Anyone have first hand experience on running a "dead reservoir"?

[anferneybra]

Im also going to take my water to the CSU campus wensday to have them run the agriculture tests on it. That will tell me exactly what im working with and how to best grow with it.

Im hoping they dont tell me to get a RO machine. I hope I can use some reactants like municipal facilities do, to react the minerals out of the water.

Only costs 20 bucks for full TDS and PH tests in less than 4 business days.

 

[Jack784]

I was wondering if the kind or strength of bleach matters. I am assuming regular Clorox is what the doctor ordered.

 

[YosemiteSam]

yep, regular chlorox or any generic unscented bleach.

 

[MAXXIMUS]

Question guy's......
Will the bleach defeat the benefits of house and garden roots accelerator?
I'm not having any rot issues but would like to extend my rez changes from every 7 days to 14 days.
thanks in advance!

 

[Bud Bug]

Years ago Growing Edge Magazine had an article about green houses using ozone injectors to create more oxygen in water. Not sure what would happen to the reaction of ozone with the food chemicals.

 

[mrdizzle]

bleach is cheap and works well without harming your plants at all. however, I still developed a bad case of brown algae while using 2ml per 10gals

Hydrofungicide (now hydro sprakle) is the shit you want to use for 100% protection. I kills pythium, algae and anything else in the res, and is complete non-systemic and can be used until harvest, the shit is a hydroponic breakthrough.

Its $150 a gallon and uses 1-2ml per gal, compared to the cost of losing a crop its dirt cheap. HIGHLY RECOMMEND it

 

[anferneybra]

Hey there thought I would give update.

I ran the 2ml/10 gallons of bleach through all my veg and bloom systems, with about 30 total plants. Couple days later now, seems to not have messed with them, so Im hoping it does some good for the root system.

Im now running GH 3 part like always with drip clean and bleach.
I cut out the SM-90 because I think the bleach will just counter any good effects of the ammonia; maybe thats wrong.

As far as the rot I got a picture of it after taking down some ladies this weekend.

It seems to be in the mid range of the root system, while the top is pretty dry the bottom is soaked. I dont know why the rot would start in middle...but whatever, the plants still did ok despite this.

Tony

 

[anferneybra]

SO I decided to give the RO a try even tho I hate the idea of wasting all this water, it is well water and ill just put it back into the ground.

Picked up the stealth200 RO unit, man it takes a long time to make good water.......

Im also running a UV sterilizer in the ROed water before then making my nutrients with it. Should be able to eliminate the use of bleach and have the good bacteria in the root system thrive. I might even be able to go to back to my old mix:

GH 3 part + SM9 = veg
GH 3 part + liquid kool bloom + SM90 = bloom

I will the temps at 65 degrees and only top off with ROed water, should be able to eliminate all bad bacteria and lock out with the RO

HERES TO HOPING IT WORKS

tony

 

[Metalhead419]

uh, i dump about 30ml in my 55 gallon res pretty often. More than once a week, and its all good. So anyone worried about using to much, don't. On that note, has anyone been able to kill anything from using to much, and how much did it take? Most important thing is to stay on top of it like krunch says and keep adding it, you can kind of go buy smell. After it stops smelling like the public pool, add more.

 

[anferneybra]

Had the RO machine running about a week now and have to say it is the true cure to hard water from well systems. Takes my water down from 8.2 pH to 7.1 and from ~260ppm to ~12ppm.

Then I transfer from one container to another with a UV sterilizer in it to circulate and sterilize my good RO water before using in a system. All salt build-up is already going away, and my vegging babies never seemed happier. Along with water chillers in each reservoir, I have finally won the water war I feel. No more funky smell, pH swings or even slime in the control buckets.

Im discontinuing the bleach for now, and trying to the let the root beneficial bacteria thrive. Just using GH 3 part, SM90 and some drip clean. Dont even have to really use pH down. WEEEE

Thanks for the advice in the sterilizing the system tho, the bleach worked wonders for my blooming plants under duress.

Ill get my grow thread started by the end of the week, just have to organize some pictures!

Tony

 

[Lazyman]

Physan20 works great at killing everything in the res, it's a must for any recirculating system. For maintenance, Dutch Master Zone contains chloramine, works like bleach but doesn't bubble out like the chlorine does. Both will ensure nothing lives in the res.