Light leaks in alien RDWC?

[orangepony79]

Hey folks, I’m going try to answer all the questions you’re going to ask me, in advance, in hopes someone can help me out.

8x8 grow space
1000 watt MH/HPS
Alien RDWC 4 pot XL system
PH perfect, currently full strength
18/6 light cycle
Ph start at 5.8, then bumps to 6.1 over night.
Ppm 1260 currently.
AB B-52

Water temp 18-19°C (chiller)
Air temp: 22 lights off
26 lights on
Hydroton pebbles
Modified the system because I’m in Canada and my electric outlets are different then those supplied by alien. So I changed the circulatory pump, and matched it’s out put to the input capacity of the chiller. I want to say 600 litres per minute but would have to verify this number, but I do know they’re matched evenly.

I also swapped the oxygen pump to a 70l per minute pump, and upgraded to 2x3 hydroponic standard round air stones. 1 in each pot, and 1 in the header pot.

Both of the pumps I changed, are stronger than those supplied by alien.

I have the green lid for my header pot, and it leaks light, and so does the collapsing water tank I got with my kit. I swapped the tank for 100 litre trash can, and used the fittings supplied. I aerate this solution with a dual aqauarium pump when using the reservoir to auto top up.

I covered the green lid to my header pot with a thick moving blanket, and also made styrofoam plates covered with reflective tape to sit over the net pots.

I still have brown algae/root rot.

Has anyone else encountered leaks in their system that would cause root rot? Maybe the air line holes? Plastic buckets too thin? Any tips or advice on light proofing this system would be great, because I can’t seem to beat the root rot, so there must be a light leak.

Shouldn’t a 1000.00 dollar system be plug and play out of the box?

 

[TorturedSoul]

I always thought that those high-dollar commercial products that mimic what people can and do build for ~$60 in parts and a few things they've already got laying around in the garage (and it usually is like that, not the other way around - someone reads a forum thread and thinks, "I could start putting those together and sell them, and make a lot of money") were highly overrated.

They do offer the convenience of being able to make one phone call or place one Internet order, wait for the product to be delivered, take it out of the box, plug it in, and start growing. But that doesn't always work out all that well. And the person, not having built the thing from scratch with help from a few people on a forum, might end up having trouble if/when there's an issue... not being intimately familiar with the build and all.

I'll tell you this: Most of my DWC grows were in the cheapest totes that stores such as "Big Lots" (chain in my country that sells junk the other stores were unable to sell, lol) sold. Often, that meant a light green lid that wouldn't stop strong light and translucent (almost clear) plastic walls that you could probably read the newspaper through if you held a flashlight up to the thing. And I never had root issues, unless you count an occasional bit of green algae (which was harmless in my case, since I wasn't pumping water through small diameter lines), but I didn't even see that very often.

Root issues in a hydroponic setup typically means insufficient dissolved oxygen in the nutrient solution. Add more aeration! I used air pumps/stones and an aquarium power head in each reservoir. I'm of the opinion that you cannot have too much DO. I mean... you can, technically, but most cannabis growers will never attain that state of existence.

In addition to mad amounts of aeration, I supplemented daily with H₂O₂ (hydrogen peroxide). IIRC, around 15ml per gallon of nutrient solution - but I didn't really pay all that much attention, got to just pouring it in, lol, plus I'd pour in extra whenever the temperatures in the place went through the roof (I never used reservoir chillers). Or when I didn't have things plugged into a UPS to maintain power during a blackout, got hit with an extended power failure and all the pumps stopped.

So up your level of DO significantly, and immediately start adding H₂O₂. That'll help - a lot - in general. But I have heard and read that the "brown slime" type of algae can be a real son of a b!tch to get rid of, so this may not actually kill what you've already got. You can try draining your nutrient solution and running a fairly strong mixture of H₂O₂ and water through it for an hour (shouldn't hut the plants any as long as you're just using the regular consumer-strength 3% H₂O₂ that they sell in grocery stores - but H₂O₂ in high concentrations is pretty dangerous stuff, so if you're buying it off of a chemical supply house be sure to check the label and dilute accordingly).

You may end up having to completely disassemble and clean and bleach/sterilize your setup. And you'll definitely want to do this after the grow is finished.

That type of algae doesn't require light, by the way.

There's a product called HydroGuard that is supposed to help.

Good luck!

 

[TysonOG]

Hydroguard is amazing. Light leaks are important but DO concentration is the key to root rot. Increase aeration and get temps as low as possible, 66-68 ideal. Drain your res and fill with fresh solution, add 3ml/g hydroguard. The bottle calls for 2 but I'd hit it with some extra to get the job down quickly.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I've noticed that, as the level of DO in one's nutrient solution increased, the amount of nutrients that I was giving my plants seemed to decrease somewhat. I think this means that the plants become more efficient feeders when their roots are able to access more oxygen. It wasn't a drastic thing, kind of subtle, but...

 

[orangepony79]

Tortured: thank you for the detailed response.

I would like to point out that i am fully capable of building a system that would crush alien hydroponics and certainly for a lot cheaper. I chose to go the pre constructed route out of pure convenience. I am very particular about how my room looks, and i didnt want some rag tag bucket system that i threw together with 50 trips to the hardware and hydroponics store in search of parts etc. It was simply a matter of time for me, plug and play was the goal. I did mention that i purchased hydroguard, and have had success with aqua shield in the past, but this is my first time using its new name. I did also up to 3ml/L as suggested yesterday when i added the hydroguard to the system.

Last week, i drained the system, and moved the lids to four empty buckets. Filled with fresh water, and a good cup of bleach. Ordered hydroguard from the United States as its not for sale in canada due to health canada labeling issue. Let that run, maybe 45 minutes/hour. Drained the system again and filled with fresh water to rinse. Let the system run 1/2 hour with rinse water and Drained the system to ensure the bleach was removed from the rinse water batch. Then i filled the system with full strength feed. Added 300 ml to the system of h202 to kill or oxidize anything that was missed by the bleach rinse. Dug around the net, found SM-90 is good for treating root rot, and because im waiting for hydroguard to arrive UPS, I add some SM-90 to the system. I would mist the roots with a spray bottle to keep them moist during the 1:45 minutes it took to sterilize the system mid grow. The spray bottle had water, and a mild nutrient solution. The system holds 100 Litres when filled to the set float level. The SM-90 was doing an ok job, but there was still pretty dark brown patches in the root zone. But it was working. Can’t buy that anymore either, so i wanted to save it. When the hydro guard arrived, i drained the system because I’ve read SM-90 will kill the bennies in the Hydroguard. So last night, i drained the system, to remove the SM -90 and filled with fresh nutes, and 3ml/L of the hydro guard. It’s been running 24 hours, and I haven’t been down to look yet.

Ive looked into how to combat root rot, and as I’ve mentioned the pump im using is twice the power of pump that sells with the system, so i didnt think that adding more air was the solution, because im already doubling my oxygen output. Most set ups are using way smaller pumps, and this led me to believe its a light leak rather than aeration. The next pump up is 110L per minute, and its overkill. Im currently pumping 70 litres per minute and the system came with an ET 30. How can it be a aeration if the pump im using is already overkill? I will get one next week, if you guys think that’s the problem. I guess i will replace the air stones as well.

I also run a chiller so im sure my water temps are on target. I also have the return line waterfalling into the header pot to create extra aeration on top of the air stone that is in the header pot. It bubbles pretty good.

So I’ve sterilized the system, light proofed what i could, brought the water temps down to 18 degrees, and added hydroguard. The only thing left to do was find out if its the small amount of light leaking in through the system, and other users of the kit would likely experience the same sort of issue. So if the black buckets are adequate, then the answer must be DO.

So as mentioned, H2O2 will kill the hydro guard BA. So I cant add it now. I do have another pump i can use to temporarily supplement the air my current pump is pushing. Im hoping the hydroguard, and the extra air line will help restore the roots back to white. They are somewhat stained, and don’t smell bad at all, and aren’t really slimy. Just dark brown patched indicative of rot.

Hopefully the hydroguard does the trick. It says 2ml/gallon, and i added 60 ml to 100 litres or 26.4 gallons. Again its been 24 hours. So i suspect ill have to wait another day to see results in the system and root zone. I also took my solution and poured it through the net pots to “rinse” and treat the hydroton with hydroguard as well.

Im gonna browse amazon and see what i can find for a new pump. It’s a popular brand, ill look now.

 

[TorturedSoul]

It looks like you're well on your way to curing the issue.

You seem to know your stuff, so I'm embarrassed to even ask, but just to cover all the bases (that I can think of), you have your air pump plugged into an electrical outlet so that it runs 24 hours per day, right? As opposed to having it on the same timer that your lights are on.

I’ve mentioned the pump im using is twice the power of pump that sells with the system, so i didnt think that adding more air was the solution, because im already doubling my oxygen output. Most set ups are using way smaller pumps, and this led me to believe its a light leak rather than aeration. The next pump up is 110L per minute, and its overkill. Im currently pumping 70 litres per minute and the system came with an ET 30. How can it be a aeration if the pump im using is already overkill? I will get one next week, if you guys think that’s the problem. I guess i will replace the air stones as well.

That does seem like it should be an adequate air pump. They can wear out over time, and rebuild kits are available for some of them. However, if it's a diaphragm pump, I'd expect to see a drastic decrease in the action, probably enough to notice pretty quick. So that seems somewhat unlikely.

Air stones... I don't think they "like" hydroponic nutrient solutions, lol. I went through a lot of them, used to keep a bunch of spares in a drawer. Some of them, when I pulled them out of the reservoirs, the outer material would crumble.

(IMHO) Ones that produce many small bubbles work better than ones that produce fewer, but larger, bubbles. It's the action at the air:water interface (surface) that provides the most aeration, if that makes sense. In other words, the bubbles don't release significant air into the water as they're traveling from the point of production up through the liquid.

That "waterfall effect" you mentioned is helping add oxygen to the nutrient solution for sure.

Assuming that your pump is 100% fine, you have lots of airstones that are in great shape, they're the type that produce lots of small bubbles, you don't have any kind of restrictions/buildup in any of your lines, the setup allows those bubbles to "pop" across the entire surface instead of a situation where the reservoir is full (with no air-gap) and there's only a small opening for the air bubbles to come up and pop, and your aeration devices run 24/7/52... I really don't have any other ideas. I've been hoping that others would post in the thread so that we could both learn something new. Which might have happened; I got distracted by a telephone call and this message has sat here for a while in a browser tab.

The only thing left to do was find out if its the small amount of light leaking in through the system

Yeah, it's logical that you'd wonder about that as a possible cause, since you've tried to address other possibilities. The only thing is, brown and black algae doesn't require light to grow; that's why it isn't green (lack of chloroplasts). EDIT: And the reefer/aquarium crowd, when someone posts a thread about a brown algae problem, tends to first ask, "Does the aquarium receive enough light?"

So... Kind of mystery.

Good luck, and please keep us updated!

 

[orangepony79]

No such thing as a silly question. Yes my pumps run constantly. I do think the aeration is adequate, reading about other peoples set ups most people are using a smaller pump. I thought it might be something with alien construction which led me to ask the question about light leaks.

Ive considered switching to the disc type of air stone with the suction sups on the bottom to stick to the pail. These current stone im using are 4 times the size of the supplied air stones from alien, but have been used for one previous grow, and aeration tap water for my soil grow last year. I scrubbed them a toothbrush, and soaked them in pure h2o2 before using them this time. I know the smaller the bubble the better, and have also looked into air diffusers, but found that either rich folk, or corporations are using this type of stone, in large commercial RDWC grows. They have the funding. I do also, but the idea is to grow on the cheap. Youll see nothing about my setup, or equipment is “cheap” or good enough. I use mainstream products, quality nutes, and usually spare no cost. The chiller was 600.00.

So without other feed back i will try to increase aeration although I don’t think that this is the problem. My pictures depict the amount of bubbles being produced. Isn’t this enough?

Hoping the hydro guard will correct the issue. Ive read it can happen in little as 24 hours, they do look better and are showing signs of white root production. The photos posted were taken 1 hour ago. Ive read it can take up to 48-72 hours for hydroguard to spread, build and out consume the rot, so i expect some change by day three if none are apparent tomorrow.

I do try to read forums and webpages before asking questions because i know the answers are out there. I do feel im quite knowledgeable but only have 1 hydroponic grow under my belt, and suffered root rot the whole grow. Home made system ive since scrapped. This time around, i thought a commercial produced system, plug and play, would be a better option, and added a chiller. Ive also dialed in my room with several upgrades to eliminate the issue before i even popped my seed, only to get root rot anyway. I tried voodoo juice with minimal success and was told hydroguard is the way to go so well see. Maddening though, i figured i had it beat before i started and here it is.

When i see positive root growth, i will dump the system and correct the ph etc with fresh solution and more hydrogurad, but will sterilize the system in the same fashion I described above.

Thanks for the input.

 

[orangepony79]

Seems the hydroguard is doing it’s job. New boost of white roots and plants are drinking and eating. Yay! Worth every penny to have 10 litres shipped in from the states. I added another 50 ml to the reservoir today, as there are still some brownish looking roots. I know the dead ones won’t heal, but hoping to repair any damage that is reversible.

Thanks for the help. I will likely upgrade the pump at a later date, when I light proof the pails after this grow. I’m about to flip to 12/12, maybe one more week to ensure I’m getting healthy new growth now that the root zone is under control. They’re 2 feet tall so its getting close, and I don’t want to disturb the pots this close to start of flower. I’m just gonna do a scrub with bleach then h202, and rinse well in between. Then fill with fresh nutes for flower, and then, add more hydroguard after the the system ph’s itself.

Sensi grow seems to wander up past 6.2, but it’s good as plants are drinking water. Means roots are working. I’m hoping sensi bloom stays more stable.

I’m scratching the voodoo juice, and using hydroguard at nutrilife dosage.

Now that I’ve fixed the root rot, I’m getting better feed, as my ppm is dropping also. So if your ph is rising, and your ppm is dropping, isn’t this an ideal situation? A slow gradual decline of ppm and a slow increase of ph rising?

I’ve read some info on this somewhere, but all the choices weren’t listed and I couldn’t match up as my ppm was not decreasing due to root rot.
Does somebody have a correlation chart that depicts this?

What is happening if your ph drops.
What is happening when you ph rises.
What is happening if you ppm drops but your ph rises?
What is happening if you ppm roses but your ph drops?

Again I think I’m at the ideal balance called equilibrium. Ph slowly rising, ppm slowing dropping, but for future reference.

Thanks for the input guys.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Seems the hydroguard is doing it’s job. New boost of white roots and plants are drinking and eating. Yay!

.

Does somebody have a correlation chart that depicts this?

I think @Rifleman posted this one: