Just started my first dwc system and I seem to be having an issue with the roots I can't tell if it's the nutrients I'm using which is General Organics go box is just building up on the roots or if it's actually root rot it's hard to check for smell because the nutrients stink themselves an rather dark I keep my temperature around 65 degrees ppm 500 to 600 and ph 5.8 to 6.0 plants seem healthy for now I'm just afraid of getting a surprise
Severe root rot. Put some 3% peroxide in a spray bottle. Disguard your nutrients and sterilize the bucket with peroxide or even a little bleach water mix. Spray all the roots with the peroxide including the net pot. I just use clean paper towels and pull thenm down the roots gently until most of that stuff is wiped off and you have some white roots again. Some will break off but don't worry your plant is young and if it makes it you'll have a bucket full or roots. Clean your airstone as well. Buy yourself a root system inoculant with a beneficial fungus. Go to your local hydro store and pick up one of these. Piranha | Beneficial Fungi | Advanced Nutrients There's also real growers recharge. I use hydroguard but I don't find it effective against pythium or root rot because it's mostly a beneficial bacteria and root rot is a fungus. Add that to your current water change routine. After two days if it's back to the same condition repeat the cleaning and water change. Wait two days again and see if the plant doesn't turn around. I just battled this and after cleaning it 3 times the plant had enough healthy growth it pulled the bucket healthy again. The healthy growth kinda overpowers it in the end if you do end up beating it. If you're not supplementing with beneficial organisms you're rolling the dice that you won't have bad ones get out of control every grow. Beneficials are a must in hydro. Don't grow without one. Temperatures can be an issue. Some people freeze a 20oz plastic bottle every day and swap one in the water every morning to keep it cool. The lower you can keep the temp the more you'll prevent bad growth. Extensive DWC systems often include a chiller.
Do you just have a blue bucket with nothing on the outside? You should get a black bucket or tape foil to the outside of your bucket. The blue plastic lets light in the root zone. You'll never have healthy roots with lights getting in. Roots like to be dark. I looked up that go box. It looks pretty cool. The biothrive grow has some beneficials in it but whatever fungus it has might not be enough. Another thing that causes root rot is not enough air. How big is your air pump and are you using an airstone?
If you want to stay with GH. I just got back from the local hydro store. I picked up some GH subculture M. It's a fugal root inoculant.
yes I'm using blue buckets but I wrapped them with thick black gorilla tape I'm using a pretty good-size air pump just for at least one 5 gallon bucket with a good size air stone I just thought the organic nutrients was setting up the bacteria in it and I do use the water bottle technique to keep it cooler I try not to let it get below 60 I clean the roots today and I'm going to let then just sit and RO water go box seems to be good the nutrients to stink and are dark and have like things floating in them so I'm thinking I'm going to have to switch from organic to synthetic nutrients
You just have to get it balanced out. Stay persistent and you'll beat it. I've had the same trouble with synthetic. The GH subculture M is a good fungal inoculant. I just bought some today. Those floaties are just pieces of fungus. Another tip I heard in another thread I wanted to try is dropping aspirin in each bucket at water change. Apparently aspirin really boosts plants immune systems and helps them fight off certain infections.
I had this issue before. All my research has me buying a bunch of products until one solved it. Dutch Master Root Zone Conditioner, purchase this and you'll be happy you did. Avoid all the peroxide gimmicks, you need Long term fix not short term. Good luck! Sent from my SM-G925T using Tapatalk
I started using the subculture m. Unknown side effect is it raises your ppm way up. I wasn't expecting that. Had a slight newt burn because of it. Besides that though the subculture attacked the root rot like crazy. I only had one plant that had only a few spots in the roots I could see. It was on it's way to health but I wanted to try the new stuff. I opened the bucket the next day and the roots looked like they were black. I grabbed a little fresh water and ran it over the roots. The black washed right off and they were white underneath. Root rot gone. Weird stuff though. It's black mold.. lol. I'll probably be more conservative with it next dose. I did 1/4tsp in each res and that was a little much. After two days the water was back to clear.
I just switched my hole line of nutrients instead of getting more problems . swiched to jungle juice and within 1 day. I had tons of new roots and my old one went white again very pleased with there product I think synthetic is the way to go
I went synthetic but it's not 100%. There is some organic ingredients in some stuff I use. I use florablend which is an organic tea GH makes for hydro. I still use floranova bloom for my fill in nutrient between water changes because it's got everything including cal/mag in one bottle. I don't have to add 6 things to top off my res. It's weird but once you get them established in a system you rarely have to worry about infection later on in the grow. A healthy root system keeps itself healthy. The danger time is when they are first starting. Get over that hump and it stays healthy. Beneficial organism supplements are definitely organic so it's not as synthetic as you may think but I agree that the organic nutrients seem to be easier to get bad growth in. 1st grow I used no beneficials just GH flora grow, micro, bloom, and liquid kool bloom, I added diamond nectar and budcandy at the end. I had no problems with root rot or anything. I added hydroguard and subculture m just as a precaution. After a long time of research it's pretty established that if you aren't supplementing beneficial organisms in a hydro system you're just rolling the dice and hoping you get good fungus and bacteria in there. Sometimes you get lucky sometimes you don't. If you supplement them you get way closer to 100% success rate. Of course there may be that off time where you didn't clean well enough between grows and you get some root rot you have to stamp out at the beginning. It happens to everyone eventually.