Week 2 of veg began with an almighty fight against the reddish-brown to black fungus that went wild in the RDWC. I started my vacation week on Friday evening and I needed it to handle this almighty mess I helped create. Bits of the fungus had been sticking themselves to the roots of my Tangies and it is tough to remove without breaking off root bits. I worked from Saturday through Monday flushing the netpots out, draining and refilling the whole system on Sunday and touch-up on Monday. No pictures were taken during all of this because my hands were always too wet to handle the phone plus this stuff is super
gross.
The genesis of all this was of course, my 50 year-old brain telling itself after the last harvest that I need to bleach out and thoroughly rinse the hydroton, then my brain checking the task off as if it were already done. I also started the Tangie seedlings in hydro too soon. The dirty hydroton was just beginning to cause trouble in here when I inadvertently made it much worse by trying top feeding the more runted seedlings. Besides the related flood, this also washed much more of the dead roots and stuff into the nute solution. So just days after the flood while getting less oxygen in the water until I got a good air pump working again, this fungus took over the system.
I think it was Friday night I discovered the roots were coated and rinsed off what I could and removed what crap I could from the water pump's filter media. Saturday was spent washing out the net pots and cleaning roots again along with all the other underground farm chores.
Sunday morning roots were again coated so I went "nuculur". I drained the whole thing and refilled three or four times and washed out the net pots yet again. I then left the system just full enough to not touch the roots of the smaller plants, removed the big one to a bucket outside and added a half bottle of peroxide to the RDWC and let it circulate for a half hour. I put all back together and added nutes again and left it until Monday morning.
Monday morning, the plants looked good but still had to have their roots washed. It seems the peroxide killed off all the fungus which eventually came loose from where it was anchored and got everywhere in the system. Even the irrigation lines were clogged with the crap! I spent a good long while with a kitchen strainer removing the (hopefully) last bits of it from the setup before retiring for the day.
Today I took pictures of how they are doing. They rewarded my efforts by acting like healthy plants - one even shot up a couple of inches overnight. The two runts are in a seedling tray with some rooting enhancer to try and revive them. If they can't make it, then OK, I can do this with five Tangies if I must.
Murcott as of this morning. The right front one in hydro is the one that shot up overnight.
Damn sideways shot. These are the two runts trying to rebound.
Here's their neighbors in the tent dubbed "Autozone". Tangies are under the humidity dome. Two extra Blueberry seedlings from Deuxberry are in solo cups. At back from left to right are a Seedsman Northern Lights auto, a Seedsman CBDV 1:1 auto, and a Sweet Seeds Dark Devil auto. The Dark Devil is attempt number three which is why it is so far behind the others.
For extra shits and giggles, this is inside the new 4x4 tent I bought to flower out stuff in coco. The stuff in Autozone now should be here in a few weeks. Then I can start seeds in the Autozone tent for Super Lemon Haze or Lavender and other fems that have been waiting their turn. I have four Purple Haze clones a week or so from chop and a Seedsman Pink Kush CBD auto in the center. I like the way she put on the purpling without cold temps. The PHs are the first ones I've grown out in coco with LST via bamboo sticks and soft garden wire plus a local product called Cannabenders which are strapped to the stems when they are very young to flatten out the profile and trigger the branches to make more and bigger buds. PH is always a nice producer but this is going to be massive.
