I’ve been running somewhere between 71-74° as an average reservoir temp and had (root rot) issues with my first few attempts to grow. I believe that bleach cleans better than vinegar but that’s purely anecdotal - it’s what I used to get rid of the root rot and am now using as a primary cleaning agent between grows or if root rot strikes again.
After “going sterile” (using straight chlorine, pool grade) for a while, and learning of the success others were having with recharge, I eventually achieved better results switching to using a combination of these products:
- 12-24 mL:
- 1/4 tbsp:
- 1/4 tbsp:
- “barely even a drop” per res fill:
- roughly 950mL of distilled water
I mix the above and let it sit for about an hour while I prep a bucket of distilled water mixed with (vendor) recommended dosage of AN pH perfect 3-part nutes + some GH Armor Si + some cal/mag. That usually takes about 20 minutes and I let it sit for another 40 stirring occasionally before filling. Then I add the above formula (changes from pink hue to almost black color) and do a res fill. The water is always clearer/light pink when it’s drained. The formula makes quite a mess of the reservoir but it’s not that bad to clean with a scrub brush.
The reason these were used instead of recharge is only because they were already on hand from other soil grows and combined they are a similar if not equivalent formula to recharge. I’ll be trying recharge when my supply of great white & root rescue run out.
Applied to a clean res the recharge (or equivalent) produced amazing results in my environment. There were days where my res was at 75-76° for periods of time and it didn’t seem to have any ill effect (where in the past root rot set in). It didn’t help much to alleviate an infestation, I had to sterilize the res & roots (including cocopod) and then it seemed to do the trick.
That said, I have noticed some gunk building up in the crevices of the plastic that no amount of scrubbing seems to get rid of. It’s very noticeable when it happens on the lid, but since the reservoir is black it isn’t as easy to locate such spots.
I’ve also “blacked out” one of my reservoirs by covering the top with cardboard and am in the process of a side by side test with one not blacked out. There are also 2x additional small air stones in my reservoir to augment (and serve as a backup to) the main airstone.