Worms and sudden death

[HeadMed]

Strains:
Blue berry, Wonder woman, OGiesel.

Hydro

General hydroponics in 6" grodan, flood and drain tables

Ph 5.7 to 6.0

Temp is 75 to 85 through out the day

ppm are 1750

whats happening is plants are maturing to about 5 or 6 weeks in flower then they start to die. I've noticed what I thought were gnats and increased airflow but i didn't;t think they were really the problem.

On this last plant that started dying i noticed little clear worms with black heads on the top of the rockwool cube.... i mean tiny worms, like 1/8" to 1/4".

I have problems with camera right now otherwise there would be pictures.

Are these worms gnat larvae? Some sorta devil alien from Uranus? How do I kill this crap without killing my plants?

 

[HeadMed]

So upon further research those worms I was talking about seem to be gnat larvae. I am trying nematodes (sp?)

 

[HeadMed]

So its been about a week with nematodes.... I definitely see less gnat activity, and no evidence of those freaky little worms. I am going to add another thing of nematodes and inoculate with a root booster (namely something called orca) in an effort to add recovery to these damaged root systems....

cross yer fingers for me

 

[Bigpappa1983]

Sounds like you got things under control, glad to hear. If you have issues again another great additive to the nematoads would be getting some Mosquito Dunks(any place like a home depot) in a cup of water/apple cider vinegar/sugar in your garden, the adults will fly and drink that stuff, and it will make them sterile so they can't breed

 

[HeadMed]

Thanks thats a good idea. I am still losing about a plant a week, and wondering if theres something else that would make just 1 plant suddenly turn and die out of a room?

 

[HeadMed]

So in this on going saga (which I keep talkin about just to keep my head straight), The guys at the Hydro shop (great place... make a trip just to see these guys) have set me on the path again....

I grew up so to speak using fossil rock, and expanded clay as my medium, then switched to 6" rockwool cubes. But I kept the same feeding schedule as when I was in rock/clay. These things retain a whole lot more water than rock/clay. I will say I noticed a drop in harvest, but always thought I had some other problem, just never made the connection....

So any way....

I am gonna water/feed manually until I come up with a new schedule, which I expect to be around once a day (previously was 4 times a day), and am backing off on the nutes, bringin them to 750ppm...

The idea being that I have been over watering and possibly over feeding, causing problems n the root zone, of which production and pest problems are symptoms of not necessarily the cause.

Wish me luck... I am running out of ideas

edit: oh and I have set up a bucket with a dunk in it and make bowls to set out. (thanks again fer the idea)

 

[HeadMed]

so its been this long ... I got rid of the sick looking plants, and did as I said above. I havent seen any more problems so far...

 

[HeadMed]

And now its been this long. I am 2 weeks away from harvesting the last few that were exposed to the sickness. I have also added CO2. I wish I had done that a long time ago. I noticed an immedtiate difference in the plants.

Gnats seem to be staying away... No more evidence of those freaky little worms, and plants are making it past the halfway point againm

Moral of the story.... Always remember the basics....

 

[Icemud]

Good that you got the fungus gnats under control. Good recommendations here for treatment. I have found these things to be effective against fungus gnats...

Mosquito Dunks, I use these about every other watering to keep the larvae from forming..

Yellow sticky cards.. put these everywhere that has shade in your tent... catches the adults before they can lay eggs..

azamax or azatrol...use as a soil dunk when you have a extremely bad infestation of larvae..

a clothes steamer- I used this to roast the larvae in the top 2" of my soil...took a while to make sure I got most of them, but killed the larvae instantly ...