WHAT COLOR are your ROOTS in hydroton?

[Guest]

i recently cut a couple underachievers and they had reddish brown roots, and i was wondering, can anyone show me a pic of healthy white roots in hydroton? and if so how often do you flood?
im using gh lucas under 600 hps fyi

 

[PurplePotion]

When I ran my DWC buckets with hydroton, my roots were nearly pristine white minus the occasional stain from nutes.. never seen anything like that. Did you rinse your hydroton thoroughly before use? If not, it could be the dusty stuff coming off of the hydroton that's staining your roots that color. Unfortunately no pics sorry.

 

[babba]

how ofent do you tjenes you water
'sorry spelling '

 

[Anima]

heres a pic of my roots coming out of the bottom of a bucket full of hydroton:



Under 400w hps and a couple CFL's. Floods for 15 mins. every 4 hours.

 

[Guest]

been using the lucas formula but they were still like that when i changed every 2 weeks

 

[Anima]

What's your res temps like? I keep mine at 72 F.
Do you use any biocides, or beneficial bacteria additives?
I have been using hydroguard- it is a mix of bacillus subtilis, and bacillus amyloliquefaciens. (both spelled wrong on the bottle)
both are beneficial bacteria...
I also have an airstone and circulation pump to make sure the res stays well oxygenated.

 

[Sad247summer]

did You rinse/soak/rinse again the hydrotron?

 

[FreezerBoy]

How new are your nutes? I kept some GH FloraMicro for too long under bad conditions and it started to condensate/precipitate on the roots. After a moment of root rot panic, I got new nutes and voila! Clean as a whistle.

Below is the same plant, three weeks apart. Left side, old nutes; Right side, new nutes.

 

[Guest]

Hey freezerboy, I'm in a similar situation with GH flora. What nutes did you switch to? and was it just a nute switch that fixed the problem or did you do something else?

 

[FreezerBoy]

I stuck with GH (FloraMicro and FloraBloom, no green FloraGrow) just swapped old for new. Like a fool, I ordered both in matching quantities. I should've ordered half the Micro as it's the Micro that separates not the Bloom and I'm using Bloom at twice the rate of Micro.

The bottle says if you're falling out of solution (getting sediment/precipitate matter) mix Micro with an equal part of hot water and use "double" strength. That helped a great deal but didn't remove the problem completely. New nutes did.

Note the problem was caused by pilot error. I stored the nutes in the garage (cold in winter, hot in summer) and kept them too long (at least 5 years)

 

[Guest]

im switchin to floranova so hopefully thatll fix it

 

[Guest]

Some nutes will stain ur roots (specially organic stuff) ... bt roots are usually white if u use synthetic nutes and keep water clean.
I've limited experience with hyrdo how ever.

 

[smokerjoe70]

I had the same problem on the last round and I soaked and rinsed and soaked and rinsed both times with a splash of hydrogen peroxide 3% in a 5 gal bucket. Get a couple 5 gallon buckets big pasta strainer it helps!

 

[sunnyside]

all the pics I've seen were from dwc's or from the roots hanging down from netcups...Not pics of roots that are actually in and around the hydroton.

I've seen the same thing with dwc plants, where the roots hanging down were pearly white...but when I would break the plant down after harvest. The root mass in and around the rocks was yellowish like in pseudo's pic.

I'm doing a bed style flood n drain using hydroton right now...and the same thing...yellowish looking root system. But the roots that made their way down the drain tube and are in the reservoir...they are pearly white

 

[EZlistener]

they do stain roots if not rinsed properly but shouldn't pose any probs on nute uptake

my method of grow = ebb+flow in bed of hydroton(clay pebbles in UK)
flush with 1/4 strenth every 7-10 days, plants= healthy

 

[yamaha_1fan]

my roots have a reddish color to them from the hydroton

 

[sunnyside]

they do stain roots if not rinsed properly but shouldn't pose any probs on nute uptake

EZ...this is my third or fourth grow with the same re used rocks. Trust me, they are as clean as they are going to get. I still get stains. I think that the hydroton is constantly breaking down...

 

[EZlistener]

totally agree
i tek out rootball, shake em all down, get rid rootball
all hydroton placed in bathtub and rinsed thoroughly
put back in tray, top up with new rinsed hydroton
still i get bits of very fine particles in bottom of rez
must be hydroton movement when flooded + breakdown of hydroton
don't pose a problem as far as i know

i got filter on pump so its very fine, dust-like

 

[OldPathBluSky]

How new are your nutes? I kept some GH FloraMicro for too long under bad conditions and it started to condensate/precipitate on the roots. After a moment of root rot panic, I got new nutes and voila! Clean as a whistle.

Below is the same plant, three weeks apart. Left side, old nutes; Right side, new nutes.

Thanks for that info! I've been going through a similar situation, gotta change the nutes tonight.

 

[EZlistener]

i used AN's Bud Blood on a previous crop and stained the roots bright red, crop was amazing

felix- that Canna Boost looks a bit funky do you not think, the horriblest green i ever saw, and a bit funky smelling aswell, its doing the shizzle thou