally decided to throw out the plants i noticed that the roots didn't grow much and where kind of a slimmy brown color - i did some reading and took this to be root rot - but didn't really know why it happened at the time.
On my second grow i used a several gallon plastic tub with 6 slots cut into the top with 6 baskets and i did the same peet moss and then hydro dwc with aeration - this was probably a little under aerated but i not by much. for these plants i used a 3 bulb compact fluorescent light putting out around 20-30 thousand - This time i tried 6 of the new lowriders 2's just because i was curios. I used liquid nutrients this time and my ph was never out of the 5.7 - 6.1 range - and was never out of the 5.8 - 6.0 range for more than a couple hours usually in the morning. After slowly building up i kept the ppm at around 1000 - and using distilled water. When it came time to pull the males 3 out of the 6 i noticed the same root rot? problem. - and of course i had problems with growth etc. so i added a couple pumps to help circulate the water. after a couple weeks of that i still have growth problems and decided to pull one of my females because it was pretty damn short - i mean real short - but i chocked that up to the plant - and when i pulled it i noticed that all the roots still had that problem and no root growth - I don't know what I'm missing - i saw that a couple other people were concerned with light but i planted them deep and the roots never made it out of the hydroton (short roots) to get any light from the sides etc. - I've got my larger grow about to start soon and I'm using 4 5 gallon buckets - and i bought an aquarium chiller so that i could circulate the water and keep the temp at closer to 70 - i haven't really checked the temp in the others because i wasn't that concerned - I don't know if that would cause the rot - anyways i still have 2 of the lowriders going and the roots aren't growing - and i want to know what the problem is so i can do what i have to do to avoid it on my real grow - so any help with possible causes and solutions of root rot i would appreciate - thanks guys

[mordgrow]

just remeber. low riders are supose to be short heh

hot water is more likely to get root rot, and adding a cooler is just a bandaid, if your room is so hot that your watertemps are too high, then you have a ventilation issue, NOT a water rez temp issue (thats just a symptom) keep your room at 75* or less (f)

I like to add a little H202 with all my nute additions (hydrogen peroxide) also, make sure you have a lot of bubles in the water (air stones! i'm not sure what tubes your talking about) check out the links in my sig for how i do it, its kinda hard to explain. but shit, i've never done it before and it worked great for me!

MH bulbs put out less lumens than HPS bulbs btw, i'd just use HPS for everything

also, the slimley brown could be algae growth (the H202 will take care of that)

anyway, there's some random thoughts

[cartoonpenguin]

I'm sure its not the room temp - on the first 2 (they were Northern Lights)- i have a hood with tempered glass and vents with a fan pushing and fan pulling the air out and its vented outside the room and it keeps it pretty cool actually the fans move alot of air through the hood - on the lowriders I'm just using the 3 bulb multi spectrum fluorescent and it doesn't put out much heat - i have a Hps as well but the metal halide is best for the growth period because it puts out more blue spectrum than the HPS - then i switch to HPS when i start flowering - because it puts out the needed red spectrum - yeah that one short lowrider i was talking about never got over maybe 4 in above the hydroton - thats why i was saying it was short - but i have heard of similar problems with that breed plant. I haven't tried hydro peroxide - mainly because when i originally tried to order it i got a letter from UPS stating that it couldn't be sent through the mail - but I'll pick some up - any idea on how much per gallon of water to add. On my main grow I'm going with alot better seeds - i started 2 each of 7 different kinds (bubblelicious, white widow, chrystal, haze, nlxshiva, jock horror, ice) and I'll pick out the strongest 4 or 5 to start in the hydro. Is there any easy way to distinguish between root rot and algae - because I'm not getting any unusual build up in the container or anything - just on the roots themselves - thats why i assume its rot - the tubes I'm using are like 42 in and round and bendable - i think they are new - they put out air 360 degrees around and look to do a much better job than the stones (i tried them too) - they aren't like plastic tubes with holes but a bendable tube with some type of soft material - plus with them i can wrap it around the bucket a couple times and it fills the whole thing with bubbles.

[cartoonpenguin]

oh by tha way that chiller i bought is rated for like 50-75 gallons and it will go down as far as like 62 degrees i think - but i havn't used it yet - the water now is just at room temp i guess - i don't really know of anyway way to keep the room any cooler besides using the exhaust - i have several osilating fans and i keep my ac at 70 and it never really feels very warm in there - i thought about buying a portable ac unit but all i could find are the evaporator ones - where the air runs through the water to cool it - i didnt know if that would cause an humidity problems tho.

[cartoonpenguin]

went ahead and put in some hydrogen peroxide today - couldn't find any 37% around here and can't get it thru the mail - so i went to the pool supply place and got 27 % then just added a little extra (not much) hopefully that will take care of the problem. but if anyone else has any thoughts please feel free