The Dangers of H2O2 in hydroponics (“The Slime” and Root Rot)

This information will be edited into the first post so that people won't have to read through 100 pages in the future.

24 hours after draining and cleaning one of the EZ Cloners and washing off the cuts of the slime, the slime returned with vengence even after putting 2 ppm of Chlorine in the cloner. The slime was very concentrated in certain places other than the stems of the cuts. There was so much snot all over 3 brand new air stones and the sprayers had the slime all over them. It didn’t look like the slime came from getting through the filter. It seems like where ever the most oxygen is in the system, contains the most amount of slime. The slime is able to flourish in complete darkness in an oxygen enriched system. After doing some research I think that one of the byproducts of the slime is ammonia. Because of the possibility of ammonia in the system, I will drain out the solution every 24-36 hours.

This has led to a another test. Certain circumstances require drastic measures for eradication. Because I know from past experiences that Chlorine over 2 PPM can easily kill my cuts I will have to try another option. This next option should not be taken lightly and should only be used in certain drastic situations. For example say that you have a cutting that you can never get again and it needs to be saved for the future. When all else fails then antibiotics seems like the only option left to use at this point. The antibiotic that I’ll be testing is Erythromycin. Erythromycin should not be used on food crops so that’s why this should be a last resort for very extreme circumstances.

I’ve noticed that in my older EZ cloners, no matter how much I clean them nothing will root and the slime comes so I’m constantly buying new easy cloners. This next test will show me if when all else fails if cleaning the cloner with 4 treatments of Erythromycin for 4 days will eradicate the dreaded slime. If this does work, then growers can clean out their cloners with 4 treatments of Erythromycin for 4 days with no plants in the cloner whatsoever. It will be very important to treat the slime for 4 days so that you don’t create a super bacteria from the bacteria building up a resistance to the Erythromycin. If you do choose to go this route, you will want to wear eye protection, gloves and even a mask so you don’t enhale the powder. In this next test I drained out the system and added my cloning solution and then added 200mg of Erythromycin. I left the slime on the cuts for the next 24 hours but after that I’ll individually take out each cut and spray off the slime with a high pressure hose, drain out the system and add back fresh cloning solution. Then I’ll add my 2nd 200mg treatment of Erythromycin and continue this for 2 more days. I'll let you all know how it goes. I may get a lot of shit on here from people but we must keep learning in the name of this special plant.

Ultra Current said:

I take observations and analyze them. For example I think that we will both agree that pythium is everywhere. Although it is everywhere it doesn't affect plants until stress is introduced into the situation. Now lets look at one of my brand new RDWC systems that never had any plants in them until this test. This system contains 12 plants under 2,000 Watts HPS and there are many systems that are being run so I can analyze the data and come to my conclusions. I only put the 29% H2O2 into one system that was brand new and has pond pumps in them (not those cheap ass air pumps at grow shops). Once I added the H2O2, I saw drooping of plant leaves. I lifted up the pots and the roots did not look the same. Remember that growing plants in DWC greatly exaggerates things because the roots are always submerged in solution. After 4 days all plants were dead because the pythium was able to take hold. H2O2 adds dissolved oxygen to the water. It is a fact that too much oxygen is not good. 135% saturation is known to kill fish. When the H2O2 was put into the system, the solution was well over 100% saturation and I know this from my new $2,300 Mettler Toledo Dissolved Oxygen meter. In all my other systems that I didn't put any H2O2 in, everything was perfect as usual. Observing the plants after adding H2O2 showed that the roots encountered stress in my opinion.

Click to expand...

Im definitely not trying to dispute what you are saying, just curious. I believe you've posted a lot of useful data/information. However, all this post tells me is that you added h202 and the plants continued their swing to death. I may be missing something, but ultimately, I don't see that as proof that h202 stresses the roots. Rather, it proves that incorrect proportions cause plant stress. Again, not trying to get into an argument about it, just saying i'm not completely convinced that would be considered "proof".

Either way man, K+ for all the great info!!

SpoCannabis said:

Im definitely not trying to dispute what you are saying, just curious. I believe you've posted a lot of useful data/information. However, all this post tells me is that you added h202 and the plants continued their swing to death. I may be missing something, but ultimately, I don't see that as proof that h202 stresses the roots. Rather, it proves that incorrect proportions cause plant stress. Again, not trying to get into an argument about it, just saying i'm not completely convinced that would be considered "proof".

Either way man, K+ for all the great info!!

Click to expand...

Don't take any of my information as proof. This is just my opinion on the matter. It is up to you to do the research and form your own opinion. I'll agree that incorrect proportions can cause plant stress but all the research that I'm doing, I see growers put 10 mL or more of 35% H2O2. When you listen to the bottle and put in 3 mL, the added dissolved oxygen disappears within hours not days like people think. If I were to put in 3 mL of 29% H2O2 into the RDWC, the plants wouldn't die because that doesn't take it far past the saturation point. The point is you will get the same result if you spit in your rez instead of adding 3mL of 29% H2O2 unless you're going to add it every hour which is just not feasible because that's how long your going to get that added dissolved oxygen for.

Testing has been going well until this point. We have had a major snow storm and all of our tress have fell on the house and car. Our whole area has lost power and we have no heat. We were told that our area will not have power for a week. Gas stations also have no gas. We are currently powering the EZ Cloners with car batteries and inverters but the flowering rooms have no light. We lost the whole VEG room except for the small amount of plants that are in soil. We will be boxing up our MOM's today to take to another state that has power.

As far as the H2O2 research has gone, I've made a lot of progress and have figured out that plants and animals cannot live when when their enviroment has been Supersaturated with Oxygen. Supersaturation means that the saturation levels are over 100%. There has been many tests done by scientists to prove this and I will get to the bottom of this when I get power back. Good luck to all.

Dammmn UC thats ruff. stay strong!

I know Heath has talked about too much d.o being bad, nice to hear you add some more info about that.

cyat said:

Dammmn UC thats ruff. stay strong!

I know Heath has talked about too much d.o being bad, nice to hear you add some more info about that.

Click to expand...

Powers back on! Gotta do some damage control but I'll get back to the H2O2 testing this weekend and next week. One of my boys saved the day and gave me a bunch of rooted clones of Roadkill Skunk, Sour Diesel and Chem D. So now I have enough cuts to get some rooms filled. Thanks again!

I have tried bleach, peroxide 29 percent, and had problems with both maily due to forgetting to add on a regular basis and or not having a high enough conc. One really easy solution is just using zone by botanicare. Chloramine just like the water company uses, I add 1 ml per gallon once every 2 weeks-ish and have glowing white roots and happy plants. It is the solution to all slimes at 3ml per gallon. Simple no very expensive and it just plain works. Here is root shot the rez temp was in the low 80's f love the zone.

nice mft roots can see they are mating up nice , gonna be a nice plant I bet ..... might check out that zone, but I tipically use H2o2.....worx good for me, guys In grow shop here in Mb told me some guys use it @ like 4-5ml per litre, I only use like 1.5ml per litre or 2 tops, every 2 days or sooooo,
Manitoba

highonmt said:

I have tried bleach, peroxide 29 percent, and had problems with both maily due to forgetting to add on a regular basis and or not having a high enough conc. One really easy solution is just using zone by botanicare. Chloramine just like the water company uses, I add 1 ml per gallon once every 2 weeks-ish and have glowing white roots and happy plants. It is the solution to all slimes at 3ml per gallon. Simple no very expensive and it just plain works. Here is root shot the rez temp was in the low 80's f love the zone.

Click to expand...

I think you mean Dutchmaster Zone, correct? Have you tried using it for cloning?

Ultra Current said:

Glad that I can help. I have pool shock too but I wouldn't want to confuse people of the mixing rates. The Clorox is easier to talk about and understand.

Click to expand...

Pool shock is really, really concentrated Chlorine. You should use the dry pool shock at a rate of 1 gram per 640 gallons. That means a 100 gallon reservoir should use .15625 grams of pool shock for the entire res.

Herborizer said:

I think you mean Dutchmaster Zone, correct? Have you tried using it for cloning?

Click to expand...

umm ya thats what I meant...puff puff and no I use rw cubes.

highonmt said:

I have tried bleach, peroxide 29 percent, and had problems with both maily due to forgetting to add on a regular basis and or not having a high enough conc. One really easy solution is just using zone by botanicare. Chloramine just like the water company uses, I add 1 ml per gallon once every 2 weeks-ish and have glowing white roots and happy plants. It is the solution to all slimes at 3ml per gallon. Simple no very expensive and it just plain works. Here is root shot the rez temp was in the low 80's f love the zone.

Click to expand...

Are you recirculating? I have brown algae or something in my res, I cleaned it out with a diluted bleach and filled with a new batch but the shit comes back with in 48hrs wtf... Was looking into h202 i just started a thread asking about it and came across this. Anymore info would be appriciated. The ph is always rising and i have some leaf twist i'm sure i'm getting lockout or something. Have to add way more ph down than i normaly do.

gettogro said:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=55259&do=filter&fid=14575

Click to expand...

That's like 80 pages, i started to read about 15 pages in and now i'm even more confused. Looks like he's still trying to figure it out. Any short quick answers?

Respectfully, my experience is that I have saved two ill plants with h2o2. I have also used it every feeding for a few full cycles in a row with no ill plants and what I see as healthy disease resistant plants. I think if I was having trouble in a grow using a known safe h2o2 application rate, I would eliminate everything else as the culprit, before I would even look at the h2o2 again.

tfd

thefalsediviner said:

Respectfully, my experience is that I have saved two ill plants with h2o2. I have also used it every feeding for a few full cycles in a row with no ill plants and what I see as healthy disease resistant plants. I think if I was having trouble in a grow using a known safe h2o2 application rate, I would eliminate everything else as the culprit, before I would even look at the h2o2 again.

tfd

Click to expand...

How many mls per gal? What strength? Are you recirculating? Thanks

@painroad-I run 3-5ml per gallon depending upon how I'm feeling about it. I use both RDWC, DWC and rookwool blocks that are hand watered up to the 6x6x6 size.

tfd

its been proven on icmag over and over that H202 not detrimental and has saved a ton of plants from root rot and other pathogens.....

when i ran h202 in my mpb buckets, ive NEVER had such good looking roots and growth....

Tests will be done soon to show what happens to your plants when you go past the DO saturation. If you don't have a DO meter you may not understand. There will be plenty of pictures and data.

Ultra Current said:

Tests will be done soon to show what happens to your plants when you go past the DO saturation. If you don't have a DO meter you may not understand. There will be plenty of pictures and data.

Click to expand...

great! looking forward to it!