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HYDRO Ever tangle with a pathogen in hydro you just can't shake?

UndergroundFarmer , Colors of pix can be altered when posted, but that looks like iron bacteria to me. Do you have a drilled well for water? Iron bacteria are not harmful to humans, just gum up stuff. They feed on the iron from the well casing. I flush the water system with bleach every 5 years of so and it goes away. Maybe change your water source or boil or sanitize it before you use it?
 
I think we still have grapefruit seed extract from a trip to Colorado when my stepdaughter had the trots. I will grill my wife on its location when she gets home. And yes, I've been massaging as much of that junk off the roots as will come off. And now for another peroxide treatment!
 
Friday update: All six Tangies in hydro are doing OK and still reaching for the grow lights. I scooped far less crap out of the system today before adding another dose of peroxide. We are looking for our bottle of GSE and I will probably use it every water change for a while. The red-brown algae may all be dead by now. I've noticed new white roots shooting out from most of the pots too. Thanks to alltatup for the help. I read through the whole thread and yes, that sounds exactly like what I've been battling.
 
I'm still removing bits but it's getting there! I've been using the peroxide every day and the fresh roots keep sprouting. The airstones aren't getting coated again after I scoured them off either.
 
I dosed with grapefruit seed extract and no peroxide yesterday. Whatever is attacking exploded overnight. I will be moving the Tangies to coco at the next opportunity. I can't expect them to hang on and thrive any other way. I will put away the hydro setup until much cooler weather then sanitize the hell out of it before trying again.
 
Been following along, makes me nervous. I'm fixing to start my second grow in hydro. Did a leak test last weekend after wiping everything down with bleach water. Think I'll mix another batch of bleach and cycle through both systems several times before I plant. I don't want any of that shit!
 
A few observations: the crap is always at its minimum at the end of the week just before water change and feeding. The day after feeding is the day when I always discover that the roots in water are slimed over again even with peroxide treatment. Either the nutrients are contaminated (not likely) or the water supply is. I'm going to suspend growing in hydro until cold weather sets in and then try again. It's always good to try out other methods - if I hadn't needed to park mothers in coco a few years ago to slow their growth, I would not have any techniques to fall back on. Luckily, it seems I just can't lose in coco nowadays.
 
Ultimately a chiller is going to help with your problems, 62 to 65f is a great target for water temperature in a Rez but out of curiosity what Nute line do you run and do you check your PPM's?
 
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I'm using Aurora Soul (a hydro version of Buddha Grow). It's been getting a little hard to find lately. I use a Wiztech pH/TDS/Temp meter that has outlived my cheapo pH pens by a factor of 4. Water temps are usually between 70-72F. I've grown in every season before without a chiller or ice packs in the reservoir and never had these issues. I try to stick to the graphic showing target EC for each week of veg and bloom and rarely take it over 1.6 unless I've got large plants. I'm suspecting the water supply is introducing fresh infusions of algae and bacteria lately.
 
As of a half-hour ago, all Tangies are in coco. I expect five of six to recover. The five I have confidence in all sprouted fresh roots from the bottoms of their stems and spread throughout the hydroton laterally. The other one only has a stub of a taproot and pulled straight out of the rooter plug. I expect the survivors will all rebound as the Blueberries did.
 
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