Strange Slime buildup on roots

[00420]

Thats very interesting. But how much ppm is excess nutrients? How much is optimal?

lucas formula starting to ring a bell? n-p-k? less is more
if you read the next line

Eliminating silicates can control diatoms.

2 ppm of silicates, much lower if diatoms are a problem

eliminating phosphates will also control it but this could be bad if the plant dont get the p04 it need's hints my next quote

Controlling nutrients can effectively prevent this algae type from blooming.

again i hear a bell ringing

with this being said it's not nute's as you may look at it.
we as hydro plant grower's look at "PPM or EC" as TDS of the water. (ppm750) and rely on GH, PBP ,AN ect to have the n-p-k right ( witch is not tru) or we would all use the same brand at the same mixes.
in reeftanks it's looked at as "ppm or ec" of each chemical or nutrient in the water (no3,no4,po4,nh3-n,mg,ca, ect.)
no3 = 300 ppm
no4 = 100 ppm
p04 = 25 ppm
mg = 300 ppm
ca = 420 ppm
^just exampels this is why the lucas formula works so well he did his home work for most of us.... not saying that this wont happen if lucas formula is used, just trying to compare your ? to water chemistry.
you think a ph pin and a tds meter is spendy look up some of the gear sold for reefing Controllers & Monitors theres a monitor for each chemical .... http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_AquariumPage~PageAlias~controllers_american_marine_pinpoint.html
and this page dont have half the stuff used in reef tanks
saltwater reeftanks take hydro to a whole new level in a aspect you think hydro is hard..... set up a reef tank iv had one for about 3 yrs now
"nutrients" in a fishtank are very bad and will kill off your 10 $100 fish in no time

this is one way to get rid of the diatoms, ferric oxide hydroxide filter media it absorbs phosphates silicates and dissolved organics {fish poo or dead roots) Does not leach absorbed substances and does not affect water pH.

the key is to feed the plant the po4 & silicates it needs to grow but not have left overs for the diatoms to bloom....

 

[Hu$tle Tree$]

HELP!!!

HELP!!!

Need some advice guys,

I just lost my 3rd crop in another battle with this brown slime crap. I'm running a 3600 watt bio bucket setup with 24 buckets (check the sig for details on the setup). After finding this thread I thought all would be well this run. I first sanitized the system wth a heavy dose of Physan 20, then I added airstones to each bucket just to make sure I had enough oxygen. After adding the clones I used microbe lift pl and ensure for the beneficial bacteria. Everything was looking great through veg, roots were healthy and growth was excellent. Then I made the mistake of adding some liquid karma and root roids (carbs) to the mix.....BIG MISTAKE!! Within one week all of my previously healthy roots were looking tan and limp....I flushed the res and added physan again but it was too late.....one by one my plants went limp and fell over.

So I'm now back to square one. Im wondering if I should:

A: continue with my bio buckets after replacing all of the drain lines and lava rock, giving the buckets a serious cleaning, lightproofing everything and adding a UV sterilizer to the reservoir

Or

B: should I just scrap the system all together and convert to something a bit more forgiving like multiflow buckets. Ideally I'd run 4x4 tables but I like to keep my total plant numbers under 50 (including clones and moms)

I've investing quite a bit of $$$ on this system already and really do want to see it succeed but I'm not sure if this stuff is always gonna be around. I've got about 2 weeks before my clones are rooted so I've got to make a decision soon

 

[richyrich]

I haven't been here for a while but I previously posted a lot on this subject earlier. If you read trough all of my posts with pictures you will see all the hell I went through and I tried a lot of things over 2 years. Do you want to know what to do now. I have been bit by the hydro herpes as I call it and there is a 90% chance you will never get rid of the spores at your location. Here it is.

You need to go to feed to waste with a medium of your choice. This is what I do now and I have pearly white fuzzy roots. What a change of pace for once. It was rough trying to figure out what the hell was happening but I did figure it out once I ran into this post. One person early on mentioned algae and I started to research heavily. I found most of the info in aquarium chat rooms. That is when I found that it was a brown algae and not the typical blue-green variety that needs light. Brown algae don't need no light. An arduous journey it was for me and now it is over finally.

You are infected with the hydro herp. I recommend no more recirculating resevoirs. Use at your risk. Go feed to waste and then the plants cannot infect each other.

 

[00420]

Hu$tle Tree$ do you use r/o? if so how new are your filters & how many stages? If the filter is not changed or replaced and cleaned, this breeds bacteria & algee's

if your going to run the buckets again id say give it a good cleaning and stick to a 100-100-200 n-p-k feeding no additives other then a root cleaner. keep your ppm as low as you can to not harm the plants. id do 20% water changes everyweek if you dont allready dump n add new, when setting up my fishtank i had this stuff really bad untell i learn more about it the key is super clean water going into the system from the get and make sure all the spores in the system are all dead befor starting. 7 stage r/o is the only way to go..... i have a r/o that i dont even use any more i buy all my water from a glacier vending machine its run 2 uv lights and they keep dates of when there filters where changed.
i thought about the uv in the rez and yes i think it would work wonders it dose in reefing setup's the prob is there very spendy i allso think a proten skimmer is needed you should see the crap i get out of my tank that you could never see or think was even there 2 items used in aquarium use that hydro really never thought about...
im glad i steped into the saltwater thing i have learned so much more about water chem it is unbelevable. all take some pic's of what a proten skimmer is and dose along with some corol that i have and kept alive for 2yrs now try n think about keeping a plant alive for 2yrs in a hydro bucket

 

[Hu$tle Tree$]

After a bit of consideration I think I'm gonna try to stick it out with the Bio-System. If it doesn't work this time I'll definately switch to a run-to-waste with coco, but for now I've decided to resurect the system with a few changes.

I'm gonna bleach/physan all of the feed lines. I'm also gonna completly replace the pvc drain pipes. One of the flaws of the bio system is that there is plenty of ways for light to leak in the pvc drain pipes, on a couple of my plants the roots grew into the drain and were soon covered in slime. I found a great deal on a 36 watt uv sterilizer ($50 from craigslist) which I'll install in the recirculating res. I already have a 6 stage ro filter but I'll be sure to replace all of the membranes asap. I guess my goal for this next run is to have a completely sterile system, it knda flys in the face of running a bio-bucket setup but at this point I have no choice.

Thanks for the replies richy and 00420

 

[Dr. Buzz]

Hey everybody.

Well getting rid of the old nutes did make the problem not show up as fast as before, but sadly it is still there. I have a couple of questions.

1. I use a hanna ph/tds/temp meeter with a wand that is diped into the solution. Can this be somthing that could be introducing this into my res? If so, how can I safely sterilize my testing wand?
2. It looks like this stuff can live in the water supply? My water is EXPREMELY hard. I can get ppm readings of 400 in the water alone! Could this be a culprit?
3. Can the spores be in the carpet or paint in the walls?

Honostly I have never had this problem before last summer in the three years that I had sussessful gardens. Makes me want to give it up. Thanks for the help again guys. 00420, what is a protien skimmer?

 

[Hu$tle Tree$]

It looks like this stuff absolutely needs silicon to live. If your water is 400 ppms you probably have quite a bit of silicon in your water. I'd invest in an RO filter or buy filtered water if you can. I'm not sure whether or not the algae lives in tap water, but I would think there have got to be a few spores that make it through the filtration. I really doubt that the spores live in the carpet and walls i'm pretty sure the diatoms need water to live. All of the aquarium forums seem to suggest using ro water and keeping your silicates very low. I was in a similar situation as you Dr Buzz, I had about 2 yrs of successful harvests and all of a sudden this stuff pops up!!! Its seriously frustrating.....

Protein skimmers are a type of filter used on saltwater aquariums. They work by injecting millions of tiny air bubbles into a column of water. The tiny air bubbles attach themselves to any dissolved organic compounds in the water and the resulting sludge rises to a collection cup that you empty out every week or so. I would think a protein skimmer would work great if you're using chem nutes but if you're using any organics i have a feeling that the skimmer may interfere with with the nutrient balance.

 

[Dr. Buzz]

I agree Hu$tle. After my own reading I think that the cilica in the water is feeding the problem. This is also true about the feed level. Right now I have some seedlings rolling and although the rez is slightly cloudy, the soapy bubbles arn't there. I'm going to dilute my water with bottled water to see if the diatoms don't show up again. Thanks once more for the help.

 

[jiboia]

are there any other product that can substitute ZONE?? THere is no Zone in my hydro shop...

 

[Boxy Brown]

are there any other product that can substitute ZONE?? THere is no Zone in my hydro shop...

Physan 20 works but its not very safe around plants and only lasts for a few hours before biodegrading, zone seems to be a one of a kind product thats not only safe around plants but also lasts around two weeks in your res, if you cant find it locally then I highly suggest buying it online, this place has it cheap and they take money orders.

 

[jiboia]

So i could just use bleach instead of Physan 20?

What does Zone do actually?? It says it is a root conditioner....how does it actually work???

 

[Boxy Brown]

So i could just use bleach instead of Physan 20?

What does Zone do actually?? It says it is a root conditioner....how does it actually work???

No don't use bleach, Physan 20 is allot safer around plants than bleach but it still has some risk of causing problems like slowing growth due to stress, and how zone works is a mystery than no one but the makers know, but I can say for a fact that it dose work very very well at defeating brown algae.


thought Id add what the ingredients are of Physan 20 and ZONE are.

Physan 20

N-alky dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride.......10%
N-alky dimethyl ethylbenzyl ammonium chloride.......10%
INERT INGREDIENTS.......................................80%

DM ZONE
Potassium Nitrate, Ammonium Nitrate, Potassium Hydroxide, Copper Sulphate.

 

[richyrich]

I believe Zone is a derivative of chloramine. Something like that. Kinda works like the chlorine in tap water. Somewhere way back in the thread I think I posted it. It helps keep it at bay at best. Will still be there waiting to take a foot hold. Good luck all.

 

[Boxy Brown]

algae spores are unaffected by chlorine, well at least safe levels of chlorine which is why tap water contains the live spores, I myself haven't had an algae problem since I started adding Zone to my fresh water, right now my res still hasn't had an outbreak even though the Zone has long since dissipated, so if the spores are only in your tap and not your home then one dosing of Zone every res change will get rid of the problem, otherwise you'll need to add it every two weeks.

 

[Capn]

I was just hit with this problem for the first time.

Hit me in my 36g rubbermaid DWC. It didn't occur the first grow, and I did everything the same in the second grow except I added hygrozyme. Well after smelling the gym sock smell I checked the inside of my res and the walls looked like they were covered in snot. So now I'm working on getting some DM Zone to clear this up. Very peculiar this is.

Im awaiting my T-Shirt.

 

[madx]

a bit of news from europe. all the big dutch growers have had major slime problems. in fact so big that they had supply problems at the middle and end of 2007 due to the same slime problems as the rest of us, they finally found a solution that works, its a bacteria called "bacteria israelensis" and now they all use it as a cheap, safe and clean preventive i had almost won over the slime using physan20 but it returned after a few weeks. since ive been using bac.israel. or "Neudomück" as the end product is called here. i have had the best grow ever and finally got 0,95 grams per watt of light, ill keep u updated as the new harvest gets going

 

[icky420]

I'm not to sure if this is the same thing here or not, but it sure looks similar.




Details can be found HERE

 

[richyrich]

It is! You got bit by the hydro herpe. Do not introduce these clones into your flowering area unless you want big problems.

 

[Shlomo]

Quit using Hygrozyme and B-52, flushed with hydrogen peroxide and clean water, installed bubblers in reservoirs to maintain aeration between feedings. Problem solved (edit: thanks to this thread).

 

[jarff]

Good to see thread still gettin input.I,ve done two shows since the start of this thread and have eliminated Hygrozyme completely and I am doing good as compared to previous starts.I haven,t used any Zone yet but have eliminated most additives except for Kool Bloom at the last two weeks prior to chop and I always am able to breathe a sigh of relief when I weigh up the results of my hard work....There certainly has been a lot ofinfo come from this thread..Glad it came out before I went insane...lol
happy hobby...
jarff