bs0
Active member
I grow in a couple different hydro styles, NFT and aero. I've fought the yuck now for years, bleaching everything between runs, taking everything apart, cleaning every little nook and cranny. I was even replacing my pumps between runs to try to ensure I could get it sterile. No matter what, the slime eventually came. I actually quit growing a couple years after a particularly bad attack. So I decided I was going to try something new.
The more I thought about it the more foolish I thought cleanliness is as a concept. There's no way to keep bacteria out, period. If it doesn't come in on the pump it will come in thru the air. If it doesn't come thru the air it will come thru your nutes. If that doesn't do it then you can still get hit with shit tap water. All in all you lose no matter what. The bacteria is coming.
So I tried an experiment a few crops back. And then I just kept doing it. What I decided to do was stop trying to be clean. I started off by rinsing off my gear to make sure there weren't loose particles and then just filled everything up with declor'd tap. I added standard doses of: Hydroguard, Mammoth P, Stress Zyme (aquarium) and did my typical pure blend pro nutes. That's it. I previously used hydroguard w/ my super clean setup but that wasn't always successful. Stress zyme is something that works great in my aquarium, and hydro is almost the exact same thing as running an aquarium. The mammoth P was to try to reach critical mass with the bacteria. The mammoth P is too damn expensive but think of it this way - once you get it colonized in your setup it shouldn't ever really go away. Same thing with the other two, you don't need to continually dose unless you dry everything out or accidentally chlorinate it. All these bacteria should be living in your pump filter media so water changes shouldn't be a problem either.
Since then when a crop finishes I empty the res, rinse things off, remove loose material, and just fire it back up. The theory I've got is that I needed to beat the slime to the punch and just populate my own bacteria biome... Once I got that going, so long as I keep my same pump filters and avoid hitting anything with chlorinated water I should be set. And so far so good, 4th crop in a row right now and the slime has stayed away. Room temps are consistently 82* w/ lights on and I've had nothing but good roots (knock on wood).
I bet there are other ways to do it, and I'm not totally convinced I'm not just lucky here. All I know for sure is that I'm going to keep doing it until it stops working. Not cleaning is way cooler than scrubbing the hell out of everything. I'd be interested if anyone else has gone the no clean route.
The more I thought about it the more foolish I thought cleanliness is as a concept. There's no way to keep bacteria out, period. If it doesn't come in on the pump it will come in thru the air. If it doesn't come thru the air it will come thru your nutes. If that doesn't do it then you can still get hit with shit tap water. All in all you lose no matter what. The bacteria is coming.
So I tried an experiment a few crops back. And then I just kept doing it. What I decided to do was stop trying to be clean. I started off by rinsing off my gear to make sure there weren't loose particles and then just filled everything up with declor'd tap. I added standard doses of: Hydroguard, Mammoth P, Stress Zyme (aquarium) and did my typical pure blend pro nutes. That's it. I previously used hydroguard w/ my super clean setup but that wasn't always successful. Stress zyme is something that works great in my aquarium, and hydro is almost the exact same thing as running an aquarium. The mammoth P was to try to reach critical mass with the bacteria. The mammoth P is too damn expensive but think of it this way - once you get it colonized in your setup it shouldn't ever really go away. Same thing with the other two, you don't need to continually dose unless you dry everything out or accidentally chlorinate it. All these bacteria should be living in your pump filter media so water changes shouldn't be a problem either.
Since then when a crop finishes I empty the res, rinse things off, remove loose material, and just fire it back up. The theory I've got is that I needed to beat the slime to the punch and just populate my own bacteria biome... Once I got that going, so long as I keep my same pump filters and avoid hitting anything with chlorinated water I should be set. And so far so good, 4th crop in a row right now and the slime has stayed away. Room temps are consistently 82* w/ lights on and I've had nothing but good roots (knock on wood).
I bet there are other ways to do it, and I'm not totally convinced I'm not just lucky here. All I know for sure is that I'm going to keep doing it until it stops working. Not cleaning is way cooler than scrubbing the hell out of everything. I'd be interested if anyone else has gone the no clean route.
