DWC to sterile or not to sterile?

[smoorman]

Anybody try both sterile and a more "live" reservoir? Unless there is some reason not to it sure seems like sterile is the way to go. Any experience with both methods?

[Malkavian420]

well I guess it would depend on the water supply...
When starting a DWC I usually sterilise the 5 gallons of water by boiling (and I know that will de-oxygenate the water). Once cooled, then I pour it into the reservoir and inoculate with hydrogaurd. Any further top-ups and flush-refills, I only boil/cool the water during the first two or three weeks.
I do this because where I live, the water is fairly hard, so it has the trace minerals that the plants need, but unfortunately the municipal water supply is prone to algae blooms, usually a pink slimy algae, but in the summer we get blue/green algae blooms - and that can be nasty to the health of the plants.
During the first few weeks, even with Hydrogaurd, an algae bloom will settle and flourish in rock-wool/rooting-cubes & deprive the roots of oxygen.

I have been thinking about the viable of installing an UV aquarium filter and would kill even the Hydrogaurd, but I know that keeping the reservoir sterile is a challenge.

So essentially I do a hybrid method, sterillise the water added during the first couple of weeks and then inoculate the hell out of it with Hydrogaurd

[smoorman]

What is meant by sterile is the addition of 2-6drops of chlorine bleach per gallon per week. Kills the good and the bad bacteria, also kills fungus. Makes it sterile. Does not inhibit the uptake of non-organic nutes.

[DW2]

Howdy smoorman, I am on my tenth DWC grow, and as for sterile or un-sterile, the only experience with the un part, I call root rot! (LOL), I clean the reservoir, net pots, and water pump first with vinegar and then a 50/50 mix of chlorine bleach and water/ An over night soak in plain water finishes it off. During the grow I have been using i ml , gal of water of GH FloraShield as an inoculate along with keeping the light out and the water temperature below 70° F. I have tried a few of the 'root treatments', but did not get as good of a result from them as I do now.
Good luck with Your grow

[gbauto]

The only reason I'd consider running a sterile system would be if I couldn't keep the solution temps down.
I ran my RDWC system for 3 years without a chiller, attempting to mitigate root rot with bennies.
Always had signs of root distress, even using frozen jugs of water in an attempt to cool things down.
It's tough to keep the room warm enough to get the best growth, yet cool enough to keep your buckets from turning into soup.
So.....
To effectively run a dwc/rdwc system, it's either a chiller to keep temps out of the danger zone or run a sterile system.

[RagWeedDWC]

At ever start I sterilize all the equipment, totes, testers etc with a 30%vinger/RO water solution. I do not add bleach to the water but that sounds doable but I have been happy with just cleaning the equipment. I use R/O water and add cal-mag to the nutrients. Temps is the killer.

[RetiredGuy]

My first DWC grow I used Hydroguard. My reservoir temps ran 71-72 f for a three week period in the first part of the grow, but the roots stayed healthy. In hindsight, I should have bought a RDWC system with a chiller.