Brown Snot Sludge

The title of this thread describes what I found in my res and sliming up my roots tonight. I have no idea what happened. Everything looked normal this morning, but I came home tonight and there were huge worms of brown snot like slime floating around in the bins were the roots are. I have noticed somewhat of a film on the bottom of the bins since, as some of you may know, my roots are constantly sitting in a 3/4" of water (bad, I know), but this was almost like a slimy worm or something; like a thick snot I could pick up with my hands.

I immediately took the lid of the bin containing the plants and placed it over a different bin while I took the entire system apart and cleaned all the tubing and bins while my partner scrubbed the pump, air stones, and heater. There was some snot stuff stuck on some of the roots, so I took the lids and hosed the roots down with cool water. Once I got all the crap off, the roots didn't appear to be discolored or damaged, so that is a plus. I then changed the res strictly to pHed water and Hydroguard only. The slime appears to be gone, for now....

My question is, what was this crap? I am guessing the culprit is bad nutes, as my nutes are organic and I got them second hand and there is no date on them. Anyone here ever had anything like this happen?

Anyone have any ideas?

Did my proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation scare everyone away? :)

No but your description of the problem sure did. :D You got me on that Deja.....no clue and afraid to even guess. You could certainly be right about the nutes I suppose.
What is hydrogard?

Never mind....I just looked it up. Did you happen to add that hydrogard and some H202 together?

I did actually. I always add the hydroguard when I change the res to keep algae from growing, and I added the H2O2 two or three days before I found the snot. Perhaps that is the cause? I went ahead and bought a new gallon of nutes just to be safe anyways.

Also, I recently started flowering and started using Liquid Karma and it turns my res black and leaves a black slime on some of the roots. Is this normal?

I'm wondering if it is.....the hydroguard is some sort of bacteria I believe that assists with the roots or soil? I've heard of that bacteria but cannot remember what for....perhaps a fungicide?

Anyway....I think your H202 blasted out your bacteria and that's what you found when you got back. Just a guess but I like it.....;)

Hydroguard is supposed to get rid of/protect against algae. I put it in every res change and haven't had any problems with it until then. It was also the first time I added full strength nutes.

Also, I've since switched to flowering nutes (Pure Blend Pro 2.5-2-5) at half strength along with the Hydroguard, Hygrozyme, SuperThrive and Liquid Karma. The LK turned my res black as soon as I put it in, and it seems to leave a gritty looking residue on my roots and it settles on the bottom of the bins and the res. Is this normal?

DJ - I've read about organic nutes sticking to roots and turning them brown.:wtf:

In the Outdoor section there is an Organics subsection. Maybe you should browse around in there and see if you can find some answers to your questions.

PC :smokin:

wow, thanks for the vote of confidence Pc, I really appreciate that.

Hydroguard Bio-Fungicide Is this what we are talking about?