Cloning Failing? Tried Everything? Found the missing link?

[queequeg152]

Colloidal silver is cheap as chips if you have your own generator. A good generator will cost you maybe a couple of hundred bucks but will last a lifetime. The silver rods last forever as you only need 20ppm concentration and you will take out almost any bacteria, virus or simple fungi.

this is some sort of electrolytic cell i imagine? if so the cells cannot by definition last for ever, but i get your point.

20ppm is far more than the fraction of 1ppm wherein chlorine is more then effective.

chlorine also kills very quickly. in clean water it will deactivate something like 99.999+ bacteria in 90 seconds or something like that.

why would you want to pay hundreds for a silver generator in the first place? to avoid using chlorine? whats the point?

 

[Ymir]

so youve actually got a smell? whats it smell like? sulfur? spoiled eggs? if so this is likely sulfate reducing bacteria.... though ive only read of this sort of bacteria existing in anerobic conditions?

i would try shocking up to 5mg/L... use a direct addition and use that calculator i linked.

you could go much higher than 5... 10... 15 probably 20+ easily, but id start low. and see what happens with the concentrations.

ill be 100% honest here, with respect to hydroponics, ive never used chlorine in any role other than as a preventative or with very very light blooms of algae. ive also never run a bucket ebb system. only trays... with lettuce.

it sounds like you have some sort of colony growing in your medium? Idk what grow rocks are exactly.

id suggest one of two things... either maintain low levels of chlorine basically 24-7, or try shocking up to like 5mg/l.
if you choose to shock, id suggest shutting down the aeration for a few hours as it will only drive out more chlorine.

again regarding shocking,you are going to want to maximize the amount of time your chlorinated soltuon is in contact with this grow medium you are using. idk how you would like to do this, nor do i know whats appropriate, duration wise without endangering your plants.

its also possible you might have a biofilm issue.... if you do, almost no level of hypo chlorine disinfection will kill it... best you can do is keep it at bay. biofilms are remarkably resilient... they can be handled with some other chemicals but i wont get into that. its easier to just scrub down your plumbing and buckets etc afterwards.

if you find that you simply cannot maintain any levels of chlorine despite shocking, id suggest buying a , and dosing automatically... many times a day.

I don't want to exactly say "like a fish tank" but that's the best I can think of and what I'd imagine a poorly maintained fish tank would be like Edit: Actually "wet dog smell" sounds like another good comparison.

Here's a pic a day after I used a rag with chlorine to wipe off all the brown stuff on the side of the barrel. It's currently a yellowish stuff just starting to grow again and when I pull up my air stone, the top of it is covered in brown crap. (There is usually brown stuff at the bottom of my res from the sand of the grow rocks (silica) but this is the slime I believe.) This is how it always started, as a whitish/yellow film covering the ends of the aquarium heater I'd used and eventually sliming up any wires/tubes that are near the top of the water. Interesting that you said I should disable the air stone to allow the chlorine to do it's thing, perhaps having my air stone on 24/7 was causing the chlorine to dissipate faster than the 3 dayish normal period.

Click for full size

 

[Ymir]

So I've been googling around in between facepalming, I think what I have might actually be an iron bacteria, not the regular brown slime/algae that most people get. It's really hard to tell, but when I saw some pages mention people get this in their toilet tanks a lot, which I appear to have in mine as well.

My water sample only showed .004 ppm of iron in my well water, but perhaps that combined with my nutes are enough to make this stuff flourish. Also I read that oxygenating the water makes them grow MORE, which kinda seems like what just happened, plus the air stone is where it's growing the most.

Whole thread about it here: http://forum.grasscity.com/hydropon...lorinechloraminepool-shock-daily-regimen.html

 

[luxcultivars]

Excuse my ignorance but if the issue is essentially hygiene would it not also be possible to ensure better success through the use of water spiked with colloidal silver. Colloidal silver is very effective against a wide range of pathogens. It is also easy to brew up yourself for cents in the dollar.

I would avoid this. Silver inhibits ethylene production in the plant. You don't want to do that.

This is how sex reversals work: by using colloidal silver or silver nitrate solution to inhibit ethylene in a flowering female. When this happens it will form male flowers.

 

[mojave green]

also...
lol id still like to hear about, or better yet see some pictures of mojave greens fancy chlorine dioxide system...

why?
@chicken:
you might try a uv system to pretreat your well water.

 

[Ymir]

I threw some Flying Skull Z7 shit I had leftover in there, gave it a double dose just to see if it'll do anything. I didn't have results with it the last time I tried it but I still had half of it leftover so might as well. Says it's supposed to work with low levels of chlorine as well so can't hurt there I guess. As far as a UV sterilizer, I've definitely considered it. At this point I'm not sure it'll help much as it seems to be my medium that is the cause of it...at least currently, and I know it can cause iron dropout if used with nutes in? Hydroguard is another I see used a lot, along with pond-zyme, but again that shit is expensive, would cost me $5 every time I dosed 40 gallons with hydoguard.

I'm curious about trying pond-zyme on it's own as well, I've seen a lot of people using it but I don't really come across posts where people actually report back defeating brown slime or anything, just people saying what they use to prevent it. I don't see anything that claims to eat iron bacteria specifically either, I wish I could tell for sure what I had.

 

[mojave green]

i had outbreak of pythium, lost whole crop. tried everything to cure plants. no avail. tossed all infected plants. shocked system with chlorine dioxide and started over.
i now run grow stones in linked bucket ebb & flo on ro treated well water. i use benny tea. so far so good.

 

[queequeg152]

So I've been googling around in between facepalming, I think what I have might actually be an iron bacteria, not the regular brown slime/algae that most people get. It's really hard to tell, but when I saw some pages mention people get this in their toilet tanks a lot, which I appear to have in mine as well.

My water sample only showed .004 ppm of iron in my well water, but perhaps that combined with my nutes are enough to make this stuff flourish. Also I read that oxygenating the water makes them grow MORE, which kinda seems like what just happened, plus the air stone is where it's growing the most.

Whole thread about it here: http://forum.grasscity.com/hydropon...lorinechloraminepool-shock-daily-regimen.html

not familiar enough with iron water issues to give you any reccomendations here. but id like to point out that iron bacteria is NOT an organism... its just the name given to iron precipitation, or iron 'rusting' out of solution.

perhaps get your well water professionally tested. i understand this only costs like 70 bucks... for much more you can even get radionuclide testing for things like radium if you really want to shell out the cash.

 

[queequeg152]

why?
@chicken:
you might try a uv system to pretreat your well water.

because clo2 is extreemly unusual, and far more expensive than conventional hypocrite.
its also more difficult to test.

are you using those tablets or what? you must be because the generators im aware of start at like 10 grand and increase explosively in cost there after.

 

[DoomsDay]

What ever happened to using hydrogen peroxide?

 

[queequeg152]

its supposed to be good for surface sterilization... it can damage some surfaces though.

peroxide is not as good as chlorination for water disinfection.

costs too much to produce. not effective in very low concentrations, and its not going to be effective for any long periods of time.

some water distribution systems are 10's of thousands of feet long before they finally reach your water meter.

 

[Ymir]

not familiar enough with iron water issues to give you any reccomendations here. but id like to point out that iron bacteria is NOT an organism... its just the name given to iron precipitation, or iron 'rusting' out of solution.

perhaps get your well water professionally tested. i understand this only costs like 70 bucks... for much more you can even get radionuclide testing for things like radium if you really want to shell out the cash.

"Iron bacteria are small living organisms which naturally occur in soil, shallow groundwater, and surface waters. These nuisance bacteria combine iron (or manganese) and oxygen to form deposits of "rust," bacterial cells, and a slimy material that sticks the bacteria to well pipes, pumps, and plumbing fixtures. The bacteria are not known to cause disease, but can cause undesirable stains, tastes and odors; affect the amount of water the well will produce; and create conditions where other undesirable organisms may grow."

They are living, but they are just generally called iron bacteria, they aren't one specific type of bacteria. It is treated with chlorine in well systems just like anything else. I have a spring, not much I can do there and I haven't had any clogged pipes or anything like that to worry about...and not harmful to people so I'm not too worried about my water in general.

I just bought a wave maker to replace my air stone, I think having my water a bit cooler without pumping in room air and whatever dust with it will be a better solution. It's supposed to agitate the surface and keep the water oxygenated enough for fish and will keep the whole reservoir cycling around so nothing can grow (hopefully).

 

[queequeg152]

"Iron bacteria are small living organisms which naturally occur in soil, shallow groundwater, and surface waters. These nuisance bacteria combine iron (or manganese) and oxygen to form deposits of "rust," bacterial cells, and a slimy material that sticks the bacteria to well pipes, pumps, and plumbing fixtures. The bacteria are not known to cause disease, but can cause undesirable stains, tastes and odors; affect the amount of water the well will produce; and create conditions where other undesirable organisms may grow."

They are living, but they are just generally called iron bacteria, they aren't one specific type of bacteria. It is treated with chlorine in well systems just like anything else. I have a spring, not much I can do there and I haven't had any clogged pipes or anything like that to worry about...and not harmful to people so I'm not too worried about my water in general.

I just bought a wave maker to replace my air stone, I think having my water a bit cooler without pumping in room air and whatever dust with it will be a better solution. It's supposed to agitate the surface and keep the water oxygenated enough for fish and will keep the whole reservoir cycling around so nothing can grow (hopefully).

interesting. i was mistaken then. i was always under the impression that this was just a cute name given to common rust accumulating in filters, sinks etc, as water is exposed to oxygen. i see now that this refers to actual bio films etc...

you are correct in assuming that water temp is going to contribute to the health and rate of reproduction of bacteria and algae... but i question the switch to a wave maker....
these units are basically submersible mag drive pumps with a propeller replacing the conventional impeller and pump housing. these things will dump heat into the water pretty much just as a submersible pump will.
the amount of heat dumped into the water will primarily depend on the wattage of the pump.

im assuming that the heating you previously had was due to adiabatic heating? the heating due to compressing gases .
if so, i would have suggested that you investigate adding an after cooler to your air pump.

with all that said, sweating water temperatures seems to defeat the whole purpose of chlorinating your water in the first place... does it not?

 

[Ymir]

I got this guy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0036RXO3O/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 which I'm sure puts less heat than a water pump running all the time. I can even run this on a cycle timer if I feel it's adding too much heat so it's turning off and on every 15 seconds or something.

And just because I'm adding chlorine doesn't mean I'm going to ignore small things I can do to help the situation, especially since the chlorine isn't working for me at the moment and I don't want to go overboard with it until I get my chlorine test kit.

I have my air stone soaking in chlorine atm, then I'm going to boil it. The water has been still for a day now, nothing new growing in it, perhaps the Flying Skull z7 is doing something...we'll see.

 

[luxcultivars]

I threw some Flying Skull Z7 shit I had leftover in there, gave it a double dose just to see if it'll do anything. I didn't have results with it the last time I tried it but I still had half of it leftover so might as well. Says it's supposed to work with low levels of chlorine as well so can't hurt there I guess. As far as a UV sterilizer, I've definitely considered it. At this point I'm not sure it'll help much as it seems to be my medium that is the cause of it...at least currently, and I know it can cause iron dropout if used with nutes in? Hydroguard is another I see used a lot, along with pond-zyme, but again that shit is expensive, would cost me $5 every time I dosed 40 gallons with hydoguard.

I'm curious about trying pond-zyme on it's own as well, I've seen a lot of people using it but I don't really come across posts where people actually report back defeating brown slime or anything, just people saying what they use to prevent it. I don't see anything that claims to eat iron bacteria specifically either, I wish I could tell for sure what I had.

Woah, look out there. I added chlorine and Z7 together and the result was an outbreak of bacteria. I scrubbed everything out and re-filled with just chlorine in the cloner solution and everything went fine with that round after that. I asked a vender about whether or not Z7 broke down chlorine and he said "oh definitely, they cancel each other out."

Z7 is a great product actually. I still use it to maintain root health after the transplant. But I'm sticking with chlorine only for the rooting phase in my cloner.

 

[Ymir]

Ah yea, I actually misread their FAQ which says you CAN use chlorine if your water temps can't stay below 75F, but it says if you're at 0.08ppm or lower. I misread that as .8 ppm (does chlorine even do anything at 0.08 ppm? It certainly didn't stop my slime from forming at 1ppm)

I planned on emptying the res anyway just wanted to try it for the hell of it and change the water once my wave maker gets here. So far I haven't seen anything new growing so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Still wondering what the hell this z7 stuff is made of, the company claimed about 1.5 years ago that they couldn't explain because they'd have to change their labels or some nonsense and that they were going to do it the next year (never happened).

 

[luxcultivars]

Ah yea, I actually misread their FAQ which says you CAN use chlorine if your water temps can't stay below 75F, but it says if you're at 0.08ppm or lower. I misread that as .8 ppm (does chlorine even do anything at 0.08 ppm? It certainly didn't stop my slime from forming at 1ppm)

I planned on emptying the res anyway just wanted to try it for the hell of it and change the water once my wave maker gets here. So far I haven't seen anything new growing so I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Still wondering what the hell this z7 stuff is made of, the company claimed about 1.5 years ago that they couldn't explain because they'd have to change their labels or some nonsense and that they were going to do it the next year (never happened).

Yeah, Flying Skull loves the 'proprietary mystery game' like the rest of them. It's some sort of enzymatic brew. I had no idea that it and pool shock canceled each other out so I added both. 2 days later I had bright orange bacterial clumps (no pythium slime though) everywhere. That was why I asked the rep about it.

Flying Skull give conflicting info all over their web site and also give surprisingly shitty grow advice so I take it all with a grain of salt. That said, Z7 does work very well at maintaining root health. Never seen pythium develop while using it with chem nutrients in soil. They say it works fine with organics, but I use CannaZyme instead. If I still did hydro/DWC I'd definitely add it.

Anyway I think that either it or pool shock will work fine for me. I decided on pool shock due to other people's successes and dirt-cheapness. That Snype formula kicks ass.

You've got some other weird contaminant in your area; is it pythium or something more exotic? It's different than what I had for sure. I was able to kill mine off mid-run with the cuts all still in there. I was really surprised. Just did a quick rinse out and re-added pool shock only.

Wish I had answers for you.

 

[luxcultivars]

Chicken, I'm curious what form of chlorine you are adding? Sorry if I missed that. Maybe queequeg152 can help explain the difference in effectiveness we might see between bottled clorox and calcium hypochlorite/pool shock? Is there any reason liquid chlorine would break down faster or be less effective? Just trying to suss out why you aren't getting results. You are looking at your temps now but I've run mine up to 84F with no problems...

 

[queequeg152]

calcium hypochlorite is more potent... much more, its a denser form of of the active ingrediant hypochlorous acid.

most sodium hypochlorite sold is usually just 12.5% concentration.

regarding this flying skull stuff. if its anything organic, its very likely to be oxidized by the chlorine. so yea, it will effectivly remove free chlorine from what ever solution you prepare.

IDK wtf bright orange chunks might come from... ive NEVER seen anything like that in my life.

keep shit simple gentleman... either periodically shock, or maintain low single digit ppms.

 

[luxcultivars]

IDK wtf bright orange chunks might come from... ive NEVER seen anything like that in my life.

Right? I should have taken pictures, it was bizarre. Not slimy; it kind of reminded me of kelp actually. Clumps forming in the liquid and in some cases surrounding the stems of the cuts, which I cleaned off. The color may partly have partly been due to the clone solution (0-2-3 GH nutes). It never came back. Better than getting pythium for sure.