My 6 inch rockwool almost died, please help

[Playerwun]

So, my pump failed while I was out of town and when i came back, my girls were droopy and almost died. I fed them and they all recovered but I've noticed that because of the incident, they don't retain water well anymore. Even at the end of P2 they are too light/dry. My question is if I can re-soak them to get rid of the air pockets that has formed because of them drying out. Thank you for your time, have a great day

 

[Creeperpark]

Only if the Rockwool won't take the feed water. Take one cube and try to slowly and gently rehydrate by soaking it just for a moment in the nutrient solution. Whatever week your feed chart is should be the feed water you use for a quick soak. You can dip it slowly just until the cube is heavy again and no bubbles. Then go back to feeding from the top again. You may have a little damage on the leaves but they should respond well in a few days or a week.

 

[FletchF.Fletch]

You may need to add a Wetting Agent to rehydrate. Once they dry completely, the Blocks react like they're water repellent. Reduce surface tension and increase irrigation cycles. Also from having dried out the EC will be high initially. Not a problem once things are flushed through.

Grodan may have a recommended course of action in their faq section or troubleshooting.

Good Luck.

 

[jdkronyk101]

Both these guys are right, its become "hydrophobic" the rockwool is repelling water. soak it, and def use a wetting agent. generally speaking it will never go back to 100% functionality, but should improve enough to squeeze through this run without starting over. best of luck!

 

[Playerwun]

Update

So, I ended up picking the weakest plant and put a bag under it and flooded it. As soon as it filled up to where I set my stakes, I saw air bubbles so I'm assuming it got rid of the air pockets. This was about 16 hours ago and the plant doesn't show any signs of stress. And I've also looked into this yucca wetting agent to help my babies. Thank you guys for your input. I was droopy myself trying to remedy this since last night. I've lurked here since 2013 and learned a great deal on here

 

[St. Phatty]

Are you doing a complete Ebb & Flow, where the rockwool is close to completely submerged during the watering cycle ?

 

[Playerwun]

Are you doing a complete Ebb & Flow, where the rockwool is close to completely submerged during the watering cycle ?

Heyo, sorry I realized you meant different. Yes, I basically did an E&F to the top inch of my blocks until it stopped bubbling. I did this while they were sleeping since I panicked about the root mass that were dying off because I wasn't able to give them full saturation with my feeding events. When I made this post, it was already about a 2 weeks since the incident and I just got an aroya sensor (I should've went with growlink fml) and decided to take my first reading after achieving runoff in P2 and saw that the WC% was only about 35-40% at full saturation. But after re-saturating them with the wetting agent, they are reaching saturation at 50% now. Lesson learned.

 

[St. Phatty]

I had good luck with 6 inch cubes.

I think one of the main things with indoor hydro is to bullet-proof it so that a leak doesn't cause water damage to the building.

Which can really mess up security. Once I had a leak into the apartment below me, from condensation. Almost got busted.

 

[Playerwun]

I had good luck with 6 inch cubes.

I think one of the main things with indoor hydro is to bullet-proof it so that a leak doesn't cause water damage to the building.

Which can really mess up security. Once I had a leak into the apartment below me, from condensation. Almost got busted.

I agree. There was a time where I just used commercial grade pond liner up around the walls on vinyl flooring except for the swing of the door and glued those pool noodles to create a giant tray in case there was a flood, good thing it never happened but damn, good thing you caught it in time before it got worse!

 

[St. Phatty]

I agree. There was a time where I just used commercial grade pond liner up around the walls on vinyl flooring except for the swing of the door and glued those pool noodles to create a giant tray in case there was a flood, good thing it never happened but damn, good thing you caught it in time before it got worse!

I try to always double-container things.

Besides that condensation almost leading to a bust, a broken Rubbermaid 44 gallon container ended up costing me $15K in mold damage on a condo that I owned.