DWC and pythium

[TacticGuy]

Hey guys
Been experimenting for a while with DWC, and only 1 out of 3 grows have been pythium/root rot free, or atleast it hasn't stunted the grow.

So i read a lot about it, and people either say go sterile or beneficial microbes, so ive tried both, still the same issues, only thing i can find thats left to try, is using a chiller, but i really want to avoid it, due to price etc.
And i dont really want to go any other route than dwc, cause its amazing, apart from the pythium ofc

So first dwc run, i used hydroguard to combat pythium, to no avail, 6 months down the drain.
Second time i used bleach ( calcium hypochlorite ), and it worked good, no signs of browning roots.
Third time i also used bleach, but this time i somehow got the pythium back

Ive tried cleaning the buckets, air stones and hoses, pumps etc. with both isopropanol, bleach and copper sulfate(dm zone), doesnt seem to help.

And im also a sanitary person, and have really tried all i can think of.

Any advice from you experienced growers, apart from a chiller ?
If nothing else works, i will ofc try a chiller, but i would save that for the VERY last solution.

Very much appreciated, cheers.

EDIT: water temps are 23-24c (73-75f).

[ViridisHC]

Hey guys
Been experimenting for a while with DWC, and only 1 out of 3 grows have been pythium/root rot free, or atleast it hasn't stunted the grow.

So i read a lot about it, and people either say go sterile or beneficial microbes, so ive tried both, still the same issues, only thing i can find thats left to try, is using a chiller, but i really want to avoid it, due to price etc.
And i dont really want to go any other route than dwc, cause its amazing, apart from the pythium ofc

So first dwc run, i used hydroguard to combat pythium, to no avail, 6 months down the drain.
Second time i used bleach ( calcium hypochlorite ), and it worked good, no signs of browning roots.
Third time i also used bleach, but this time i somehow got the pythium back

Ive tried cleaning the buckets, air stones and hoses, pumps etc. with both isopropanol, bleach and copper sulfate(dm zone), doesnt seem to help.

And im also a sanitary person, and have really tried all i can think of.

Any advice from you experienced growers, apart from a chiller ?
If nothing else works, i will ofc try a chiller, but i would save that for the VERY last solution.

Very much appreciated, cheers.

EDIT: water temps are 23-24c (73-75f).

How often do you change your reservoir and how big is it? 73-75F is a bit high but I've seen HydroGuard handle worse and maintain decent growth.

[TacticGuy]

How often do you change your reservoir and how big is it? 73-75F is a bit high but I've seen HydroGuard handle worse and maintain decent growth.

Once every 7 days i do a complete water change, and i add a fairly strong dose of calcium hypochlorite (formula for solution below) when mixing nutrients, and adding back 8ml bleach solution every 3-4 days.

Reservoir is at 30L for 1 plant.
Also happened on another in a 15L reservoir.

Hydroguard did not do anything for me when i tried it my first attempt, so i tried DM zone also, didnt do anything either

What i experienced last time, was slight browning of roots, like brown slime, and ph starting to dip. Though ph stabilizes after a rez change and more aggressive dosing of bleach solution. But i would still love to get rid of that junk


Bleach formula:
7.4g(65% strength) calcium hypochlorite to 1L water. (stronger version of pool shock)
8ml solution to 30L water.
Not sure exact ppm, following another dudes formula.

Afaik white foam around the edges is a sign of microbial activity, right? or could it be due to a powerful airpump ?
I find it odd with such a strong bleach dose that the foam does not go away either.

Thanks for your time!

[ViridisHC]

How often do you change your reservoir and how big is it? 73-75F is a bit high but I've seen HydroGuard handle worse and maintain decent growth.

Once every 7 days i do a complete water change, and i add a fairly strong dose of calcium hypochlorite (formula for solution below) when mixing nutrients, and adding back 8ml bleach solution every 3-4 days.

Reservoir is at 30L for 1 plant.
Also happened on another in a 15L reservoir.

Hydroguard did not do anything for me when i tried it my first attempt, so i tried DM zone also, didnt do anything either

What i experienced last time, was slight browning of roots, like brown slime, and ph starting to dip. Though ph stabilizes after a rez change and more aggressive dosing of bleach solution. But i would still love to get rid of that junk


Bleach formula:
7.4g(65% strength) calcium hypochlorite to 1L water. (stronger version of pool shock)
8ml solution to 30L water.
Not sure exact ppm, following another dudes formula.

Afaik white foam around the edges is a sign of microbial activity, right? or could it be due to a powerful airpump ?
I find it odd with such a strong bleach dose that the foam does not go away either.

Thanks for your time!

Strange, the few times I have had root rot I have fixed the issue using HydroGuard. Admittedly at slightly higher doses than the bottle depending on the case. I wonder if it could have been a bad bottle that you got as it can expire and needs to be stored around room temperature. I have accidentally bought an expired bottle and had Amazon ship me one. It's practically as good as water at that point. I've never liked the idea of using an oxidizer like bleach/chlorine or hydrogen peroxide with plants at least directly in contact with them. Although people swear by its success as a prevention, I feel with plants that are sickly or have rot root that they won't always respond well.

Once a week is good practice for changing it. The biggest lesson I've had drilled into me in my 10+ years of doing hydroponics is cleanliness and sanitation are critical. I tend to get obsessive with my cleaning thanks to OCD but it makes a difference. Pathogens can spread very easily so it can be hard to say if you missed even a centimeter of some equipment that recontaminated everything. I would clean your whole grow area and not just hydroponic equipment if you have not yet.

For the foam, it could be either. Even some nutrients and additives can do that as well. Is there any common occurrence happening with the root rot like certain size or any changes in grow area versus the time you didn't have it?

[TacticGuy]

Strange, the few times I have had root rot I have fixed the issue using HydroGuard. Admittedly at slightly higher doses than the bottle depending on the case. I wonder if it could have been a bad bottle that you got as it can expire and needs to be stored around room temperature. I have accidentally bought an expired bottle and had Amazon ship me one. It's practically as good as water at that point. I've never liked the idea of using an oxidizer like bleach/chlorine or hydrogen peroxide with plants at least directly in contact with them. Although people swear by its success as a prevention, I feel with plants that are sickly or have rot root that they won't always respond well.

Once a week is good practice for changing it. The biggest lesson I've had drilled into me in my 10+ years of doing hydroponics is cleanliness and sanitation are critical. I tend to get obsessive with my cleaning thanks to OCD but it makes a difference. Pathogens can spread very easily so it can be hard to say if you missed even a centimeter of some equipment that recontaminated everything. I would clean your whole grow area and not just hydroponic equipment if you have not yet.

For the foam, it could be either. Even some nutrients and additives can do that as well. Is there any common occurrence happening with the root rot like certain size or any changes in grow area versus the time you didn't have it?

Hmm weird! The bottle i got was def not expired, but i cant speak to if it had gone bad in any other way

It occurs to me though, that if bleach doesn't kill/remove it, how would Hydroguard do a better job? apart from being organic ofc!

Yeah i only see good stuff about it as well, that's why this baffles my mind honestly!
And i frankly don't mind running it sterile with bleach, did not affect the taste or anything in my successful run, was actually great!
And where i live H2o2 is not available, due to some illegal stuff i wont even mention honestly.

10+ years, awesome, just the kinda experience i need!
Yeah once a week seems like the best for my personal health, as i don't really rely on pumps, and i carry\transfer water by hand, only a small personal grow.
Yeah sanitation and cleanliness makes sense, and i have tried my best, using isopropanol and bleach in a spray bottle(separately), to disinfect the tent, and floor, vacuuming 2-3 times a week, sterilizing equipment every grow with bleach and/or boiling. I am a firm believer in preventative measures, so i don't know what i could have done differently

Okey, im using a 60L/min pump on 4 air stone discs, so they agitate the solution quite alot.
For the nutes im using gh 3 part, though running only micro and bloom, lucas formula, with some additional cal-mag due to LED's.
Gh 3 part's micro definitely stains roots also, so sometimes it is hard to tell the difference in the early stages.
The only difference from my successful grow, and the last one, is that i changed water every 4th day, but honestly that's too much work, and should not be necessary as some people do only 2 rez changes whole cycle, 1 for veg and 1 before bloom, and just top up with 1\2 nutes as needed.
For common occurrences, i honestly can't say, i have not noticed anything in common, as it has happened both in veg/flower, clone/mature, high ppm/low ppm, sorry, cant assist there to my knowledge.

One thing that just occurred to me though, is the air stones, maybe a good boil and 24h soak in bleach isn't enough, as they are so porous ? and its been 3 or 4 runs since i bought them, maybe they are harboring pythium and other gunk still?
Also could it be that some strains are more\ less resistant to pythium? As its always been different strains.

[ViridisHC]

Strange, the few times I have had root rot I have fixed the issue using HydroGuard. Admittedly at slightly higher doses than the bottle depending on the case. I wonder if it could have been a bad bottle that you got as it can expire and needs to be stored around room temperature. I have accidentally bought an expired bottle and had Amazon ship me one. It's practically as good as water at that point. I've never liked the idea of using an oxidizer like bleach/chlorine or hydrogen peroxide with plants at least directly in contact with them. Although people swear by its success as a prevention, I feel with plants that are sickly or have rot root that they won't always respond well.

Once a week is good practice for changing it. The biggest lesson I've had drilled into me in my 10+ years of doing hydroponics is cleanliness and sanitation are critical. I tend to get obsessive with my cleaning thanks to OCD but it makes a difference. Pathogens can spread very easily so it can be hard to say if you missed even a centimeter of some equipment that recontaminated everything. I would clean your whole grow area and not just hydroponic equipment if you have not yet.

For the foam, it could be either. Even some nutrients and additives can do that as well. Is there any common occurrence happening with the root rot like certain size or any changes in grow area versus the time you didn't have it?

Hmm weird! The bottle i got was def not expired, but i cant speak to if it had gone bad in any other way

It occurs to me though, that if bleach doesn't kill/remove it, how would Hydroguard do a better job? apart from being organic ofc!

Yeah i only see good stuff about it as well, that's why this baffles my mind honestly!
And i frankly don't mind running it sterile with bleach, did not affect the taste or anything in my successful run, was actually great!
And where i live H2o2 is not available, due to some illegal stuff i wont even mention honestly.

10+ years, awesome, just the kinda experience i need!
Yeah once a week seems like the best for my personal health, as i don't really rely on pumps, and i carry\transfer water by hand, only a small personal grow.
Yeah sanitation and cleanliness makes sense, and i have tried my best, using isopropanol and bleach in a spray bottle(separately), to disinfect the tent, and floor, vacuuming 2-3 times a week, sterilizing equipment every grow with bleach and/or boiling. I am a firm believer in preventative measures, so i don't know what i could have done differently

Okey, im using a 60L/min pump on 4 air stone discs, so they agitate the solution quite alot.
For the nutes im using gh 3 part, though running only micro and bloom, lucas formula, with some additional cal-mag due to LED's.
Gh 3 part's micro definitely stains roots also, so sometimes it is hard to tell the difference in the early stages.
The only difference from my successful grow, and the last one, is that i changed water every 4th day, but honestly that's too much work, and should not be necessary as some people do only 2 rez changes whole cycle, 1 for veg and 1 before bloom, and just top up with 1\2 nutes as needed.
For common occurrences, i honestly can't say, i have not noticed anything in common, as it has happened both in veg/flower, clone/mature, high ppm/low ppm, sorry, cant assist there to my knowledge.

One thing that just occurred to me though, is the air stones, maybe a good boil and 24h soak in bleach isn't enough, as they are so porous ? and its been 3 or 4 runs since i bought them, maybe they are harboring pythium and other gunk still?
Also could it be that some strains are more\ less resistant to pythium? As its always been different strains.

Glad to try to help! It seems like you have a good routine so air stones might be retaining some but my usual way to clean them is similar. Other than what you explained, I do try to scrub them with an old brush and some light bleach and do a couple more rounds of sanitation by boiling or bleach.

Something I have had happen to me once is I believe that somehow Pythium or some kind of pathogen infected the bottle of Clonex I was using, I kept having issues with clones becoming sickly with no obvious explanation as I had cleaned the cloner I was using and sanitized all parts multiple times. Water temperature and humidity were good, etc. However, I finally noticed that the clones were fine a round when I delayed using Clonex from that bottle and it hit fairly instantly after using it. Tried a new bottle after cleaning again and the issue disappeared. So long story short, maybe even try a new bottle of nutes. All else fails new equipment too but that can be costly as well.

[TacticGuy]

Glad to try to help! It seems like you have a good routine so air stones might be retaining some but my usual way to clean them is similar. Other than what you explained, I do try to scrub them with an old brush and some light bleach and do a couple more rounds of sanitation by boiling or bleach.

Something I have had happen to me once is I believe that somehow Pythium or some kind of pathogen infected the bottle of Clonex I was using, I kept having issues with clones becoming sickly with no obvious explanation as I had cleaned the cloner I was using and sanitized all parts multiple times. Water temperature and humidity were good, etc. However, I finally noticed that the clones were fine a round when I delayed using Clonex from that bottle and it hit fairly instantly after using it. Tried a new bottle after cleaning again and the issue disappeared. So long story short, maybe even try a new bottle of nutes. All else fails new equipment too but that can be costly as well.

Thanks mate for your help!
I also scrubbed airstones between runs, using a new, freshly sterilized, dish-washing brush every time, sorry, i forgot to mention it, but i feel its important to physically remove particles from the airstones, as well as chemically sterilizing them and boiling them.
I ordered new airstones last night after our conversation, and will sterilize and clean my system thoroughly, and try them out.

I have not used clonex myself, i have some clone gel, but it is never touching anything other than a fresh rockwool cube, and its also not a common thread in the whole mess, because i have only used it that last run! But thats good advice though. I have also heard you can transfer pythium through clones as a disease, if the motherplant already was affected.
BUT, i have been using superthrive every run, which i now have thrown into the bin, which is the only part of my nute regimen that has been there from the start. Main nutes etc. have been new from every run, which very well could be the culprit, as its organic afaik, and i run a sterile system *facepalm*

I will try again with the advice you have given, and skip superthrive, and try the fresh airstones, if it does not work, im at a loss lol..

Pythium must be the number one issue, and really the only real issue in hydro imo so far!

Will update this thread if its solved after this.

Thanks a lot mate, very much appreciated! <3

[Deece]

Bro, that sounds brutal.
I am just finishing up my first rdwc grow (3rd grow overall) and by your standards my process was lazy and unsanitary. I replaced reservoir every 4-6 weeks with tap water, and used no bleach or h2o2 of any kind. And it's going really well. It does have a slight pond smell which can only mean there is some biological growth but the roots are healthy and the plant isn't showing any signs of getting stressed out.
Is it possible to over-sterilize? Like, maybe you're killing off any chances of other microorgs able to fight off pythium?
Other question, what is your water source?

[TacticGuy]

Bro, that sounds brutal.
I am just finishing up my first rdwc grow (3rd grow overall) and by your standards my process was lazy and unsanitary. I replaced reservoir every 4-6 weeks with tap water, and used no bleach or h2o2 of any kind. And it's going really well. It does have a slight pond smell which can only mean there is some biological growth but the roots are healthy and the plant isn't showing any signs of getting stressed out.
Is it possible to over-sterilize? Like, maybe you're killing off any chances of other microorgs able to fight off pythium?
Other question, what is your water source?

Heh, yep it is!
It's a learning curve to find a good balance of things for sure!

Oh wow, guess you were lucky then ? no preventatives at all, even beneficial bacteria ?
Very happy its going good for you, a little jealous though

Really doubt its possible to over-sterilize unless you run such strong doses that it kills the plant itself, which i have not done for sure, if anything, i have under-sterilized, but great question!
The point to sterile hydro, is to keep both good and bad microbes away, hence why hydroguard and other bennies would not work in a sterile system, unless you cycle it, like 1 week sterile, and 1+ week with bennies etc.

My water source is tap water, but before you go on the RO rant, my tap water is really clean, 30ppm out of the tap, no smells, tastes great(most of us drink tap water), all i can say its EU water, as i want my location to be anonymous, at least try to keep it that way.
I also have an RO system, but i have not hooked it up, as its imperial threads, and would mean i would need adapters etc.

Cheers!

[Deece]

No problem. I'm not in the RO camp. I also have great quality surface tap water from a lake. It's 80ppm and I still consider it quite pure. Water treatment is good with very low residual chlorine / chloramine levels.

If you are loosing whole crops, a chiller seems like a reasonable expense.