Looking for some help here. I have a plant in hydro that is about 5 weeks into grow. I have already had to replace water twice because of slime / root rot. I add hydroguard every few days, the 5 gallon bucket is double bucketed (one sitting inside the other), and wrapped in foil. Netpot is covered in foil as well and I wrap additional foil around rim. All I know is light leaking into water is primary culprit. Only other thing I could think of is maybe the tubing I bought is allowing light to leak in? Here is the tubing I am using.
There’s your problem. Liquid needs to be at or below 70F of you will develop root rot. Having liquid level too high will also cause damping off issues: should be between 1 1/2 and 2" below net pot with a LOT of air delivered directly under the net pot.
Guessing you are running DWC and are learning of the difficulties managing this type of system.
Adding things like frozen water bottles won’t help. Only a chiller will keep you where you need to be. Adding a standing reservoir and converting to RDWC will also help as the mass of the reservoir (if outside the grow space) will help to lower temps a bit.
Thanks,
I will look some options. I guess I am lucky the plant behind it does not have the same issues. I did not realize temp should be that low. I thought I was a bit high but also thought I had read it (desired temp) was closer to my temps than that.
Several reasons: lower temps of liquid will retain higher O levels (beneficial to the roots) as well as retarding the growth of pythium. It’s a tough lesson for a lot of new hydro growers and frankly I think they do a disservice to them by shilling bucket hydro. One of the things I find attractive about hydro is the ability to walk away for days with no maintenance. That’s not a thing you can do in DWC and just wait until you hit peak demand: plants will drink a gallon a day which means it’s almost impossible to maintain liquid levels.
Running DWC in a large tote will help with this to an extent but having a separate reservoir with a chiller eliminates all of the issues with DWC.
Agreed. I am new and jumped before I looked - admittedly. I did know the buckets were not optimal - but I did discover that after the fact. My intent is if I can make it past this to convert to RDWC and add a large reservoir. And I have noticed my other plant is starting to really drink - it is ~ 7 weeks in. Hard to sustain past this using distilled water as well. I am looking into RO but I just have to figure out where I would install it since the closest water source is my bathroom about 30ft away.
I guess I need to decide soon to make the change or go with a chiller?
This is a must for hydro growers who don’t have very pure municipal water. I used an inexpensive unit that attaches to a garden hose, ran that into a 30 gallon plastic barrel then pumped into my grow space as needed. I’ve seen units plugged directly into the reservoir with a float valve assembly to deliver as needed.
There are a ton of different setups you can do: just find the one that suits you. I would suggest piecing it together rather than buy a pre-made setup. Using totes along with a rez will increase capacity tremendously and provide more room for roots too.
Thanks,
that is about 1/2 of the cost of the one i was looking at. appreciate it. i found someone who used water hose. i will work on that next week once i return from Mexico
I add the hydroguard to my nutrient solution and feed constantly…if your air bubble volume gets too low it will also cause some algae to form as well as light. besides the air bubbles you need to have good circulation like a pump moving the nutrients inside you bucket…and as mentioned by @Myfriendis410 your nutrient temperature needs to be lower…I don’t have a chiller in my set up, I am in a bedroom and have a small window AC that keeps the room cool and nutrient is usually around 68deg in my 12 gallon tote/reservoirs …
Thanks. I am very liberal with hydroguard now. I think I got the water temp a bit lower. Today I am working on setting up the RO. Tomorrow I am going to work on a reservoir setup. I need to get some plywood cut so I can gain more space in closet. The builder used about 1’ of the back wall as a shoe “shelf” that wastes space. Too hard to pull out so I am raising the floor. Once I do that I will be able to pipe in the feed bucket and reservoir.
So, RO is setup and filling now. I started to review my problem child expecting a mess since it has not been checked in a week. Almost no slime at all (two small blobs in water, none attached to roots or oozing from netpot) and the roots finally broke out of the netpot. I am a bit shocked and definitely surprised for sure. Not changing my course though.
@Myfriendis410 I want to do same but I am concerned my water pressure may be too low. For example I can’t leave a sprinkler running in the yard without it running the well down to the bottom then dirt gets in the supply lines, is there a minimum water pressure.
There is a minimum but the volume is so low that I don’t think you’d have an issue. Under ideal circumstances it will produce something like 3 gallons per hour.
That said; this unit is nowhere near as efficient as more expensive R/O systems. For every gallon produced it will discharge 2 or 3 gallons.
Something that I did and @Not2SureYet is currently doing: hit up your local automated car wash and ask if they have any empty drums you can have. Get one that contained detergent, not wax, and thoroughly rinse it out. Then I filled that and used a small submersible pump to extract what I needed.
I am in the midst of a change. I just bought some 17 gallon totes. Moving plants to new totes and converting to RDWC. I figure the output is fine for me - I WFH so have all day to let them fill if need be.
Thanks. Right now I am using a water distiller. It does a gallon in four hours. Tough to keep up with what the ladies are drinking. I was concerned about the waste water factor, but at this point I can stomach a 1:4 ratio to get three gallons an hour. Thanks for helping me with this conundrum.
@NewGirl If you want a really nice system cheap. I have this one. It makes 5 gallons in an hour and 15 minutes. I set mine up so I can run with out the last filter for the plant water. And then through the filter for drinking water. I did that so I didn’t waster the lest filter on the plants.
