U
Ultra Current
EDIT: December, 11, 2011: I have to finish testing to give you my final opinions on H2O2 but I have 3 more important tests that I have to do first. Because I will never run H2O2 again, this test is the least important for me to finish but I assure everyone that I will within 30 days or so cause I know some of you love your H2O2 and want to know more specifics. Stay tuned...
In my opinion I believe that there is a lot of misleading information on the web about H202 in hydroponics. I’ve been growing hydroponically for many years in DWC, Aeroponics and Ebb & Flow. I’ve been very interested in learning about growing these magical plants and I do many tests to figure out what is going on. I have many lab grade tools to conduct these tests and I am well aware of the many variables involved that most people can’t seem to see when I read a lot of tests that people have done on the internet. I see a lot of information about growers using H202 as a preventative measure in hydroponics and I would greatly advise against it. It is a much better idea to use Chlorine as a preventative measure and if you use it correctly, it will be very difficult for you to lose a crop. I’ll get into Chlorine a little later but as far as H202 goes, these tests were done with 29% H2O2 in RDWC, Ebb & Flow and Aeroponics.
Aeroponics Test:
In the first test I placed my solution that I use in my EZ Cloner 60’s. I will not tell you what it is because it is a secret until I can bottle it and sell it in stores. I will only say that it contains no living additives. This solution took me years to figure out and I get roots in 4-5 days with most strains that I use. Before I started the tests, I cleaned out 2 Easy Cloner 60’s with Pysan20 and let them air dry overnight. Next I added my solution to both cloners and added 3 mL / Gal of 29% H2O2 into one of them and 6 mL / Gal of 29% H2O2 in the other EZ Cloner. The water used in both cloners contained no Chlorine whatsoever. I then took 120 cuts from very healthy Chemdog D plants from 14 Moms. I made sure to use half the cuts from each Mom in EZ Cloner A and the other half in EZ cloner B to get accurate data. In the next few days the Temperatures ranged between 66 Degrees F and 75 Degrees F with a pH of 6.0. 3 days later I noticed problems with the cuttings in both EZ Cloners. It looked like the stems below the neoprene collars were being eaten away and it was clogging up the sprayers. I was incorrect and realized the next day what was going on because the problem got bigger and showed itself to me. I had the dreaded “Slime”. Here is a picture:
I usually use Chlorine instead of H2O2 and never have this problem but I wanted to prove how H2O2 is not as great as people think as a preventative measure. It does have it’s limited uses but not as a preventative measure. “The Slime” is able to thrive once H2O2 is introduced into the system and “The Slime” is in direct competition for oxygen with your cuts while they suffer with more and more Slime buildup over time until your cuts eventually die.
This now led to another test which is currently running and I will input my results within a week or 2. I took all the solution out of the EZ Cloners and put a fresh new batch in and added 1 PPM of Chlorine after cleaning out the clogged sprayers. Every hour I took a Chlorine test and here is the data:
8:15 am – 0.98 PPM Chlorine
9:15 am – 0.72 PPM Chlorine
10:15 am – 0.48 PPM Chlorine
11:15 am – 0.28 PPM Chlorine
12:15 pm – 0.10 PPM Chlorine
1:15 pm – 0.00 PPM Chlorine
As you can see from the data, the Chlorine is killing the Slime and the Chlorine is being used up very fast. I then took the lid off of one of the EZ Cloners and took it to the bath tub with a garden hose. I individually took out each clone (60 in all) and sprayed off all the slime with a high pressure sprayer on the hose and put them back into the cloner. This took me 1.5 hours but was very fun because it was a learning experience. All 60 cleaned clones were put back into the cloner and all the solution was drained and I added a fresh batch of my secret cloning solution again. Then I added 1 PPM of Chlorine and performed Chlorine tests again every hour. Here are the results:
3:00 pm – 0.98 PPM Chlorine
4:00 pm – 0.86 PPM Chlorine
5:00 pm – 0.83 PPM Chlorine
6:00 pm – 0.80 PPM Chlorine
As you can see from the data, once I washed off all the slime, the Chlorine was able to hold it’s levels because I washed off most of the slime and now there is less slime, pathogens, etc for the Chlorine to kill. Now that the Chlorine is able to hold a residual level of 0.50 PPM or more, “The Slime” will not be able to come back and whatever is left will be killed. Once I finish this test in a couple of weeks, I’ll input the data for the growing community and let everyone know if I was able to still get roots after being exposed to the dreaded slime and then washing it off.
24 hours after draining and cleaning one of the EZ Cloners and washing off the cuts of the slime, the slime returned with vengence even after putting 2 ppm of Chlorine in the cloner. The slime was very concentrated in certain places other than the stems of the cuts. There was so much snot all over 3 brand new air stones and the sprayers had the slime all over them. It didn’t look like the slime came from getting through the filter. It seems like where ever the most oxygen is in the system, contains the most amount of slime. The slime is able to flourish in complete darkness in an oxygen enriched system. After doing some research I think that one of the byproducts of the slime is ammonia. Because of the possibility of ammonia in the system, I will drain out the solution every 24-36 hours.
This has led to a another test. Certain circumstances require drastic measures for eradication. Because I know from past experiences that Chlorine over 2 PPM can easily kill my cuts I will have to try another option. This next option should not be taken lightly and should only be used in certain drastic situations. For example say that you have a cutting that you can never get again and it needs to be saved for the future. When all else fails then antibiotics seems like the only option left to use at this point. The antibiotic that I’ll be testing is Erythromycin. Erythromycin should not be used on food crops so that’s why this should be a last resort for very extreme circumstances.
I’ve noticed that in my older EZ cloners, no matter how much I clean them nothing will root and the slime comes so I’m constantly buying new easy cloners. This next test will show me if when all else fails if cleaning the cloner with 4 treatments of Erythromycin for 4 days will eradicate the dreaded slime. If this does work, then growers can clean out their cloners with 4 treatments of Erythromycin for 4 days with no plants in the cloner whatsoever. It will be very important to treat the slime for 4 days so that you don’t create a super bacteria from the bacteria building up a resistance to the Erythromycin. If you do choose to go this route, you will want to wear eye protection, gloves and even a mask so you don’t enhale the powder. In this next test I drained out the system and added my cloning solution and then added 200mg of Erythromycin. I left the slime on the cuts for the next 24 hours but after that I’ll individually take out each cut and spray off the slime with a high pressure hose, drain out the system and add back fresh cloning solution. Then I’ll add my 2nd 200mg treatment of Erythromycin and continue this for 2 more days. I'll let you all know how it goes. I may get a lot of shit on here from people but we must keep learning in the name of this special plant.
RDWC Tests:
I’m very tired so I’ll be short with the DWC tests for now. 4 days after adding 10 mL / Gal of 29% H202 to very healthy plant, all Chemdog plants were dead in 4 days. To make a long story short, H2O2 adds minor stress to plant roots. Because of this stress, pythium is able to take hold and destroy your plants roots very fast. I don’t lose crops using Chlorine in RDWC. I’ll elaborate on this more in the near future when I have time.
Ebb & Flow tests:
This test is still going on so it would be premature for me to discuss this at the moment. I’ll let you guys know the results in the near future.
Chlorine as a preventative measure:
I won’t tease you guys with my knowledge on Chlorine and everyone who doesn’t use live nutrients or supplements in hydroponics, I would advise you to keep a residual level of 0.50 PPM Chlorine at all times as a preventative measure against plant pathogens and future root problems. Always remember that too much Chlorine will kill your plants and you never want to put more than 1.0 PPM of Chlorine for large healthy plants. Cuttings and smaller plants are more sensitive to Chlorine and you will want to keep only 0.50 PPM of Chlorine so that you don’t risk killing them. My dropper gives 22 drops / 1 mL of liquid. Before giving Chlorine to small reservoirs you will want to see how many drops per mL your dropper gives so you give a safe amount of Chlorine. My dropper gives a 0.50 PPM of Chlorine at the rate of 1 drop of Clorox Bleach / 2 Gal. To give 0.50 PPM of Chlorine using Clorox Bleach, the equation is 1 mL of Clorox Bleach / 44 Gallons. Always take into account if your tap already has Chlorine in it and adjust your equation. Remember in a well aerated solution, Chlorine naturally disappears in 3-4 days so add in your Chlorine every 4 days as a preventative measure against future root and pathogen problems. Add this to your normal schedule and you will see how hard it is to get root problems again. I’m not here to debate with anyone so use this knowledge as you want. I am also very rarely on the internet and I spend many hours performing various tests on cannabis plants so I won’t be able to respond to anyone for a while. I have charts and folders of valuable data from all the testing that I’ve done throughout the years that I am currently organizing and will eventually release it to the cannabis community sometime in the future. Happy growing brothers and sisters!!!
In my opinion I believe that there is a lot of misleading information on the web about H202 in hydroponics. I’ve been growing hydroponically for many years in DWC, Aeroponics and Ebb & Flow. I’ve been very interested in learning about growing these magical plants and I do many tests to figure out what is going on. I have many lab grade tools to conduct these tests and I am well aware of the many variables involved that most people can’t seem to see when I read a lot of tests that people have done on the internet. I see a lot of information about growers using H202 as a preventative measure in hydroponics and I would greatly advise against it. It is a much better idea to use Chlorine as a preventative measure and if you use it correctly, it will be very difficult for you to lose a crop. I’ll get into Chlorine a little later but as far as H202 goes, these tests were done with 29% H2O2 in RDWC, Ebb & Flow and Aeroponics.
Aeroponics Test:
In the first test I placed my solution that I use in my EZ Cloner 60’s. I will not tell you what it is because it is a secret until I can bottle it and sell it in stores. I will only say that it contains no living additives. This solution took me years to figure out and I get roots in 4-5 days with most strains that I use. Before I started the tests, I cleaned out 2 Easy Cloner 60’s with Pysan20 and let them air dry overnight. Next I added my solution to both cloners and added 3 mL / Gal of 29% H2O2 into one of them and 6 mL / Gal of 29% H2O2 in the other EZ Cloner. The water used in both cloners contained no Chlorine whatsoever. I then took 120 cuts from very healthy Chemdog D plants from 14 Moms. I made sure to use half the cuts from each Mom in EZ Cloner A and the other half in EZ cloner B to get accurate data. In the next few days the Temperatures ranged between 66 Degrees F and 75 Degrees F with a pH of 6.0. 3 days later I noticed problems with the cuttings in both EZ Cloners. It looked like the stems below the neoprene collars were being eaten away and it was clogging up the sprayers. I was incorrect and realized the next day what was going on because the problem got bigger and showed itself to me. I had the dreaded “Slime”. Here is a picture:
I usually use Chlorine instead of H2O2 and never have this problem but I wanted to prove how H2O2 is not as great as people think as a preventative measure. It does have it’s limited uses but not as a preventative measure. “The Slime” is able to thrive once H2O2 is introduced into the system and “The Slime” is in direct competition for oxygen with your cuts while they suffer with more and more Slime buildup over time until your cuts eventually die.
This now led to another test which is currently running and I will input my results within a week or 2. I took all the solution out of the EZ Cloners and put a fresh new batch in and added 1 PPM of Chlorine after cleaning out the clogged sprayers. Every hour I took a Chlorine test and here is the data:
8:15 am – 0.98 PPM Chlorine
9:15 am – 0.72 PPM Chlorine
10:15 am – 0.48 PPM Chlorine
11:15 am – 0.28 PPM Chlorine
12:15 pm – 0.10 PPM Chlorine
1:15 pm – 0.00 PPM Chlorine
As you can see from the data, the Chlorine is killing the Slime and the Chlorine is being used up very fast. I then took the lid off of one of the EZ Cloners and took it to the bath tub with a garden hose. I individually took out each clone (60 in all) and sprayed off all the slime with a high pressure sprayer on the hose and put them back into the cloner. This took me 1.5 hours but was very fun because it was a learning experience. All 60 cleaned clones were put back into the cloner and all the solution was drained and I added a fresh batch of my secret cloning solution again. Then I added 1 PPM of Chlorine and performed Chlorine tests again every hour. Here are the results:
3:00 pm – 0.98 PPM Chlorine
4:00 pm – 0.86 PPM Chlorine
5:00 pm – 0.83 PPM Chlorine
6:00 pm – 0.80 PPM Chlorine
As you can see from the data, once I washed off all the slime, the Chlorine was able to hold it’s levels because I washed off most of the slime and now there is less slime, pathogens, etc for the Chlorine to kill. Now that the Chlorine is able to hold a residual level of 0.50 PPM or more, “The Slime” will not be able to come back and whatever is left will be killed. Once I finish this test in a couple of weeks, I’ll input the data for the growing community and let everyone know if I was able to still get roots after being exposed to the dreaded slime and then washing it off.
24 hours after draining and cleaning one of the EZ Cloners and washing off the cuts of the slime, the slime returned with vengence even after putting 2 ppm of Chlorine in the cloner. The slime was very concentrated in certain places other than the stems of the cuts. There was so much snot all over 3 brand new air stones and the sprayers had the slime all over them. It didn’t look like the slime came from getting through the filter. It seems like where ever the most oxygen is in the system, contains the most amount of slime. The slime is able to flourish in complete darkness in an oxygen enriched system. After doing some research I think that one of the byproducts of the slime is ammonia. Because of the possibility of ammonia in the system, I will drain out the solution every 24-36 hours.
This has led to a another test. Certain circumstances require drastic measures for eradication. Because I know from past experiences that Chlorine over 2 PPM can easily kill my cuts I will have to try another option. This next option should not be taken lightly and should only be used in certain drastic situations. For example say that you have a cutting that you can never get again and it needs to be saved for the future. When all else fails then antibiotics seems like the only option left to use at this point. The antibiotic that I’ll be testing is Erythromycin. Erythromycin should not be used on food crops so that’s why this should be a last resort for very extreme circumstances.
I’ve noticed that in my older EZ cloners, no matter how much I clean them nothing will root and the slime comes so I’m constantly buying new easy cloners. This next test will show me if when all else fails if cleaning the cloner with 4 treatments of Erythromycin for 4 days will eradicate the dreaded slime. If this does work, then growers can clean out their cloners with 4 treatments of Erythromycin for 4 days with no plants in the cloner whatsoever. It will be very important to treat the slime for 4 days so that you don’t create a super bacteria from the bacteria building up a resistance to the Erythromycin. If you do choose to go this route, you will want to wear eye protection, gloves and even a mask so you don’t enhale the powder. In this next test I drained out the system and added my cloning solution and then added 200mg of Erythromycin. I left the slime on the cuts for the next 24 hours but after that I’ll individually take out each cut and spray off the slime with a high pressure hose, drain out the system and add back fresh cloning solution. Then I’ll add my 2nd 200mg treatment of Erythromycin and continue this for 2 more days. I'll let you all know how it goes. I may get a lot of shit on here from people but we must keep learning in the name of this special plant.
RDWC Tests:
I’m very tired so I’ll be short with the DWC tests for now. 4 days after adding 10 mL / Gal of 29% H202 to very healthy plant, all Chemdog plants were dead in 4 days. To make a long story short, H2O2 adds minor stress to plant roots. Because of this stress, pythium is able to take hold and destroy your plants roots very fast. I don’t lose crops using Chlorine in RDWC. I’ll elaborate on this more in the near future when I have time.
Ebb & Flow tests:
This test is still going on so it would be premature for me to discuss this at the moment. I’ll let you guys know the results in the near future.
Chlorine as a preventative measure:
I won’t tease you guys with my knowledge on Chlorine and everyone who doesn’t use live nutrients or supplements in hydroponics, I would advise you to keep a residual level of 0.50 PPM Chlorine at all times as a preventative measure against plant pathogens and future root problems. Always remember that too much Chlorine will kill your plants and you never want to put more than 1.0 PPM of Chlorine for large healthy plants. Cuttings and smaller plants are more sensitive to Chlorine and you will want to keep only 0.50 PPM of Chlorine so that you don’t risk killing them. My dropper gives 22 drops / 1 mL of liquid. Before giving Chlorine to small reservoirs you will want to see how many drops per mL your dropper gives so you give a safe amount of Chlorine. My dropper gives a 0.50 PPM of Chlorine at the rate of 1 drop of Clorox Bleach / 2 Gal. To give 0.50 PPM of Chlorine using Clorox Bleach, the equation is 1 mL of Clorox Bleach / 44 Gallons. Always take into account if your tap already has Chlorine in it and adjust your equation. Remember in a well aerated solution, Chlorine naturally disappears in 3-4 days so add in your Chlorine every 4 days as a preventative measure against future root and pathogen problems. Add this to your normal schedule and you will see how hard it is to get root problems again. I’m not here to debate with anyone so use this knowledge as you want. I am also very rarely on the internet and I spend many hours performing various tests on cannabis plants so I won’t be able to respond to anyone for a while. I have charts and folders of valuable data from all the testing that I’ve done throughout the years that I am currently organizing and will eventually release it to the cannabis community sometime in the future. Happy growing brothers and sisters!!!
