Slime and bacteria

[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.