Root rot question

[Angiebaby]

So I’m fighting root rot. Before my prophylactic root rot treatment on Thursday, the worst they’ve ever been is sort of coral colored- never slimy, but they were starting to twist a bit. Been taking res temps here and there with digital meat thermometer and they’ve been within range. Aquarium thermometer arrived today and res at 74 this evening with grobo temp at 76! I’m sure it was much higher during the day.

So here’s what my question is:
Is it possible that there was enough good bacteria build up inside reservoir before cleaning it out and soaking roots in peroxide to have been protecting the roots and helping to keep conditions just so?
And if that’s possibly the case, how long until I can get there again?

So droopy

/
Rot tonight

Stalks doing much better if you’ve been following my grow

Roots after peroxide soak on Thursday

Roots prior to treatment

[Angiebaby]

Trying to decide the best way to go about this. Last night, upon notice, I did a top off with a little hydroguard in the water, and didn’t take the time to clean roots off but did squirt them with a little peroxide.

It pains me but I have to move my grobo out of my room. My room tends to get the warmest and while personally I like it, grobo and I can’t come to terms. I’ve kept her in here for safety as well as convenience, but guest room here we go.

So problem I’m facing. If there’s something bad left in the res, not just warm temps… cuz think about it, 48 hours is a fast attack isn’t it?, I would suspect it to be hiding behind the white cardboard panel that houses the houses and sensors. I’ve yet to figure out how to properly clean between there and the res wall, and suggestions are appreciated! @Bplatinum9 mentioned the handiness of a sprayer when cleaning, and I can see I’m going to need to get one!

Next, I don’t feel good. My plant is super important to me and I want to do everything I need to for her, but I don’t feel good. Do I need to tackle the res again or can I get by with adding extra hydroguard to it and just doing another root soak? Thanks! I really appreciate the input!

[Bplatinum9]

Can you take a picture of this area?
“I would suspect it to be hiding behind the white cardboard panel that houses the houses and sensors. I’ve yet to figure out how to properly clean between there and the res wall”
Ive never used a spray bottle to clean inside the grobo that I know of, I do have a spray bottle with the grobo logo but only for advertisement, it gets no use.
I take my parts out of the box to clean, all except the reservoir, I use vinegar water in the reservoir and its important to do a drain with vinegar water to clean lines and then one with just water to wash out vinegar.
I do let the vinegar water sit in reservoir for at least twenty minutes and once I have drained the last of the water from reservoir I use paper towels to rid the reservoir of any water or debree left.
I also stick my nutrient bottle lines in a glass of vinegar water while cleaning, no need to take them aloose, just take them out of bottles and put the glass close enough to reach the lines.
How much hydroguard are you using?
Did you have a bad smell or did you assume it was root rot due to color?
Are you using anything other than grobo nutrients?
How often are you exposing your roots to the light?
Large fan leaves always droop, your plant really didnt look overly droopy to me, just looked more like it was time to remove the biggest leaves to cut down on humidity.
Let me know which cardboard part your referring to because there shouldn’t be any inside the grobo.

[Todd.grobo]

If there is no bad odour you should be able to recover!

[The_Reverend]

Two things I noticed on your grow.

1: Your water temps are way too high. I have my chillers set to 65 degrees F. Anything above 75 and your going to have root rot issues unless you are using something like Hydroguard. You said your temps were way above 70’s so it looks like you have a good case of root rot going on.

2: How wet is the cocoa pod? I use cocoa pods in my DWC set up and it is VERY important to keep them as dry as possible after the seed germinates. I have also noticed a lot of Grobo users are getting dampening off issues (which it looks like you are also experiencing). It is essential to get air flow directly on the base of the stem somehow.

what you are seeing is the pod is so damp, and the air flow so poor at the top of the cocoa pod/bottom of the stem, the stem thinks it’s still underground and is trying to push roots out from the stem above the pod. Combine that with a nice case of root rot. Without addressing the water temps and the airflow issues, I will be very surprised if you can save this grow.

One quick suggestion for next time. Add a little Armor Si to your solution. That helps the stem and branches bulk up and stay resistant to disease.

[Angiebaby]

I can’t even see the area I’m talking about really, but where I’ve marked here behind the white cardboard or fiberboard.

I’m sorry, I could’ve sworn you recommended a sprayer!

I believe it’s rot because things were creamy/ ehhh more peachy 72 hours ago but no slime, bit stiff and gnarled, little twisty at top. Similar to tree roots.
Soaked in peroxide, all white/cream/ still a little dark in most twisty area (perhaps some trapped coco in there?)

After 24 hours in clean res with hydroguard (plus I replaced 2nd air stone), I peeked in trying to dial in bubbles and snapped a pic abs was hoping it was just the lighting making things look brown.

24 hours later, there’s brown slime all over. No smell yet.

I realized I had transferred a small amount of hydroguard to a smaller bottle for ease but it’sa clear bottles rather than opaque. Wondering if hydroguard needs to be in opaque bottle to stay good?? Just added 10 extra ml of hydroguard from original bottle to reservoir.

I was really trying to treat her for damping off, which is looking much better, but as a whole she was looking healthier before treating, just very stunted. She’s been overly stressed since I feel, as she’s been a super resilient plant, and now I see that her roots are under attack.

I’ve been looking about twice a week at roots lately, before that an extra time a week, but last couple days more obviously.

What she looked like before, she’s @ 2 mo old, still in late veg btw.

[Todd.grobo]

The white tray is glued to the side and can be removed to clean behind it. I do not, and have not to my knowledge had issued because of it. I do however clean the white tray above and under the tubing, all tubes and hoses and typically allow my reservoir to completely dry out between grows when cleaning. Havent had root rot issues or recoveries so not much else i can help with.

[The_Reverend]

@Angiebaby just clarifying, you said you did put hydroguard in the res? If so, you shouldn’t have root rot. I can send a pic of my roots to compare if you would like. They sometimes get a little tint of color from the nutrients, so that might be normal.

Have you considered adding a water chiller to the reservoir? if you can keep your temps under 70 you shouldn’t have to worry about root rot.

I also can’t tell if that is a fan blowing on the base of the stalk. If so, that should help your dampening issue. You can also safely press your fingers down onto the top of the pod to push some water out of it like a sponge. I have done it with all my plants and have not damaged any roots.

The leaves look good on it, which is a good indicator it’s still thriving. You may not be in as bad of shape as I thought you were at first.

One other thing, be careful with the hydrogen Peroxide. It can work, but think of it as sort of a nuclear option. It’s a Hail Mary when all else has failed…because it can also damage the plant if you aren’t careful.

[Angiebaby]

Mine isn’t glued very well anymore. my first clean, I tried pulling on it and part of it loosened so I worry about crap getting back there.

[Angiebaby]

10 ml every fill. And yes I’ve been fighting the damping for a while, fans, blotting, etc.

Did peroxide treatment on stalk and pod Thursday as well s Hail Mary for damping and that has helped greatly! Stalk is much improved and pod is staying at a much more spongier feel and manageable with fans, no more blotting!! I did quite a bit to stress her out Thursday, to be sure.

I’ve had staining for sure, I know what that looks like. My roots are brown and slimy. I really think that I either lost some good bacteria build up or the hydroguard in the clear bottle was a no no.

[Todd.grobo]

It literally hangs over the side. The glued it so it doesnt move likely when inside the reservoir.
I usually clean with vinegar water and let it soak a bit. Then use towels to wipe and completely dry it.

[Angiebaby]

@The_Reverend

The leaves look good on it, which is a good indicator it’s still thriving. You may not be in as bad of shape as I thought you were at first

That last picture with the praying leaves was before I cleaned out the res and soaked the roots.

Hoping fresh hydroguard gives me a bounce back

[Joandy93]

Is this first grow in grobo? Just wondering? Wondering if it’s cross contamination? Honestly though it looks like nutrition stain imo

[Bplatinum9]

Without a smell its not likely you had full on root rot.
Try not to peak at roots unless you see your plant suffering.
Keep all nutrients in their original bottles and out of the light and heat.
Never press down on your pod to squeeze water out with dampening off because it will surely die from loosing the bit
of footing it has established. @The_Reverend, in your case it was safe to do so with healthy stalk but you should still try to stay away from the center of the pod.
Looking at your unit it seems to be a bit close to the wall which could cause overheating of the unit, wherever you decide to move it to it should be far enough from wall that the heat is not thrown back at the unit.
I use 3 tsp of hydroguard which is between 14 - 15 ml.

[Angiebaby]

@Joandy93 I had a grow that never made it out of the pod. I cleaned res after but I’m on day 54 now of my first “official” grow, so I think we can rule out any cross contamination.

[Angiebaby]

@Bplatinum9

Never press down on your pod to squeeze water out with dampening off because it will surely die from loosing the bit
of footing it has established. @The_Reverend, in your case it was safe to do so with healthy stalk but you should still try to stay away from the center of the pod.

This raises questions.???

With damping, obviously pod is overly damp, often rectified with blotting, right? Wrong? No? How much of a footing does a plant need to do this? If you HAVE damping, how healthy IS your stalk, really? In my case, it showed dark color, light color exposed when coco pushed down past dark color, but no constriction.

I naively thought damping issues couldn’t affect you once you reached a certain amount of growth.

[Angiebaby]

That’sa 6” level so I’ve probably only got about 9” space. I also have a tower fan aimed behind there as well.

[Bplatinum9]

As far as blotting a damp pod while dampening off has occurd its especially impirtant not to push down near stalk so if you must I would stay around the edges or do what my fellow champ @SilverGrobo does and simply lay the paper towel on top of the pod.
You can also just point a fan at it.
Stalks range in color and may appear to have dampening off because of it, if the bottom of the stalk near the pod is very skinny opposed to the top which will be thicker, its a sure sign of dampening off.
The unit is too close to the wall, its a good thing the fan was on or it may have gotten worse.

[Bplatinum9]

How to Treat Root Problems:

Step 1: Identify what may have caused the root problem (refer to list of possible triggers above)

Step 2: Address this underlying issue

• Happy temps – Make sure your grow area maintains a comfortable room temperature during the day, and is a few degrees cooler at night. Learn more about how temperature affects your cannabis plants.
• Only water your plants when they need it. How often should I water my potted cannabis plants?
• Make sure potted plants have plenty of drainage, and there must be drainage holes at the bottom. If soil or growing medium holds a lot of water, consider mixing in 1/3 to 1/2 extra perlite to “loosen things up” and improve drainage at the roots.
• Put plants in the right sized container to give the roots the best environment to spread out and grow. You may need to transplant to a bigger container if your plant has gotten too big or its roots are rootbound.
• Brown, smelly roots? Learn how to get rid of root rot

Step 3: (Optional) Provide your plant with a beneficial bacteria like Hydroguard to help roots recover quickly (more info about root supplements below). Hydroguard will help fight root rot by creating a colony of good organisms to outcompete the root rot.

You May Not Want to Use Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) for Root Problems! H2O2 is temporarily effective at best when it comes to root problems. By it’s nature, even commercial grade H2O2 will be completely gone from a water reservoir after about 24 hours as it reacts with the water to form oxygen (decomposes) until the H2O2 is completely gone.

If H2O2 is added to a water source, it kills most of the bacteria in the water, including any good bacteria, but will not usually be able to kill all bacteria, so some bad bacteria will still be left to repopulate. Because of it’s nature, hydrogen peroxide does absolutely nothing to fix the underlying issue that causes root problems, and it kills any postive bacteria in your soil or water so sometimes it can actually make things worse. I think of H2O2 as a temporary bandaid.

I personally recommend using a supplement called Botanicare Hydroguard for root problems because I’ve used it successfully to get rid of a terrible case of Root Rot

Note: Botanicare used to have an awesome root innoculant called Aquashield, but in our tests Hydroguard works even better to create healthier roots and get rid of root rot!

Hydroguard is also much cheaper than most other similar root treatments and is proven to work well at supporting root health in cannabis. Take a look at our root rot page to see pictures of how Hydroguard was able to completely cure a terrible case of root rot.

Other examples of beneficial root supplements include Piranha, VooDoo Juice, Great White(Great White has great reviews, yet is obscenely expensive), Subculture B, Rooters, and Plant Savers. Most of these can be used with both hydro and soil grows. I personally recommend Hydroguard because I’ve used it successfully to treat Root Rot (and it’s also very affordably priced, you can use it throughout your grow without breaking the bank).

One important thing to note is that after you treat the cause of root problems, the old damaged leaves may never recover! With recovery, you should be looking for the problem to stop spreading, and for new leaves to be growing in green and healthy.

[Todd.grobo]

Thanks for the share and info. Always learning something new on here.