I’m so exhausted trying to find a forum without unreadable captchas, sites saying I’m a spammer I want to thank this site, and say hello!
I have never seen this on a forum, and I don’t know if it’s a problem, but every time I change nutes in my DWC buckets I’ll check on it the next day, and when I lift the roots out of the water, a bunch of white stuff falls off of them. Has anyone ever seen that? The roots stay white, and this white stuff eventually settles to the bottom, but I’d like to know what it is. Things usually go well, but about one month into budding the plants sometimes start yellowing more than they should, and can get very harsh (too harsh) to smoke. I don’t know if the two are related.
Sounds like salt buildup. Would it be possible for you to post a picture?
Harsh smoke normally indicates over fertilization or a mishap in the drying/curing process.
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Sounds to me like a salt build up in your resevoir, the harshness comes from that salt build up, in a plants world a salt build up is a “toxic build up” which means your going through excess nutrients (an overload) though likely in this case what’s happening is the salt build up is causeing it to use all the nitrogen, which means she should probably have a slightly higher nitrogen ratio. Now you mentioned you were a month into budding so do keep in mind this is when she should get the last of her nitrogen, and have a higher P-K ratio than N ratio.
In flowering the phosphorus and potassium will help swell the buds, and the harsh taste @Aquaponic_Dumme and @ZippyTPH is likely do to them needing to be flushed (the roots being flushed; ie; flushing is regular water no nutrients) if you flush re feed with an even lighter feeding doseage to see if that helps with the salt build up.
Chances are you’ll need to get a ppm measurement so you can see what your water is enriched withed, my guess would be you have water extremely rich in calcium which would cause your salt build up on the roots.
@ZippyTPH Welcome to ilgm hope you like it here and get the help you need, if you need the help we are here for you, and you’ll come across some of the best help on this forum
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@Majiktoker
I don’t believe in flushing. If you feel Flushing is necessary, IMO, that tells me it was over-fertilized.
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Damn didnt mean to put a like there was trying to reply, flushing gives a cleaner taste and not harsh the harshness is the nutrients left in the plant ie; not being flushed (over fertilization) all up the same lines, however I’m not gunna argue your point we all do things differently 
, any way you deserve a like lol your opinions your greatly appreciated and valued here my friend
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@latewood, @MacGyverStoner what are your opinions here
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I know exactly what it is haha, it happened to me. I was using my tap water, which is well water, extremely hard well water. It was causing a white residue on basically anything it had touched and dried on. Simple fix, start buying good water haha! Down the street from me is 25 cents per gallon of water. You just bring your gallon jugs and quarters!
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First I would Lille to Welcome you to I L G M,
And come to the lounge for a go joke or to take about what ever…
willing too bet the farm that his temps in his D W C setup are way to high.
He needs to clean it down with what ever you Hydro growers use…no disrespect but if m a soil guy but this has heat termps all over it.
What have your gem s been @ZippyTPH ?
Will
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Yep. That happens when the water flows through lime and chalk. You get a lot of calcium and magnesium carbonate buildup.
I’d bet it’s just a boatload of calcium buildup.
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I’m not sure if I’m relying to all, or just the last post, but thank you for all your quick responses. Salt as in calcium? Yes, that could be it. I use hard tap water, and the white floaty stuff looks like the white stuff in a glass of water with ice cubes in it. I thought it was bacteria, or something, so I hang a ball of garden dirt wrapped in a coffee filter in the bucket. I like doing that. The plants usually start going bad a few weeks after they start using a gallon a day in veg, which is to say they’ve been in the same solution for a few months already. The PH seems to be right, and I use “mild” nute strength to keep the tips from dying. As for the water temp, it is probably too hot, especially in Summer with the hot light adding to the heat. I suppose I should change the solution more than once per grow, but I’m/was afraid to because then I go through the PH down game again for awhile until it settles out. I can’t get a picture because this morning I noticed mold on the buds, and pulled the plant before it got too bad. It is dead.
Sorry to hear that. But keep your chin up, take what you learned, and apply that to the next grow! Keep trying, reading and building your skills. Even if one grow goes bad, you still harvest the knowledge and experience from it to help you succeed in all your future grows.
You only change your water out once for an entire grow?
It’s kind of vague on water temperature & pH, you don’t mention relative humidity…you use hard tap water, do you measure ppm/tds/ec?..I’m not 100% sure about hanging dirt in the tank to fight bacteria…you change nutes, but not water?..
More information is needed.
Any photos?
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kabongster - Water temp not measured, but I’ll guess in the 80s right now. I don’t have a way to measure ppm, but I measure PH with the liquid drops. I try to keep it pale yellow. The dirt seems to help because before I’d get those stinky brown rotted roots, now they stay bright white. I will start changing solution more often to reduce salt build up. No photos, no plants anymore for a while. Actually I do have a plant started, and may post a picture for another topic because the leaves are not nice now. Too much time inthe clone box, and they’re kind of spotted and nasty, but the new growth looks good so far. I still don’t know what the white stuff is around the roots when I change solution. it goes away completely a day, or two afterwards and never comes back until I change again.
Hiya Zippy, welcome to ILGM
Every post above from other forum members has pointed out a problem…
Temps should be in the high 60’s, low 70’s…any higher and you are just slowly killing your plants, water in the 80’s doesn’t have the oxygen in it for them to live.
You need a way to check your tap water…
your water has too many minerals dissolved in it for healthy plant growth.
without changing the water, too much bad stuff, salts and minerals have accumulated.
the water should have certain beneficial organisms living in it…hanging a ball of dirt in the tank allows bad as well as good, and the bad will hurt your plant severely.
I have only one DWC grow experience…we need other opinions, please!
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