My reservoir STINKS

[Bgreenheadband]

Seems kinda weird. I have used the same setup (CAP buckets, with Canna A,B, Rhizo, Zym, PK boost) before in a different house, but getting towars the last few days before the change (i change my res every 7 days) it seems to STINK.......

I guess its my water? Bad or old batch of nutes? Can it affect the final product? (sorry if this is a ridiculous question)

Im sure it'll be hard to figure out....if I had to describe the smell i'd say its almost like a rotten sulfur smell (but i was never good at describing smells)
I dont notice it anywhere else..or with just water without the nutes added...but will do more investigations

PS. I have two res running....one I was using RO water in (the filters may need to be changed) and that is the one that seems to stink more....

any guesses or info would be appreciated.....


.

 

[HUGE]

Check the water level in the bottom buckets. This happens when the roots grow through the inner bucket and them sit in stagnant water untill they rot. I've seen it soooo many times and that rotten smell is a dead giveaway.

 

[HUGE]

Forgot to mention this is usually from veging more than 4 weeks in those lil cap buckets.

 

[Bgreenheadband]

Check the water level in the bottom buckets. This happens when the roots grow through the inner bucket and them sit in stagnant water untill they rot. I've seen it soooo many times and that rotten smell is a dead giveaway.

Im out now, but will check this tonight.......IF this is the case what do i DO about it!?!?

THe plants are in their 5th week of flower, and id like them to go another 3-4 weeks?


This KINDA makes sense as the second (non RO water) res smells less, and has plants that are at least a week behind the one that stinks.... THe problem with the theory is the second res still does smell, just not as bad....?

 

[Bgreenheadband]

Forgot to mention this is usually from veging more than 4 weeks in those lil cap buckets.

Well i had a LONG veg time of almost 8 weeks, but didnt always have them in the buckets...they were on ebb and gro tables first, but had MONSTER roots when i put them in the buckets.....but I filled the rock in the buckets extra high, so the roots would have to go far to make it down to the stagnant water.....

 

[HUGE]

There isn't much you can do. Kill the rot with physan, raise the buckets 1" above the controller. My solution was to build a 5 gal ebb & flo setup that I transplant the cap buckets into for flower. If you think the res smells wait till you lift the bucket you might actually vomit.

 

[Bgreenheadband]

Well for my sake..i HOPE you are wrong....but thanks for the heads up...

Just incase I get home and check, and my roots are still snow white......any other ideas about what it could be?

 

[HUGE]

The only reason for that odor is rotting shit/anaerobic bacteria feeding on rotten shit.

 

[Dirty Harry]

It sounds like your growing organic. I know some chemical nutes stink on their own. I use H2O2 to keep root rot in check but that will fuck up your organic micros.
Too warm res water gets rot and other disease issues. If your not running an air stone or other aeration try that out. Rot loves stagnate and stale water.

 

[HUGE]

What's the verdict.

 

[Shike]

You running an airstone in your res?

 

[Bgreenheadband]

Sorry for taking so long to respond.

As far as I know, HUGE was right.
My res stunk. When i pulled the buckets up, there was stagnant water (as usual) and the roots were still white, but just starting to get slimy.

I first set all the plants on particle boards, and sat them on bricks, to get the height of the bucket much higher than the control bucket.

I then drained the system, and filled it with just ph'd water, ran it briefly and drained again.
I did this 5+ times, and then filled with small amount of H202 and repeated the process.

Finally I ran the system twice with water and a very light amount of regen a root.

I then filled with RO water and regular nutes and hoped for the best.

This was just about two weeks ago, and everything seems to be fine...no more smell, and i never noticed a serious affect on my ladies.

SO a HUGE thanks to HUGE....its people like him who give quick intelligent responses, that make this website such a useful tool.

 

[Sam the Caveman]

Thanks to you, the site now has one more finished thread. Thanks for coming back and reporting what happened. There are so many threads that are started only to never be reported on again. Thread started, a few comments, end of thread. This type of thing contributes almost nothing.

 

[Bgreenheadband]

You running an airstone in your res?

I was running one...but i forgot to add, that i replaced all of them, and added more to make sure there was as much oxygen as possible....I also keep my temps way down (but that was never a problem)..i never go over 70 (mostly 65 F at most )

 

[Bgreenheadband]

Thanks to you, the site now has one more finished thread. Thanks for coming back and reporting what happened. There are so many threads that are started only to never be reported on again. Thread started, a few comments, end of thread. This type of thing contributes almost nothing.

Thanks Sam......thats what its all about.....it took me a bit (mostly because I was dealing with the problem) but i knew i had to not only give thanks, but also an update of what happened.....

 

[HUGE]

Glad you got it handled. I took me 4 crops of trial and error to get that info. Glad I saved someone the pain.