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Tips for sterilizing a room.

T

TheGuyNextDoor

Member
veg room is 12 x 12, flower room is 12 x 20.

Root Aphids are the target.

All 48 plants have been tossed, wiping out and starting new

Any tips?
 
G

Granger2

Active member
Veteran
Guynextdoor,
You can bomb it with a pyrethrum bomb. Then fog or spray it with Cedarcide [google it], also doing a strong perimeter spray around building, hitting doors, vents, AC, any intakes, etc. All this is after disinfecting the interior of the room.

All containers, soil or other medium needs to be soaked, pot and medium, for 30 minutes in insecticide soap at full strength dilution rate, followed by a 30 minute cedarcide soak, then flushed like crazy to remove soap and cedarcide.

Start with seed, not clones. All medium and containers should be treated this way before it enters the room.

My guess is that you will still have the bastards after awhile, so continue with preventive measures like botanigard, nematodes.

I've resigned myself to never being rid of them, and to use diligence and prevention for the duration. Good luck. -granger
 
T

TheGuyNextDoor

Member
ok, well, we're switching to hydro. Going with 20g res for each plant. 1 plant per 1000w light and one 4x4 screen each.

ALL the soil gear is GONE. Pots, watering apparatus', trays, everything.

One thing I'm having a problem finding is a good perimeter barrier guard for the foundation. The ones I'm finding are all mainly for ants/roaches and are only good for 4 weeks,....any suggestions?

Also, any comments on the NOVA solution? Alch/water/soap for a primary wall scrubbing? I'm thinking do everything in the nova,....then release the bombs,....then a physan 20 spray down and then another set of bombs for good measure.

barrier guard

Any tips for being preventative in hydro as for maybe treating the gear or around the gear?
 
G

Granger2

Active member
Veteran
Guy,
I don't know of a permanent barrier. Everything needs to be applied periodically. I doubt that I would want to use anything that was 1 app forever. Cedarcide works well for that, also DE. I am of the opinion that RAs are being spread in new coco and soil. Good luck. -granger
 
R

ronbo51

Member
Veteran
I ran a sterile lab for a while and found several ways to minimize contamination. But before you can do that you have to start from a clean slate. I don't like bleach anymore. It is caustic as hell and ruins any metal it touches. There are many cleaning solutions used by industry to clean and sterilize, many of them are pretty safe and easy to use. Radio guy Don Imus's wife runs a "green" cleaning supply company. There are others. Bleach cannot be sprayed on lights, hoods, anything sensitive, but with things unplugged you could hose down a room with a Quaternary Cleaner rated for hospital use. Remove what you can and get a cheap sprayer from Lowes and let it rip. Hand wipe what you can. Keep the floor clean. Develop a protocol for maintenance that is repeatable, so you can become comfortable doing regular preventative work. Wear a respirator and gloves, and get a Tyveck suit while you are at Lowes (paint section). Make sure the products you use actually work. I like Pyrethrin, but resistance develops if you are not careful. Just like with spider mites rotate your products in a well thought out way. Treat cutting, clones, vegging plants and plants at flip. A spray bottle of alcohol should always be in everyone's grow area to spot hit counters, nute bottles, lights (off of course), your hands.
Once you have the room clean its time to develop a protocol for entering the room. I only go in my grow space in the morning. Clean hair, clothes, hands, spray bottle with alcohol handy. If you were really on top of shit you would have clean shoes never used for anything else to slip into. Give them a quick hit with alcohol before you put them on. Or go buy a case of Tyveck booties for cheap, you can reuse them if you wash them and spray with alcohol. Don't bring in nute bottles or anything else that does not get treatment. Everything that comes in is thought out, necessary to the room, everything unnecessary goes. Keep yourself and your room clean. Think of it as a fortress against pathogens. And the only one who can fuck it up is YOU by bringing in infected shit. Treat your intake with Quaternary, occasionally spray the intake area with pyrethrin, and alcohol. You said no clones: this is the main vector of contamination for most people with root aphids. The obvious solution is seed stock. Anyone taking clones would be a fool to not have a SEPARATE quarantine area, well away from production, where clones get treated for everything.
Bottom line: clean everything, kill everything, maintain a clean environment and always look at YOURSELF as the chief vector of contamination. Good luck
 
R

ronbo51

Member
Veteran
DE is diatomacious Earth. Ancient skeletons of sea creatures. Under magnification DE looks jagged, sharp. Bugs hate it because it cuts them and irritates them. It controls fungus gnats real well but is not going to work on root aphids.
 
MIway

MIway

Registered User
Veteran
De is diatomaceous earth... Super fine powder that can work as a barrier... Like a talc.

I'd personally use tanglefoot... Sticky yellow gel that is a prety long lasting physical barrier... Works against crawling bugs, not so much for flyin bugs... ;-)

Btw... Physan is a sterilizer, not for killin bugs or eggs... Say for latent mold spores.
 
B

badmf

Active member
Consider "Yourself " a vector or means by which insects gained entry, act accordingly, quarantine all plants for ten days before bringing them in. Dr Doom bomb add preds when going into bloom. Ladybugs are at Osh stores as well as other preds start with an army on "Your" side!
 
S

SeaMaiden

PuReKnOwLeDgE said:
Physan 20 sterilizes the shit out of shit.
Click to expand...

^^ THIS. This is how anyone trained in sanitation, sanitization and sterilization would do it.

Outside of quaternary ammonium, isopropyl alcohol could work, but it doesn't have good activity time.

You could start with good old TSP (tri-sodium phosphate), just like we did when we were kids and Mom wanted to hang wallpaper somewhere.

To get the hiding fliers, I'm going to suggest going a bit nuclear in the room, before you use the sterilization products, using a good insecticide of your choice. I used Spectracide with Triazicide, turned off the power to the areas where I was spraying and just SATURATED the area. I killed EVERYTHING, couldn't believe all the dead pinchbugs (does *anything* eat pinchbugs?), and drove out every frog. Get into electric receptacles, nooks, crannies, corners, hidey-holes, and tiny spaces, because those girls WILL hide in there.

Granger, my first experience with RAs came during an outdoor grow, pure perlite hempy tubs. It would be a hard sell to convince me that the RAs came with the perlite. I think there is every possibility that they're in the environment, and it makes little logical sense that bugs would be laying eggs into a medium waiting for something living to come along. It makes much more sense that they could be waiting, as a latent infestation, for better conditions to begin reproduction, but it seems that would have to occur in the presence of living plant tissues that they require to survive.

Just my buck and a half!
 
G

Granger2

Active member
Veteran
Maiden,
RAs are in the environment, especially in the Pacific NW, and can start that way. Perlite seems very inhospitable for them, so I agree. However, someone posted pics of RA eggs and hatchlings he found in a just opened bag of coco. Others have said that they came with OFPS and Happy Frog. I'm at 30 degree N lat, and was in the landscaping and nursery business for nearly 30 years and never heard of them till I saw them in a pot of Happy Frog Potting Soil [Pacific NW].

I've always used Canna Coco. Virtually all grape vines in Europe are grafted onto American rootstock since almost the entire French grape industry was nearly wiped out in the 1870s from RAs. Texas Mustang grape rootstock saved their asses.

Regardless of how they came to my property, I expect them to be here for the duration. I will assume that every medium is infested and will treat it before it enters my grow room. I will continue to treat routinely till it leaves the room. I've thought I had wiped them out before more than once, only to find out the hard way, the costly way, that I was wrong. Good luck to all foes of RAs. -granger
 
T

TheGuyNextDoor

Member
Not so much a sterilization question but I am switching over to hydro. I ordered met52 for the soil stuff but then decided to switch back to hydro as a bunch of new equipment just showed up at my door for free :) (was a good week)

What would I do to keep the buggers away in a wet medium? IF they come back, what would be my first course of action? Anyone heard of a wet met52?
 
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