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Persistant root rot, bennificial bacteria not working


 
 
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Old 01-05-2017, 05:28 PM
chopficaro chopficaro is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 49
Default Persistant root rot, bennificial bacteria not working

I am very close to solving the last major problem in my grow, but it is one hell of a puzzle so please let me try to explain it the best I can and please help guys, your input has been incredibly helpful thus far. It seems I have been battling root rot for a long time now. It was much worse and more visible before, killing an entire crop in fogponics. Since then I have changed to NFT, added beneficial bacteria, and lowered res temps to exactly 67.6F. I have also shielded the reservoir with 3 layers of cardboard in addition to the lid so that no light can get at it at all but the lid is cut and the cardboard layers are stacked loosely enough for air to get at the reservoir. I don't think I need an air stone because the water is at optimum oxygen absorbing temperature and the 8 foot long, 4 inch wide NFT stream creates maximum water movement, providing plenty of moving area for oxygen to be absorbed through the surface. The roots in the water have been pearly white, but just today I noticed that the roots that are above the water are light brown. I didn't notice it because in NFT the roots don't dangle very far before they hit the water. This amount of light brown roots above the water is so small that they probably weigh less than a quarter of a gram, while the roots in the water probably weigh 7 grams. So my guess is that the roots above the water have a constant Pythium infection, but whenever the Pythium tries to invade below the water level, my beneficial bacteria gobble them up. But this might not be the case because my reservoir has patches of bubbly foam on the surface and the PH RISES BY MORE THAN 2 POINTS IN LESS THAN A DAY! This would seem to indicate a larger infection I would think, but as I said the roots below the water are pearly white! What a puzzle. Adding H2O2 to the reservoir would not help because if the beneficial bacteria in the stream cant reach the roots above the water, neither could the H2O2. I have just bathed the roots and changed the reservoir and the ph just rises uncontrollably within a day after changing. I will add more light shielding to the NFT channels themselves but I don't think this alone will be enough to solve the problem. Here are my numbers, please help guys:

all polyethylene NFT system no rockwool just neoprene collars
620ppm maxigro
26 gallon reservoir
67.6 water temp
5.4 ph rises to 6.7 in 12 hours
66% humidity
70F air temp
i keep adding shots of Hydroguard at about 8ml dose, 3 doses so far in this reservoir

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