help i got browny roots in hydro flood n drain is that bad??

cyberbud:

hard 2 say. This was my first run, nutes in res are brown like medium-dark tea. Plant roots got brown a couple months ago (I also couldn't tell for sure if from nutes or rot). The plants are still green and healthy, but resin production for the strains isn't nearly what it should be so I know the roots aren't as good as they should be........ but whatever it is hasn't killed them and it's been a lonnnng time.
I've read that once infected, the root rot just progresses, eventually kills the plant. So probably my brown wasn't (all?) root rot. I think the roots can be pretty unhealthy and still not be infected with Pythium (especially if you're running peroxide or microorganisms to keep it away).
If your nutes are brown it's pretty much useless to judge by the color. The best way I've found to tell the health of the roots is the smell. At the beginning, when my roots were the healthiest (and also white, before the staining), they had a sharp, slightly acrid, fresh-root smell. It's very similar to if you pull a carrot out of the ground and smell it (if it's grown in uncompacted soil), a bit bitter even.
Once you know that smell it's unmistakeable, and that's the best way to tell. When they start to get funky, they get a smell that's more like the carrot after it's cooked -- no sharp fresh smell anymore. As time went on, only a certain percentage of mine kept the good smell, but the color on all was pretty similar.
Be nice to find some nutes that are clear...........................I've never tried GH.