Algae in my DWC buckets

[biffmcnielly]

today I went to flush my plants due to some other problems. they are in individual 3 gallon dwc buckets. there was green algae on the sides of the buckets and on bottom of lids, not alot but just a green film. is this normal?

I set the lids on the buckets rather than snap them on tight hoping that this will help air circulate.

 

[slowandeasy]

Did you lightproof your buckets? If not, do so! Use Foil tape from HD, it is lightproof and reflective. Good luck

 

[FreezerBoy]

Definitely keep light out of the buckets. What kind of nutes? Temps?

On another note, a 3 gal bucket will be lucky to hold 1.5 gal of water. The smaller the res the faster the disaster.

 

[PhenotypeX]

You can buy AquaSafe or Easybalance from Walmart in the aquarium section for $4 they prevent green slime from ever forming.

 

[mpd]

Get rid of the feed lines and put new feed lines in. Clean out the buckets and lids with hot soapy water that contains some bleach. Take your nutrient pump and scrub it good in the hot soapy water and then allow it to circulate the bleach and hot soapy water for a few minutes. RINSE thoroughly. If you have a reservoir do the same thing. EVERYTHING that comes in contact with the water that is carrying this algae around has to be cleaned up.

I clean out my system every 21 days and at the turn from doing vegging and going into bloom. Algae will destroy the root systems in no time flat and your yield will go down to a teaspoon of bud. In life people say cleanliness is next to godliness. In hydro sparkling clean tools, buckets, pumps, lines and reservoirs are the price you must pay for a successful grow.

the only downside to hydro is that there is no substitute for diligence when it comes to this issue; conform or watch your grow turn into sludge. Good luck!

 

[Think Green]

I also use dwc. Like slowandeasy said use the foil tape. Its perfect for light proofing. Here is a picture of a 2 ga. bucket with this tape.

 

[PhenotypeX]

 

[botanist85]

I feel your pain man, I could not get any luck when it came to DWC. Ebb n flow no problem but DWC was a pain.

Black buckets, Lots of air stones, h2o2. No matter what I did I would get this nasty slime on my roots. My water temps were 72, I did not want to buy a 500 chiller for one bucket so I said screw DWC.