Is this going to be a problem?

Share Your Grow
#21

I’m not a huge fan of AN, their stuff is OK but watered down and way overpriced.

Something I started doing in my tent grow was use ZeroTol HC instead of Hydroguard. I used about .25 mL per gallon. I’ve used 0.5 mL per gallon and it didn’t have any negative affects on my plants. @chris_barfield brought this stuff to my attention in a post last year, and quite frankly I frequently sit here scratching my head wondering why I didn’t start using it sooner. You only need to add it 1 time a week during water changes, but keep in mind H2O2 breaks down after 3-5 days. Sometimes I will add an extra 0.25 - 0.5 mL after 3-4 days when I replenish the water in my reservoir.

This would probably work very well with the Grobo, just trim the dose down to around 0.25 mL per gallon. Manufactures recommended does for normal use is 10 mL per 50 gallons.

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#22

Ya I started with AN because I freind gave it to me, seemed to work well as far as keeping the ph in range but yes I have learned that it is expensive. I am definitely going to swit h when what I have is gone. I have been looking at jacks123, specifically the one designed for RO water. I’ve never heard of the stuff you mentioned but I’m going to Google it right now!
https://www.jacksnutrients.com/online-store/Pure-%26-Simple-p101469418

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#23

Is this it?
https://www.amazon.com/BioSafe-ZeroTol-HC-Organic-Vegetables/dp/B07WVFJV7T/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?adgrpid=87217377306&dchild=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAx9mABhD0ARIsAEfpavTIxnfbyYi8F8z-rHUKiwUGTNfipeDGIFCXQ3o1c9eMNQrr8YTqy0UaAg3gEALw_wcB&hvadid=408608006817&hvdev=m&hvlocphy=9023602&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=7507486505042974888&hvtargid=kwd-908830199167&hydadcr=5815_9616306&keywords=zerotol+hc&qid=1612144699&sr=8-3&tag=hydsma-20

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#24

That’s it!

#25

Update:
Not sure if the water change and less nutes did any good???
Ph 5.65, ppm 569, ec 1.156

Plant 1

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Plant 2
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Plant 3
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Plant 4
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#26

Your pH is too low, it should be hovering around 6.0, I keep the pH in my tent reservoir at 5.8 during bloom, and between 6.0 and 6.2 during veg. If you keep it too low it will lock out nutes like magnesium and phosphorus. I had a pic with the ranges in which plants absorb nutes based on the pH but I cannot seem to find it.

UXrf1

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#27

With the advanced nutrients it usually starts out at 5.65 and slowly goes up over the week to 6.5 and the ppm stays the same which should be a good thing from what I understand. It this the chart?

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#28

I just checked out and it’s at 6.02…
I’m so confused as to why these are doing this…

#29

If it was me, and just speaking frankly, I wouldn’t let my nute solution go below 5.8 or higher than 6.3. Too many potential issues with nutes getting locked out. I let mine vary from 5.8 to 6.2 week to week to ensure nothing get’s locked out.

If you look at the Mg and Ca you will notice that they can be locked out if your pH is too low. The only time I focus on keeping my pH as close to 5.8 as possible is during flower so they get as much potash/phosphorous as possible.

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#30

Advanced Nutrients chelates their nute line. You do not need to sweat the ph drift (as long as it’s not going down).
Be patient. Check new growth in a day or two. If your EC is staying the same you are at the perfect feeding level.

https://www.advancednutrients.com/articles/chelation-process/

3 Likes
#31

So I pulled a net pot up today and my roots didn’t look very good. Alot of dark stuff on them but no slim. I held them up over there buckets and risned them off with fresh RO water then dunked them back in the bucket water before setting them back in. The dark stuff came off really easy with just very lite water presser and the roots where white again. I am using hydroguard and my water stays below 72 most of the time, if it gets higher its like 73-74 for a couple hours a day maybe. I’m being to think this might have something to do with my problem, but I’m not sure what would be causing it if the temps aren’t really high and I’m using hydroguard???

Before rinse

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After rinse
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#32

water temp at 70 degrees or over can be a potential issue. I can’t tell if that color is due to nutes being absorbed or pythium or (probably) both. You may want to buffer the water line/net pot depth. I’d give at least 2" - prob closer to 3 or 4". The more oxygen the better, until you can get it under control. My $.02

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#33

Ok so right know there is an 1" from bottom of net pot the water, so I should make it more like 3 to 4"??
So after I washed the roots off yesterday they looked like this.

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Know today they look like this again, so I’m guessing I have an issue with water temp even with the hydroguard?
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My current water temp control is frozen water bottles in the res 3 times a day. That keeps it at about 65-68 except when I have a long day and can’t do it 3 times then it might hit the 72-74 for a couple hours. It will also do this over night but not always. I’m guessing a water chiller wouldn’t be a bad investment?? I was trying to avoid a chiller. I have seen alot of places that hydroguard will allow you to run warmer temps but I guess it doesn’t always work???

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#34

Oh yeah - you need a bigger air buffer. Even if you keep killing the pythium on the roots, it’s also in the environment, so if your water bubbles are hitting the bottom of your pots they’re just going to keep re-introducing the pathogen to the roots. The more air the better. You may also need to increase the hydroguard dose, but I’m no expert with that product, or maybe even scrap the hydroguard and start incorporating h2o2 since you’re not using anything organic.
i’d also be careful with big temp swings on your water - that could be exasperating the issue.

If you can bring the overall room temp down, I’d start there.

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#35

I hold the room no warmer than 75 with an automatic exhaust/humidity fan with control. How low can I keep my room temps?

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#36

I’d take it down to as low as 70 if you can - until you get this under control. It’ll slow growth, but that’s not the main concern.

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#37

It should work but getting it to work isn’t made entirely obvious if just going by the instructions on the bottle.

A bit of related info first:

When root rot strikes, it’s because the plant is not able to defend itself from it.

  • Pathogens will take advantage of such a scenario and attack during this time.
  • Warmer water, or water with less dissolved oxygen (DO) content, is more likely to become host to pathogens than water that is cooler or has higher levels of DO.
    • Keeping things cold just prevents pathogens from “living” in the water (read: not from “being” in the water), but if it warms up they will come right back to life.
  • Light can accelerate the rate at which the bacteria are feeding/growing, which is why any light bleeding into the reservoir is to be avoided.
  • Hydroguard does things that causes the plant to build a natural defense against these pathogens.

Clones are stressed (into making roots) and then again when they are transplanted. These are both vulnerable times and stages at which the plant can “get sick”. This means that clones are more challenging to protect than seedlings, so don’t get too discouraged!

How to use hydroguard:

  • Add 2mL/gallon (5mL for grobo res) of hydroguard to reservoir on week 1. I personally use 3-4x the recommended amount at this stage, or 15-20mL for grobo res.
  • Don’t change the water for at least 2 weeks, allow the hydroguard enough time to “establish a colony” in the root zone of the plant. I personally wait 3-4 weeks, and recently have been experimenting with just adding water and not removing any once the plant starts drinking 1/2 of the reservoir each week.
    • It’s alright to add water during the establishment phase, but it’s not good to dump out the hydroguard before it’s had a chance to mature and establish a colony on the roots.
  • When changing the water on week 2 or 3, try to leave some (5% or less) of the old water in the res. Grobo already does this, but if using hydro buckets it’s important to do this. This is to avoid the situation where you dump out all of the strong/adult bacteria and only have weak/immature bacteria left. I believe this is the #1 reason people think hydroguard doesn’t work, it had me questioning it originally as well.
  • After week 4-5 it should no longer be necessary to use any :astonished: hydroguard unless some event occurs that kills the colony off, in which case clean/sterilize everything and then repeat the inoculation process again.

When using hydroguard, the symbiotic relationship (between bacteria and plant roots) that is being managed must be considered and accounted for; which means it’s important to keep the beneficial bacteria alive+happy in order for them to succeed as a defense against harmful bacteria. Simply dumping them into the res and changing water as usual is not the right thing to do! There are some enzymes that can help with the process – you can look into products such as Orca (for example) as something to augment the hydroguard with to help ensure it succeeds.

Other things to mention:

  • Hydroton (clay pebbles) need to be sanitized thoroughly before use, usually with a few drops of bleach to clean and then thorough rinsing thereafter. If this isn’t done that’s a sure-fire way to introduce pathogens to the grow.
  • When replacing the bottle of water for cooling the res, be careful what that bottle comes in contact with – you could be dragging (frozen) bacteria from the freezer or whatever survived from the factory (behind label on bottle, in glue, etc) into the reservoir each time. This counts as equipment to keep clean/sterilized.
  • You can add 10-15mL of hydroguard to about 500mL-1L of water to create a somewhat concentrated form of it, and then pour that through your netpots to try to get some into the stones and on the roots in that area.
  • I notice in some of your other pictures, you have a white pipe between your reservoirs. If light is penetrating that (and illuminating the inside of the pipe) that could be an opportune place for pathogens to grow.
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#38

Thank you for taking the time to make such a detailed response. I knew some of this but not all of it and it never hurts to refresh the memory, especially since I have been reading and taking in so much lately, It’s hard to remember everything.
I did wash the clay pebble before use because I buddy told me to.
I also washed the bottles and the shelf in the deep freeze before use because I did think about transferring bad stuff.
The white pipe is 3" pvc and I’m pretty sure it is light proof… I did a light test on it before I used it, but if someone know otherwise I can wrap it with something. That would be the only way light would be penetrating other than through the too of the net pot and it has everything covered but a small hole around the stem.
I did a water change on Jan 31, I will add more hydroguard to the 3 to 4 times direction and stop water changes or should I do one more drain and refill with just RO water and h2o2 and then do the hydroguard and nutes and try to establish the good bacteria?
These are the directions I got from advanced nutrients on how to do the h2o2 flush. What they said was to get the water temp under control and then do this and I should be good??

Drain entire reservoir, take pH water of 5.5-5.7 pour on top of medium at top of plants where they go into rockwool etc. drain that out too.

Wipe down reservoir, fill with water.

Add 15mL or 3 tsp of 28% hydrogen peroxide for every 1 gallon of water.

Run that through system. Take one jug of water out of reservoir and apply to each plant directly at root zone, let that run for two hours.

After two hours dump bucket out, run pH water through top of plant/container and dump it out, fill up with water, replace with nutrients and all root rot should be dead.

The brown will still be there but the slime should be gone from the root zone.

After three days, open the bucket up and take a look and you should see bright white new roots starting to grow.

Then ensure temperatures are kept at 66-68°F in best efforts to avoid running in to this situation again.

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#39

I’d try to get everything as clean as possible first before adding more hydroguard. Especially in the netpot area.

Those instructions look good.

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#40

Bravo Sir/Madam! Succinct and thorough. Brilliant!

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