Brown growth on roots, not root rot. Help!

[Mistadobalina]

HYDROPONICS/Aero Ponics

What system are you running? DWC

What STRAIN are you growing? White Label Double Gum

What was the establishing technique? Seed

What is the age of your plants? 4 weeks veg

How tall are the plants? 3 ft

What PHASE are the plants in? veg

What Technique are you using? eventually Scrog

What substrate/medium are you using? grodan cubes in hydroton.

What is the Water temperature? 60-75(max)

What color are your roots? BROWN and the'yre NOT SLIMY. Brown only appears on roots that have touched the new RO water. I've had root rot before so i know what the signs of that are, and i can assure you its not rot. The roots aren't easy to break off, and the outer sheath doesn't shed.

What Nutrient's are you using? A/N Sensi 2 part. 700ppm, CalMg 400ppm,
VHO Foliar spray 2x a day, Sensizym enzym concentrate, 3 drops of Hormex

What is the TDS/EC/PPM you are using? 1100 ppm

What is the pH of the "Tank"? 5.64

Are you sure your calibration is correct on your equiptment? yes, calibrated
daily w/ fresh buffer solution

When was your last watering? Hydro. Switched out the water with Reverse osmosis water which is when the whole thing started.

When was your last feeding change? 1.5 days ago (when it all started)

How often do you clean your system: once a month at most.

What size bulb are you using? 4ft T5 flouro fixture

What is the distance to the canopy? .5 ft

What is your RH Factor(Relative Humidity)? unknown

What is the canopy temperature? 75-83

What is the Day/Night Temp? Day 75-83 Night 75-70

What is the current Air Flow? fan turns on w/ CO2 once every 45 min

Is the fan blowing directly at plants? no

Is your water HARD or SOFT? Reverse osmosis water

What water are you using? RO

Has plant been recently pruned, cloned off of or pinched? yes, i've been
topping it & super cropping to turn it into an even bush.

Have any pest chemicals been used? no

Are plant's infected with pest's? not that I know of, however something
seems to be colonizing on my roots.


Okay, as you can see I have something brown colonizing on the roots of my Doublegum plant. (i'll post pictures later today.) The plant seems to be doing perfectly fine, however this dark brown growth literally happened within roughly 12 hours from when I changed the nutrient solution from Tap water + nutes to RO water + nutes.

The cocktail that these plants are slurping hasn't changed beyond using Cal/Mg to balance RO water, instead of the Cal/Mg that comes in tap water.



What t h e h e l l ?!

Could this be beneficial bacteria? could it be algae?

The buckets aren't completely light proofed, I have mylar on the top of them, however the buckets are green. (i chose green because I know that plants can't use Green light to photosynthesize.) I can also say the buckets aren't getting a TON of light in them, in fact only light that is leaked through the thick green plastic.

The only thing I can even think it could be is:

a) algae now that chlorine isn't present in the water
b) beneficial bacteria? because the roots seem to be healthy, as well as the plant hasn't shown any sign of deficiency yet.

One last thing I should mention is that there's roughly 1 gal of solution at the bottom of the 5 gal bucket. The roots that have touched the new solution w/ RO water have the brown spots on them. The roots that haven't touched the solution are still white.

Hope this provides enough explaination for some type of speculation!

 

[KABBAGE]

are you using anything that would allow for beneficial bacteria? addind anything w/ microbes? Although plants don't use green light to photosynthsize, the roots sure as shit would be affected by any type of light, green or not.

 

[Mistadobalina]

GRRRRRRRRRRRR

"Your Post contains one or more URLs, please remove them before submitting your message again." Apparently I can't post the pictures that I just fucking uploaded to icmag. *le sigh*

okay, well i've uploaded pictures that you can see if you look in my profile.

 

[Mistadobalina]

are you using anything that would allow for beneficial bacteria? addind anything w/ microbes? Although plants don't use green light to photosynthsize, the roots sure as shit would be affected by any type of light, green or not.

Also, yes Sensizym does promote beneficial bacteria growth, though i'm not entirely sure if it has live microbials in the enzym.

 

[richyrich]

Those buckets are not light proof.

Sensizyme breaks down materials that feed bad organisms.

You do not have chlorine in the water to kill off bad organisms anymore.

If in a day or two it gets worse and the roots start to break easily and die then its brown algae.

If not it just may be sludge from the sensizyme doing its thing.

In a couple of days you will know.

 

[Mistadobalina]

Those buckets are not light proof.

Sensizyme breaks down materials that feed bad organisms.

You do not have chlorine in the water to kill off bad organisms anymore.

If in a day or two it gets worse and the roots start to break easily and die then its brown algae.

If not it just may be sludge from the sensizyme doing its thing.

In a couple of days you will know.

yikes, a couple of days i will know eh? Looks like i better take a bunch of cuttings now while i still can.

Will hydrogen peroxide kill off brown algae? because in all honesty, it looks like it very well could be brown algae. I had sensizym in the tap water for a while and never saw this.

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

yikes, a couple of days i will know eh? Looks like i better take a bunch of cuttings now while i still can.

Will hydrogen peroxide kill off brown algae? because in all honesty, it looks like it very well could be brown algae. I had sensizym in the tap water for a while and never saw this.

h2o2 is a bad solution, it works dont get me wrong but it kills everything and leaves the ~already vulnerable~ plant with no defence microbes.

brown roots is ok, dont FREAK out, just make sure you have enough airstone in ur water, looks for defs and limp leafs thats rot.

 

[MynameStitch]

Is the water line stopped at where the roots are brown and white?

Or is the entire root mass submerged in water?

Your better off keeping your temps below 70 F and getting around 3 tsp of h202 per gallon of water and dipping your plants roots in and out of the mixture for a few min to help kill off any strong bacteria growth, then clean out all your setup anything that came in contact with water, hot soapy water and use some 1 tsp per gallon of h202 and or some sm90.

If the water is submerged in the whole root mass, then yes you have root rot, it's hard to tell anymore; nutrients can tan the roots a rot color..... normally roots may or may not be slimy; but your roots will smell bad if it's root rot.

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

i cant help but think that h2o2 is a baddd idea, ive handed many plants to the enemy on a silver plater from h2o2. like death juice. they recover for the first day maybe 2 then after that the baddies get a hold of it again.


the water line was my other thought, it seams though, that hed be a few marbles short if that was the water line in the bucket.

 

[MynameStitch]

they recover for the first day maybe 2 then after that the baddies get a hold of it again.

That is very true, I always tell peeps it's a short term use, it's always important to have stuff on hand to rid of it, I think h202 is really only good for a dipping solution than keeping it in the res, cause like you said it does only last for so long and then it rot gets it and takes it down to the hades!! lol

 

[Mistadobalina]

Is the water line stopped at where the roots are brown and white?

Or is the entire root mass submerged in water?

Your better off keeping your temps below 70 F and getting around 3 tsp of h202 per gallon of water and dipping your plants roots in and out of the mixture for a few min to help kill off any strong bacteria growth, then clean out all your setup anything that came in contact with water, hot soapy water and use some 1 tsp per gallon of h202 and or some sm90.

If the water is submerged in the whole root mass, then yes you have root rot, it's hard to tell anymore; nutrients can tan the roots a rot color..... normally roots may or may not be slimy; but your roots will smell bad if it's root rot.

Interesting enough, it appears that the plant 3 days later is still thriving...

The brown stuff goes up to the water level, meaning there is only 1 gal of solution in a 5 gal bucket.

I'm beginning to think that it's dead root mass being broken down by the enzymes. The plant isn't drooping, no additional deficiencies, roots aren't slimy, transparent or smelly....

Hope i'm right! i just took a few cuttings of her just to make sure the genetics survive.

 

[MynameStitch]

Your supposed to have like 3 1/2 gallons or 4 gallons of water in that bucket, you want to keep all the root mass wet, if they are not getting wet or moist you will see random problems happening on the plant.

 

[Mistadobalina]

Quick update, the roots are slowly turning back to white! and absolutely NO SIGNS OF ROT!

This is proof that sensizym fucking WORKS. my plant honestly looks more vigorous than it did before this brown shit showed up.

Enzymes + RO rule guys... but this makes me realize that enzymes without RO are pretty much rendered useless. I used a whole bottle of sensizym last grow and never saw anything like this, plus my plants weren't nearly as healthy.

The interesting fact is that last grow I was using tap water the whole time, so the enzymes must have been impeded by the chlorine.

 

[MynameStitch]

Who said it does not work? I have seen it do wonders for many growers, it helps the plant builds up immunity and helps protect itself from fungus and bacteria growth.

Still though you should still be keeping your buckets with more water than you got, this does increase the chances of roots dying or decaying from being dry.

 

[Mistadobalina]

hehe well i've seen a few people flame on here. I just got excited, meant nothing by it!

I filled the water level up to the line where the main rootmass is.

correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the ideal DWC water level is just enough to make the tap roots thicken by having them hunt for water? I've often viewed growing roots in the same manner as pruning. (maybe i'm way off on this) for example, if you don't prune a plant, it will grow very weak popcorn buds on the bottom of the plant with skinny branches holding the popcorn buds. The main cola which has the thickest stock gets the biggest. Similar to hundreds of skinny tap roots vs a few thick tap roots? See my thinking? I'm interested in starting a thread on training roots. Anyone in?

I noticed on my last grow that the plants with the thickest tap roots had the highest yield in a batch of clones all of the same phenotype.


p.s. the roots have turned white again, although there are brown particulates floating in the water. By the way, I never added H2O2 and just let the enzymes run their course.

Thanks a million stitch and digitalhippy for helping me not freak out about this.

 

[MynameStitch]

You have to keep the water level up high when the plant is small, when the plant gets bigger and the roots are over 5 in long you can keep it 2 to 3 in below where the net pot is, that roots for water works in soil only, cause in hydro; it don't work cause there is water everywhere.

Pruning is almost nessasary when you grow indoors, yes you need to trim popcorn sized buds branches ( lower branches) if you want better yeilds.

well like I said h202 is only a last course ttpe of thing until you get a fix for it, something to try to halt it temparary.

Good thing they turned white again for ya

that is why its not good to use h202 when you have enzymes in your setup, this is because it will kill them like digital has said, and then you kill off your protection barrier.

So this is why I only tell people to use h202 when they are not using enzymes.