DWC 30 gal rubbermaid, 400w hps cooltubed, seed from a bag of blackberry, day 31 since switch to 12/12, temps between 75-85 So, multiple plants, 2 clones from big plant doing fine, big plant looking like its about to die. The inner leaves mostly died off, and the remaining fan leaves started looking droopy. assumed it was a response to flowering, and i did a res change after 2 weeks, since 30 gallons is a lot (changing next time, first try!). Added some blackstrap molasses, foxfarm tiger bloom/whatever the other one is, ph downed it, and everything was looking way more droopy. Tips started looking burned, so i took out half the res, put normal water in, and no progress. It looks like either nute burn or root rot, i cleaned it out today, tried to clean the roots, and a chunk (about 15-20%) of the root mass ripped off when i did some squeezing to clean them out, as they looked brown, but could be from molasses. Put back together, and still looks really sad. The 2 clones, however, look great! So, what should I do to fix the problem? The 2 clones have way smaller root systems, so maybe they absorbed less nutrients and were burned less and dont need to recover? or are they just not yet affected by root rot? Is time the cure, or should I add some special voodoo liquid? Thanks!
i think they are brownish, but the color changed a little from the res-water. they seemed to be alive, but then again, i wouldn't really know! but the other thing is that the 2 clones taken off of it and just placed in bubble buckets with roots (way less roots, but still there) in the res are totally fine, and if i did my research correctly they should all be dying of some sort of fungus, yes? i have no idea what to do! might just stop by the hydro shop and ask what expensive liquid will save it... or if it can be saved
How about a pic of those roots? Plants don't usually start looking like that unless something really bad happens in the root zone.
today is the saddest day for my plant, doug... tried to take a pic of the roots right after you said that. i have the picture, but the bucket fell through the hole, i tried to pull(plant)/push(bucket) the plant up, and 95% of the roots ripped off and stayed in the bucket, giving my big guy a root zone of a clone...(3 sq inches). the other 2 plants seem to be doing fine, and i attached some pictures. I changed/cleaned the res and pumps, put in super low amts of nutes and brought the pH down. I also replanted the ripped root plant in hopes that it would grow if i brought the water up to the hydroton. the 2 pictures with the big roots shows what the roots of the biggest plant looks like. the other 2 smaller ones are the smaller ones. i'll include a picture of the closet i'm using too, just for reference. so, what should i do? was it root rot? will it affect my other plants? how can i manage to salvage some sort of yield? do you think the ripped-root plant will survive, and if not, is it worth harvesting/making hash out of? there are some tiny buds on there, but not much i guess. and, i'll post this in another section, if i do another grow after this terrible experience, what system, in your opinion, would fit into the growspace well? 1.5w x 3 l x 5.5 h (ft). I read that root rot can happen semi easily in DWC, which is sad, because i really liked it, i just need a better reservoir that doesn't warp when filled with water (doh!) so if anything else is better, tell me for next time perhaps? expletives....
[quote name='"dreamskape"']so why does that happen, and how do you stop it?[/quote] Usually caused by a fungus. Change your Res every week. Clean it real good each time too. Keep water temp in Res lower. If the water temp gets as high as your room temp, your gonna have problems. Lots of oxygenation of nutrient solution helps also. Clean up the root ball as best you can and try to bring it back. It looks pretty well finished though. Sorry. Oh, don't keep those clones in same res with that plant if you don't wanna loose those too.
there is nothing you can do to save the affected plants. root rot has completley engulfed your root zone and spread to your plant. they are completley dead. sorry. next time try getting H202 from your local grow store, and use it at 3mL per gal. let that with your plant sit in the resivour for about an hour, than change it back to your regular solution. do this any time you start to see signs of root rot. dont do it more than once in 2 weeks.
You should warn people; those pictures made me nauseated actually, haha. So earlier I stumbled across a thread that said chlorine will help to reduce against slimes and molds like this; enough to kill pathogens without harming your plant. This makes sense to me, because with my cloners I had the BEST results when I just put straight tapwater into my aero buckets. When I started de-chlorinating my water, I got major problems. Thats probably the route I'm going to try with my DWC; some slight chlorine with tons of aeration. H2O2 works too though; its just the chlorine would be cheaper. H2O2 and chlorine do NOT work together.
interesting thought! because that was the first time i had let my water dechlorinate the night before... very interesting. next time for sure im going to get some beneficial root bacteria (sensizyme perhaps?) the guys at my hydro store are real cool, so i will ask them how to save the left over plants so i can still harvest "flowers" muahaha. hopefully the chlorine i have in there works to save the rest of the plant, otherwise... expensive magic juice...
I'd just chop anything frosty from the big plant, dry it, and freeze it. Save it for hash IMO. There is no magic juice at the hydro store; please don't get sold by them. They just want your money! haha Also, I thought sensizyme just ate dead roots; what would it do in a DWC or any hydro set up? I thought roots just lived forever in those setups because water and O2 are available all the time. If you go just pick up a quart of H2O2 until you can figure out what chlorine levels work; you dont need anything else "magically" expensive.
H202 can be used with DWC. im not sure about ALL your plants, but if their roots look like the roots in the pictures you posted, than they are SOL. that is the worst case of root rot i have ever seen. sensizyme is overpriced advanced nutrients shit. Humboldt Nutrients makes Prozyme (the same thing) for about 1/2-1/3 the price. me, i personally use hygrozyme.
thanks for the info, i'm going to try to do the chlorine idea to the res later today to see if it helps them survive, it would be nice to get something off this run, even if it was my first try. any pointers for making a res that doesn't warp when filled? i'm thinking of a smaller one, but how deep (high off the ground) do they need to be? 30 gallons seems excessive. even though i tried to make sure no light got through, i'm sure where the top couldn't cover the bottom part, even though i tried to cover it after it happened, was a big part of it. I took some clones, have 4 live ones now in a different res, so i might just try to take a run with them with a new res when i get the time to make one, and hope for the best with my current ones, and worse comes to worse get a tiny bit of qwiso hash. and i'm trying to decide if its worth it to get some real seeds.... i guess i shouldn't waste money until i can get a run right with some bagseed!