Sluggish growth and continued cal mag deficiencies

How are your roots?

What type of water are you using. For RO, you definitely want to use what they recommend. For a 5 gal bucket, I use 20 mL of CaliMagic. More than that is not a good thing. If you're using some sort of tap water that already has ca/mg, then you don't need as much, if any - depends on what the water's hardness is.

Fungus gnats... Keep soil covered in a layer of grow stone or hydroton and you might not ever get them. Once you have them, beneficial nematodes will do a good job decimating the larva. Also, diatomaceous earth is like glass dust and rips apart their joints and sticky. Last, sticky traps will get some of the adults but it will give you an indication as to how well your other strategies are working.

Question - do you have any sort of rock wool or rapid rooter that is under the grow stones and staying wet? It looks like overwatering symptoms, and this issue can cause that. Root issues can also start out looking like these as well.

 

How do your roots look? How big are they? Nice and white and smell earthy? Could the water level be to high? Like Fenn mentioned looks like an over water symptoms, have you had a good look for bugs? Sorry just thinking out loud

 

No. If you're using 4 mL/Gal - that's max. Giving them more will not fix it. Once root disease sets in, the roots are no longer exchanging nutrients adequately. For some time will they will take up enough water to keep from wilting, but growth comes to a crawl.

You need to fix the roots first and then think about ca/mg - you can put that on the back burner for now.

First - prevention. I know, you already have it - but whether you start new plants or fix these you'll need to take 1 of 2 approaches. Sterile rez or beneficial bacteria. I do beneficial bacteria (hydro guard) in my DWC buckets and don't care at all what my rez temps are and it only needs to be added during rez changes. In my RDWC system I keep my rez sterile with UC Roots - a hypochlorous acid disinfectant that needs to be added every 3 days. I also use a chiller with this system. If you are diligent with one approach or the other, root rot will stay away.

Now - do you want to fix these or start new ones? I've fixed up bad root issues and lost others that were just too far gone. It's going to take some time and resources to get these fixed - like a couple of weeks for roots to start to regrow well and another 2 weeks until they catch back up and resume vegetative growth. Often times the plants are weakened by the root disease and later in life can be more susceptible to pests, PM - or recurring root disease. Sometimes it keeps coming back. Starting again takes about the same amount of time and you're left with much more vigorous and hearty plants.

If you DO want to fix them you need to determine what the cause was. Rapid rooters or rock wool - used in DWC it's often the source of the rot if it's too low in the netpot causing it to stay damp and harbor pathogens. If so, once they're in there, it's probably not going to clear.

Treatment would involve cutting all infected roots, spraying them roots with a kitchen faucet to rinse off as much dead material as possible, running them in ONLY RO water, a chlorine disinfectant like UC Roots (not H2O2 - it dissipates too quickly), root stimulator like Rhizotonic and enzyme like Cannazyme to break down dead matter. You run that for 1 week. The plants will start to yellow as they canniballize to make new roots. There are no roots to get nutes to be able to build roots with, so it uses up it's reserves. After a week, if new roots are showing, introduce 1/4 nutes and normal strength ca/mg. Give this another week and you should see new green growth. Bump up to 1/2 strength...

It boils down to a comparison of cost of rehab vs clean slate...

 

Your pH is perfect. DWC can get all sorts of bugs including root aphids. Always look out for them. Overwatering symptoms can show in DWC when there isn't enough O2 to the roots. If your air pump goes out, your plants will get all droopy, but not flopped like under watering. Root issues cause this too. Rooting plugs when they stay too wet can cause a damping off of the stem at the root crown - which also looks like overwatering.

 

What lights are you using? it doesn't look very bright in there. Like Fennario Mike said what type of water are you using? I use 40-45 ML of cal/mag per 10 gallons.

 

Yep, that's exactly the right ratio

 

Root rot is stubbornly persistent. Do you have rock wool cubes under the grow stones?

 

Opps Posted by mistake. Cant seem to delete.

 

If rockwool or rapid rooter cubes sit too low in the netpot then they don't drain well enough and not enough O2 gets to the roots inside. That's where rot starts - anywhere where there's not enough O2.

So if you do use them, have them up out of the grow stones enough that they are above the wet line and can drain.

I grow my clones and seedlings out with roots only before transplanting into the netpot. I just had too many issues trying to use anything absorbent in the netpot.

 

Hydroguard isn't a root rot treatment. When used from the start, it's bacteria can produce an environment that pyrethrum doesn't do so well in. But conversely, a pyrethrum bloom creates an environment that the Hydroguard doesn't like so much. You would first need to cut away all dead and dying material. Then it MIGHT have a chance - but it's more of a prevention than a treatment. Even as such, root rot can still take hold even with Hydroguard. From my unfortunately considerable experience with root rot - to have any chance of recovery from systemic root rot - it needs cutting out, considerable fresh water rinsing, chlorine disinfection with UC Roots or Rez Clear, then a week of straight RO water with a root stimulator and enzymes only. This cleans out all dead/dying material, encourages new growth and leaves nothing dead that the pyrethrum can cling on to.

H2O2 - especially in an environment rich in microbes and dead material - reacts with it all and dissipates into H2O and O2 pretty much within minutes - leaving no residual disinfectant level.

Oh, and obviously, Hydroguard can't be used in conjunction with ANY disinfectant.

More times than not it's more economical to start over - sorry to say.

 

But to answer the question, Hydroguard works immediately, but it doesn't do what you might think. It creates a beneficial relationship between the roots and the nutrients and ALSO helps keep pathogens from gaining a foothold. The benefit to the plant is over time. When inoculated into a fresh rez, the bacteria replicate within the first day or so and develop a natural population. When trying to add it to an infected rez, the pathogens could inhibit it from developing a healthy population.

 

Sorry - that really sucks. But it sucks more to keep struggling, paying for more resources, to lose them anyhow, It's painful though, I do know.

 

No worries man .You got this the next run!☻
GFP

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