Slime and bacteria

[TestPilot]

Referring to this thread: http://boards.cannabis.com/hydroponics/82722-troubling-issue-finally-resolved.html

I'm getting this in my res and on the bottoms of my NFT tubes. Causes the pH to rise to 6.2+ overnight and TDS rises almost 50ppm per day.

I added hygrozyme and hydroguard and one of the two managed to clear up the res in 48 hours, but the pH still crept up and took more and more ph down to adjust. Some of them are showing the effects of the pH swings.

I was using GH Flora, Calmag, LK, hygrozyme and hydroguard. I guess I'll try cutting out the LK on a res change tomorrow.

[TestPilot]

Since I'm cutting out the LK, I suppose I'll run H2O2 for the first few days of this res to try and clean things out.

What's the proper dose of H2O2 (30%) to use per gallon and how long will it take to dissipate to the point where I can re-add hygrozyme and hydroguard? I really want to keep at least one of them in there since it seems to be keeping this stuff at bay.

I have plenty of 3% on hand...I can just x10 the 30% amount.

[xcrispi]

L/K is prob the cause of said slime as it's organic .
As far as ph flux. in hydro = get used to it , I been at this for years and my res. still rises everyday . I use 3% h202 - a cpl. tsp. per gal. of res capicity to clean things up when neded . No clues when you can go bk. to the hyfrogard / hygrozyme - thats a product Weedhound uses . Maybe she'll pop up n answer this1 for you .
Peace
Crispi :jointsmile:

[Earthy Dank]

Its scary to find that slime shit... One time overnight, one of my mothers got attacked by somekind of slime thing.. It looked just like a jellyfish tangled in the roots... It was disturbing..

[TestPilot]

xcrispi,

I'm used to small pH drifts, but the bacteria is causing these large swings from low 5's to high 6's in 8 hours. It seems to buffer it around 6.3-6.5. I'm debating on whether to go back to hydroguard and hygrozyme, or trying H2O2.

Earthy Dank,

Were you able to fix it? I've already bleached everything once, but I put the LK back in the mix not thinking about it being organic bacteria food. I did use LK in an ez-cloner with no problems, maybe the water temp has something to do with it. The cloner is stable at 79F, the NFT res is 69F.

I'm going to bleach it all again today and try to clean the roots off. Luckily, I think I caught it early since there is hardly any "slime" on the roots since the last bleach. The old roots still have a tan color, but new growth is bright white. One thing I didn't do was wash the roots and hydroton...only wiped the visible slime off. I will try dipping in chlorinated tap water with some H2O2 for a few seconds to clean them before putting them back in the trays.

Supposedly, Physan 20 will solve this problem but it's harsh. It's also not supposed to be run through any type of irrigation system...not really sure why.

pH was 5.9 this morning, was 5.5 when I left it last night after a change. Adjusted down to 5.6.

[TestPilot]

Ok. This is really bugging me now. I'd like to post some pictures...can anyone tell me how to strip all identifying data (camera serial #, date, etc..) from a digital picture? Is there software which will rewrite those sections of a jpeg file?

ETA: I found jhead (Exif Jpeg header and thumbnail manipulator program (http://www.sentex.ca/~mwandel/jhead/)) may be useful for removing exif metadata.

[bongerstonerd00d]

Whats rez temp ?




b0nger

[Earthy Dank]

xcrispi,

I'm used to small pH drifts, but the bacteria is causing these large swings from low 5's to high 6's in 8 hours. It seems to buffer it around 6.3-6.5. I'm debating on whether to go back to hydroguard and hygrozyme, or trying H2O2.

Earthy Dank,

Were you able to fix it? I've already bleached everything once, but I put the LK back in the mix not thinking about it being organic bacteria food. I did use LK in an ez-cloner with no problems, maybe the water temp has something to do with it. The cloner is stable at 79F, the NFT res is 69F.

I'm going to bleach it all again today and try to clean the roots off. Luckily, I think I caught it early since there is hardly any "slime" on the roots since the last bleach. The old roots still have a tan color, but new growth is bright white. One thing I didn't do was wash the roots and hydroton...only wiped the visible slime off. I will try dipping in chlorinated tap water with some H2O2 for a few seconds to clean them before putting them back in the trays.

Supposedly, Physan 20 will solve this problem but it's harsh. It's also not supposed to be run through any type of irrigation system...not really sure why.

pH was 5.9 this morning, was 5.5 when I left it last night after a change. Adjusted down to 5.6.

Yeah I fixed it. I took it outside and sprayed it all out of the roots... It stunted it quite a bit but I had just takin clones so it was ok. It took a week to return to normal... I still am not sure what the hell it was... looked like snot.. really did scare me:(

[bongerstonerd00d]

Yeah I fixed it. I took it outside and sprayed it all out of the roots... It stunted it quite a bit but I had just takin clones so it was ok. It took a week to return to normal... I still am not sure what the hell it was... looked like snot.. really did scare me:(


Looks like snot, smells like shit. Root rot. pH too high, rez temp too high both cause it. So can lights shining on roots. Always keep lights off roots, cover pots.




b0nger

[Earthy Dank]

Looks like snot, smells like shit. Root rot. pH too high, rez temp too high both cause it. So can lights shining on roots. Always keep lights off roots, cover pots.




b0nger

It was covered... and isn't root rot typically brown? It happened really fast, like overnight, and i came in and it was wilted. I don't think it was root rot. If any thing it might have something to do with a tiny bit of powered rooting hormones got in the res. It was what was laft after taking clones and i figured it won't hurt it was like... a dime-sized amount. But apparently something went wrong.

[rhizome]

Sounds like a psuedomona sp. Ya might wanna toss your LK or anything else that's got much carbon in it, if this is something that keeps happening. Psuedo colonies are usually pretty sensitive to disturbance, so I suspect you might be re-introducing from concentrate stock.

Psuedos are Gram-negative, and therefore kind of a pain in the ass to eliminate w/o root damage. However, they usually aren't that competitive in most enviornments ( Thank God, cuz otherwise there wouldn't be anything else) .

You could try a couple of things to control- Bump any one enviornmental condition a little bit ie run the res a little cooler/warmer, or pH .2 higher/lower, or ec up/down- differant bacterial populations will be most competitive under differant conditions.
An enzyme product will help ( hygrozyme, sensizyme,cannazyme etc) by lysing the cellular wall of Gram+ bacteria.

Clean the rig well between crops using a sanitizer ( H2O2 works well and is cheap enough, as well as requiring no rinse- just let it all air dry).

Ya don't run Physan thru irrigation systems because large farm systems almost always run to waste, and Physan will kill ALL the bacteria exposed to it- rendering farmland incapable of supporting crops, killing rivers, that kind of thing...

Hope this helps.

Using a subtillus inoculate will usually prevent serious slimecoat issues ( voodoo juice, subculture, etc) as both psuedomonas and subtillus are surface colonizers, and the subtillus inoculates will crowd out the psuedomonas.

[TestPilot]

rhizome,

Thank you. That's some of the best info I've been given . I've been playing with some different things. The res temp is 68-70F. I can't really get it any lower even with the chiller, but I'm hoping the coming cooler weather will help. I was originally running 5.8pH, I've lowered as far as 5.5 but right now I'm at 5.6. I did have a 48 hour period where the res started to clearup a little bit when I was adjusting to 5.6, but I can't attribute that to any one thing since I was trying multiple things (protekt, extra hygrozyme and hydroguard, H2O2) at one time.

I almost wish I had saved a sample. Anything in particular that would rule out cyanobacteria?

I also did some reading on wikipedia. Pseudomonas aeruginosa seems possible. Apparently it shows up in hot tubs, caused by lack of attention to water quality. The crap I'm seeing on the bottoms of the tubes reminds me a lot of scum on the bottom of a hot tub. Pseudomonas syringae has at least one cannabis specific pathovar.

I wish I had a black light and microscope.

Most recently I:

- Removed every plant from the system, dunked/rinsed in tap + H2O2 (hoping the combination of chlorine and perox would kill anything off the roots and rocks)
- Scrubbed and rinsed everything. Bleached everything bleachable.
- dunked and rinsed in same solution when returning to trays
- Switched to simple GH 3part, calmag and hydroguard. No more LK. I'm kinda scared of hygrozyme right now since people have associated it with this slime. I guess I can give it a try again.
- Added an extra pump

From what you mentioned about competition between subtillus and pseudomonas, it almost makes me think the zyme was breaking down the dead crap clouding the res while the hydroguard innoc took time to become competetive with whatver pathogen/s were present. After 2 days, the "dead bodies" slowed and the res began to clear.

[rhizome]

r

I almost wish I had saved a sample. Anything in particular that would rule out cyanobacteria?



Cyanos have a pretty distinct blue-green coloration. You didn't mention one, so I assumed you had a relatively clear slime-coat.

[TestPilot]

It's actually a black/brown slime that shows up on the roots, and a brown fuzz on the bottoms of the NFT tubes.

[Earthy Dank]

It's actually a black/brown slime that shows up on the roots, and a brown fuzz on the bottoms of the NFT tubes.
That sounds like root rot or light exposure... Hygrozyme should help that it is suppose to clean your res. And a couple capfuls of h2o2 won't hurt either.

[TestPilot]

Red-brown cyanobacteria would make sense also.

I doubt it's root rot since I can usually wipe the black slime right off and find nice white roots underneath. I assume the slime is a biproduct of the bacteria.

10 hours after the changeout last night, pH is still 5.6-7 and the water is clear.