Best cure for root rot in DWC? Besides Hydroguard?

[berrypilot]

I grow DWC and in my hydro grows I've been able to mostly beat root rot, but I sometimes still struggle with certain plants even with Hydroguard

• Hydroguard - of all the things this has worked best, and I use it always, but I sometimes still get a little root rot if it's hot - it's enough to get me to harvest every time though
• Great White - didn't seem to have any effect for me, except it drained my pockets of money
• H2O2 / Hydrogen Peroxide - didn't work for me at all, in fact made it worse. The roots looked white right away, so I thought it was working, but the root rot came back worse than ever the next day. This is the only time I LOST my plants to root rot, so I'm still bitter
• Not moving plants when they're young and topping off instead of reservoir changes for first 4 weeks - From the website Nebula wrote once that she found young plants often get root rot if you move them around, and said to start seedlings in their final container and only top off with nutrient water for the first 4 weeks instead of replacing the water fully. That's also helped, but sometimes they still get root rot if it gets hot even if they're undisturbed
• Making sure seedlings don't get super wet when they're young - I feel like if the rockwool is really wet the seedlings just sort of get mushy and die
• Water chiller - this is the one and it just didn't seem to help for some reason. My friend let me borrow it for a week and I may have needed to just do it longer but it didn't seem to help at all. Plus it made my electricity bill higher. It uses almost the same watts as my 600W grow light (it uses 550W)! I'd rather use an AC if keeping temps down is the route I'm going to take
• I realize I need to fix the heat (it gets up to 80 degrees), but I'm just wondering if there's anything else I can do to stop root rot, too

I have a friend (online friend) in Australia 🐨 whose plants are dying for root rot and he asked what to do. He can't get Hydroguard down under, so I was wondering what works for you all besides Hydroguard? I was also hoping I might also find something to help for the times I do still get root rot too 🤒

Do you think that the water source makes a difference? Like, does root rot grow better in some water compared to others? Would I be more or less likely to get root rot if I used filtered water? Or is there another product/tool to use? 🌊

[POKEDSMOT]

Hydroguard isn't a treatment but a preventative measure.

H202 at 3%-17% is good if you catch it early. And treat often. You have to be meticulous when using H2O2. It kills beneficial bacteria (Hydroguard ECT) can burn roots. If you choose this rout use food grade H2O2. And do research. Spot treating during the week IMO is better than running a H2O2 solution. (Should only be used by experienced growers there's alot of misinformation on how to use it)

Grapefruit Seed Extract 1 tsp per gallon. (Highly recommended)

Try to keep res temperature 68*-72*. I use a frozen 2 liter bottle. (My tent can get to 82* but res never gets above 74*) like pH I allow the reservoir temperature to "range". I add the ice bottle at lights out to mimic nature and since the roots require as much oxygen at this time it ok if the res temperature drops below 68*. I put it in the reservoir at lights out.

Check for light leaks.

IMO water source does make a difference. I tried tap water here and it was too hard. And since my tap water come from a river there are organics that are harmful to my DWC.

[berrypilot]

Hydroguard isn't a treatment but a preventative measure.

H202 at 3%-17% is good if you catch it early. And treat often. You have to be meticulous when using H2O2. It kills beneficial bacteria (Hydroguard ECT) can burn roots. If you choose this rout use food grade H2O2. And do research. Spot treating during the week IMO is better than running a H2O2 solution. (Should only be used by experienced growers there's alot of misinformation on how to use it)

Grapefruit Seed Extract 1 tsp per gallon. (Highly recommended)

Try to keep res temperature 68*-72*. I use a frozen 2 liter bottle. (My tent can get to 82* but res never gets above 74*) like pH I allow the reservoir temperature to "range". I add the ice bottle at lights out to mimic nature and since the roots require as much oxygen at this time it ok if the res temperature drops below 68*. I put it in the reservoir at lights out.

Check for light leaks.

IMO water source does make a difference. I tried tap water here and it was too hard. And since my tap water come from a river there are organics that are harmful to my DWC.

I don't know if you read my original post but actually the ONLY time my plants ever died from root rot was from using H202, so I'm very bitter. At the very least I know Hydroguard works better than that at curing root rot in my tank. Maybe your experience is different 🌊

I've never heard of grapefruit seed extract though. I'll see what I can find about it. 🌱

As far as the reservoir temperature, if you read my post you'll see I tried keeping the water temperature in the 60s with a water chiller for a week but it didn't work. It didn't do anything for the root rot, if anything the root rot may have gotten slightly worse. How long did you have to keep your water temp low before it actually started fixing the root rot?🌡️

[POKEDSMOT]

Yes I did read your post. Like I said H202 is best for experienced growers. But you can/should use it to disinfect everything but rinse it out really well (H2O2 will affect pH). If you really want I'll find the paper from the University of Massachusetts for the use of H2O2. It is really detailed and like said you have to be extremely meticulous using it.

GSE is your best bet. It's not the actual extract that does the most benefit but the preservatives that kill the infection. It is very user friendly.

I have no experience with sm90 but hear good things.

If your reservoir temperature is good. I wouldn't worry about lowering it. Anything 65* or below will reduce the amount of oxygen saturation in the reservoir solution and the plants ability to absorb oxygen.

Remember too it's not just water temp, it could be a light leak, or organics somehow got into the reservoir.

My current grow I had green Algae that turned to root rot. That was treated with H2O2. It took about 2 weeks to fix it. But it was a everyday thing. One day I'd treat the pot the next day the roots and so on.

I had a second infestation that I treated with GSE. Same amount of time but less work. 1 tsp per gallon with res change.

[berrypilot]

Has anyone heard of using SM-90 for root rot? I read that they say it won't kill "good" bacteria like what you find in Hydroguard and some growers say it will also kill root rot. 🌱

[alltatup]

berrypilot I had a very bad case of root rot on my last grow and it was GSE (powder I bought on Amazon, it's cheap) that did the trick. PLUS finding two light leaks into my reservoir that were feeding the algae.

H2O2 never worked for me, either. What I had to do at one point, when the roots were covered in brown slime, was to take them out of the reservoir and spray them down thoroughly in the kitchen sink. I moved the roots around with my fingers to get all the brown gunk off. Underneath were all my off white roots!! After I did that, I put in the GSE with my nutrients and splashed it up all over the roots daily.

But it was when I finally lay on my back on the floor and peaked up under the res. lid that I discovered the light leaks. After they were plugged up the problem has not returned.

Now I use Great White, which seems to work better for me than Hydroguard. Plus I innoculate the roots with Voodoo Juice and Tarantula, and I use Sensizym and Microbial Munch. On this grow, I've got roots like I never had before. Massive and off-white.

[Sammy]

The reason the cooler worked so good was the colder water holds lots more oxygen lots more oxygen when the water temperature rises above 72 you just about have to keep it boiling with bubbles to keep Air at the roots. The only way I found to cure root rot and it worked great yank the plan out stuck it in soil finish the plant other than that good luck let us know what works very interested.

[rwdyredhead]

Berry I'm fairly new to growing in dwc(bubbleponics) and have dealt with some root rot in every plant so far.

I had it in all 4 on my 1st grow and I currently have one new plant that also got it to spite using hydroguard, extreme light proofing, providing enough air bubbles to keep a dolphin alive, and keeping my rez temp around 62 to 68 at all times.

I have saved every one of my plants by using H2O2. POKEDSMOT is right as far as what my experience has been. There is a ton of info out there on using H2O2 & it's a headache to try & figure out what dosage is right but what I've done is treat the plants hard & it kills the root rot & is hard on the roots but they will immediately start to renew themselves & you will have new white roots everywhere in no time. I'm going thru this right now on the new plant I mentioned above & documenting it here http://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum/...d-auto-contest
I just updated it today with pics of my plant's roots after using H2O2 and SM 90.

As of now things are going well but you never know what could happen tomorrow since this is my first time using SM 90, but I have used the H202 successfully. In my opinion you just have to get the dosage right and I'm still working on perfecting that.

Here's a pic of the 1st plant I harvested from my 1st dwc grow just a few weeks back. It had root rot & I saved it using nothing but H202.

[rwdyredhead]

I'm also starting 2 seedlings in dwc tomorrow & am going to try using a circle top feed near the top of the hydroton to try & keep the net pots cooler vs the method of putting the water coming out against the bottom of the rooting cube. My root rot seems to start in the net pot & I'm hoping having the cool water flowing thru the hydroton will cool it down enough to prevent that & also deliver any root rot preventative used in the rez to all the roots in the top as well.

I'm going to be doing some experimenting using H202 in small amounts throughout the entire grow to try & prevent the problems before they start. I'm also interested in the grape seed extract as I remember someone else on here used it with success. I'll keep you posted on how it goes & what I learn as I go.

[POKEDSMOT]

OkThat's the key is dosage.
What I did was add 2 tbsp of 34% H2O2 to 5gal res. Spot treat pot (including rapid rooter)with 20 ml of 17% H2O2 applied with a bulb dropper. Spot treat roots with 20ml 17% H202.

Next day change reservoir. Soak airstones, airlines, pump, manifold, tub, lid, and any unused pots with 17% rinse thoroughly.

While doing this I soak the infected plant in a 17% H2O2 solution. I use a coffee can and the roots an all fit perfectly. And then carefully separate any clumping without damaging the roots.

Once everything is ready to go back together I rinse the plant thoroughly.

I run 5 gal res so I add 4 gal with Hydroguard at 5gal strength with a frozen water bottle for an hour and then add nutes.

The next day I spot treat the pot with 20ml of 17% H2O2.

The day after that I treat the roots with 17% H2O2 and separate clumps.

I repeat this every other day until next res change. Then do it all over again.

I also raised the reservoir level to 2-3" from the bottom of the pot.

With GSE I added 1 tsp per 5gal with each res change. It's alot simpler.

[rwdyredhead]

Great info Pokedsmot
Thanks for sharing your methods
I'm ordering some grape seed extract tomorrow
Root rot is the only thing keeping me from being in love with dwc at this point

[Burny]

I wouldn't leave the water in the reservoir for four weeks at a time. No matter what stage of growth the plant is at. That is asking for trouble.

[rwdyredhead]

So here's an update on my treatment of root rot with H202 followed by SM 90. It's been around 2 weeks since I treated roots with H202 and 7 days since I started her on SM 90.
The roots absolutely took off the very 1st night I added the SM 90 to the rez., and they haven't slowed down since. These are the whitest , healthiest roots I've had yet and the side branching is crazy. I have not had all that branching before, even with healthy new roots.
The few strands of light brown are the old roots that had root rot. The SM 90 even made them almost white again.

[alltatup]

Roots look great!!

[rwdyredhead]

I am actually amazed at how well the SM 90 works. It has great reviews but like everything else there are always a few folks saying it didn't work for them or made things worse??? Weird how people have different experiences with the same products but I can tell you without a doubt that I will have SM 90 in all my buckets from now on!

[Sonnyhad]

my what white roots you have there lady!

[rwdyredhead]

Here's a pic from 6 days ago that I took of the roots that grew the 1st night I used SM 90. I took the pic because it grew like 4 inches of roots(total) overnight. All that new "branchy" growth around the net pot happened in one night!! You can see the older sick roots & I never did cut them off...the SM 90 made them almost completely white again, they are still there in the new pic above they're just healthy again now. Amazing! I feel like this is going to make me a dwc grower for good!

[berrypilot]

🌱 Wow, that's really impressive! How are they doing now? 🌱

[rwdyredhead]

They are doing pretty good. Here's an updated pic of the roots. They've grown a lot with no issues up until last week when the pump for the top feed went out. My fault for using it to drain water & getting impatient & walking away before it's done. I've got that stoner short term memory loss going on & water pumps don't do well when you run them dry.

Anyways, I had to order one & the extra heat in the net pot caused some brownish roots. I actually just switched to a circle top feed near the top of the hydroton to help keep roots in net pot cool & treated with root rot preventative as opposed to just having the water line running to the bottom of the root plug. Also added connectors so I can disconnect it near the top & take the plant somewhere else if I want to.

So I replaced the pump a few days ago & used a strong dose of SM 90 and a light dose of H2O2. I won't use H2O2 full strength on a plant in full flower like that because of the root damage/recovery time. I'll keep the brownish roots to a minimum with a few spoon fulls of H2O2 added every four or five days. You can see pics of the whole plant on the auto mechanics contest thread. I just updated today.

[alltatup]

Rowdy, your roots look FANTASTIC!!!! I ordered some SM90 based on your information.

[berrypilot]

🌱 Your roots look incredible! Do you think it's the SM-90 that's doing this? 🌱

[rwdyredhead]

berrypilot I know it's the SM 90 causing all that crazy root growth. As for100% preventing root rot, I don't want to get too confident about that just yet. I'd rather use it a little while longer before I give it a glowing review lol but it is working well as of right now. I have other issues causing brown roots in the net pots, such as heat issues in my grow room and roots in the net pots that haven't been getting cool water and preventative on them. It can't work if it doesn't get on them.

I have mylar bubble wrap directly on top of the hydroton in the 6 inch pots(cut to fit) & that lets moisture build up under there & I get lots of root growth near the top of the net pots because of that, and those roots have been where my problems start, which is why I switched to the circle top feed. So I'm really just experimenting as I go & learning.

The SM 90 is for sure an incredible root stimulator tho. I'm about to start using it on my plants in coco too.

[berrypilot]

🌱 I just used SM-90 to kill fungus gnat on my outdoor plants. It's pretty crazy how effective some supplements are. It's so weird it doesn't say anything on the bottle because I've also used it as a foliar spray to get rid of White Powdery Mold! 🌱

[rwdyredhead]

From what I've heard it used to say on the bottle it was for root problems but they had to remove it because of some legal bs. I can't wait to see how it works in coco. I'm gonna try it actually in a few mins, before lights out.

[Sonnyhad]

Red, you are going to use SM-90 in Coco? never heard of that, that don't mean nothing, because I haven't heard of a lot of stuff that I don't know of! LOL