DWC Root Slime Cure aka How to Breed Beneficial Microbes

Docter Greenthumb said:

Yo Heisenberg-What base nutes do you use? Any addatives?

I've been having great succes using dyna-gro and am currently testing Humbolt Big Up powder with it in my DWC set up. I haven't had problems with this slime build-up, but I also use Hygrozyme in all my grows. Part of me says if it's not broke don't fix it but I'm tempted to ditch the Hyrgrozyme and give your tea a shot for a comparison. Have you ever tried Hygrozyme?

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In a system that is plagued with slime, an enzyme product is one of the worst things you could add. Basically the enzymes flood the water with food and cause the slime to explode in about 12 hours. Even the bennies have a hard time keeping up and eventually the slime out grows everything else. If you are using hygrozyme and not having any problem, I would say that is evidence that you are slime free. If I wanted to switch over I would do a test bucket. I've learned never to subject the whole crop to a change no matter how much sense it makes. The tea is pretty cheap to make and you might find you like the results better than an enzyme.

I use the Dutch Master gold nute line for bud. It really isn't that much more expensive than GH and far superior. I use their Add27 for a booster and it seems to cover everything. I use their liquid light foliar spray along with the saturator additive, and the results still amaze me. I use the APS spray on my cuttings and it keeps them growing as if they already had roots. Everything Dutch Master sells does what it claims to. I do not use the silica additive, and for veg nutes I save a bit of money and use the advance line as opposed to the gold. I like Dutch Master because they have a purely scientific approach to their nutes and pride themselves on using the best quality chemicals. The only other product I use is Snowstorm Ultra from Humbolt. It helps the plant make essential oils, in other words, boosts trich production.

Or, you could just use AquaShield by Botanicare. It contains the beneficial bacterium for healthy roots and causes much less ph fluctuation in hydro.

RemeberMe said:

Or, you could just use AquaShield by Botanicare. It contains the beneficial bacterium for healthy roots and causes much less ph fluctuation in hydro.

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Aquashield is part of the tea recipe. Breeding it in the tea makes it last longer. It's a great product especially for the price. The ZHO powder I recommend is also from Botanicare, and contains beneficial fungi. Aquashield alone might be enough to prevent disease, but IMO the trichoderma fungi is a must for someone trying to cure the slime.

One thing the trichoderma do is induce plant host resistance, which could be one reason why older more established plants don't need to be treated as often.

Bump, and check in.

Six of nine girls have fully recovered, and are beginning to eat, drink and grow as mature moms again. The last 10% scraps of slime that were left lingering in various buckets has disappeared. Some seemingly lifeless roots have popped very beautiful, very fragile looking new roots... the sick roots are now at full strength, while the completely dead roots have dissolved noticeably.

The other three of nine girls haven't died, still in shock I suppose, so there's still hope.

I started three more beans (in their net pots) to see if I can start new life again!

Just here to update this thread and to confirm its success to others who have not tried this yet. I've been using this since prolly after a week he made this thread. This is my first dwc grow and I am having amazing success and I point that credit toward this recipe and this wondering beneficial tea. I do two batchs a week, 2 1/2 galons at a time and just add a few cups to my five gallon buckets.

A+
should be sticked
very cheap, very good, a must for all dwc growers

How can I use this in a ebb and flow set up. I currently run great white with every res change. Thinking if this will work for me. Also should I look for feeding or houseing beni's in my res. Thanks for your info.

AdamBlack760 said:

How can I use this in a ebb and flow set up. I currently run great white with every res change. Thinking if this will work for me. Also should I look for feeding or houseing beni's in my res. Thanks for your info.

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You can use the tea just the same as anyone else. Do not worry about food or housing in the res, just replace the microbes every few days with a fresh cup of tea. For now you can just use the great white in the tea recipe in place of the aquashield and ZHO, when you run out you can buy the cheaper products.

If you do want to add housing it certainly wont hurt anything. Some people use the housing to transfer over during res changes which helps inoculate the new water. Lava rocks are probably the most popular form of housing, while Japanese matts designed for koi ponds seem to be the most effective. You could get fancy and install a bio-filter made for ponds, they sell them at lowes. But as I said, housing is not necessary at all.

So glad to hear about others success. Thanks for updating us on your progress. The slime cost me much time and money, happy to help others kill it.

So I should use a gal in my 15 gal resi. How much ewc do u use it says 2 handfulls(2 cups 4 cups) should I mix the great white as recommend on the tub to however many gal I brew. Thanks for the quick reply. +
rep

Yep anywhere from 3/4 to 1 gal would do it for the initial inoculation. You can scale it back a bit when dealing with a bigger res. After that I would add 2-4 cups every 3 days until roots are well established. You don't have to be exact with the EWC, I do roughly one handful per gallon now, i've used much more in the past. I suppose one handful would be more or less a cup. I've never used great white but what I would do is take the amount recommended for the amount of tea you make, and half it.

Thanks for the help and for keeping the thread alive

Hey Heis - Do you use anything for your roots besides the tea? I'm curious especially about rhizotonic.. the pictures i see of roots with it are amazing. think it could be added it to the mix? BTW thanks again you saved my grow.

I don't currently use anything other than the tea, but rhizotonic and roots excell could both be used to give the tea a boost. Both are similar and effective products, but use them in the tea and not the res, like anything else; Roots excell especially, it has some rocket fuel in it to give the stuff a jump start, which could feed the slime instead if put directly into the res. Roots excell should be added about 1ml per gallon, and I assume rhizotonic is roughly the same. If you decide to experiment to find the right dose for rhizotonic let us know what you find out.

In my experience with these types of root stimulator, you should notice elongated lateral roots within just a few days.

would this be an acceptable subsitute for ancient forest? http://www.hydroponics.net/i/132414

letitgrow79 said:

would this be an acceptable subsitute for ancient forest? http://www.hydroponics.net/i/132414

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Nope. That would be an acceptable substitute for both the ZHO and the Aquashield, as it has the bacteria and fungi together. Nice price too. It is meant for soil but should work just fine in the tea.

You could never match the diversity you get from EWC with any bottled product. While the high end products contain dozens and dozens of different microbe species, EWC contains tens of thousands. If you have a slime problem, I truly believe having a hugely diverse micro-army plays a big part in fighting it. You can however substitute the ancient forest with just about any other earth worm castings. A bag of wiggle worm is like $1 and it's a pretty common brand for shops to carry.

If you only want to prevent the slime and reap the other benefits from bennies, you can probably get away with just using bottled products, multiplied tea style. Preventing the slime is much much easier than curing it, and once your plants get established they will do a fine job at keeping it away by themselves.

What is a rhizosphere? Well rhizospheres refer to soil, in hydro, we are talking about a rhizoplane. A rhizosphere can be easily washed away with rain, while the rhizoplane remains even after vigorous flooding. It simply refers to the microlife and environment that surrounds the roots surface. Bacteria and fungi that live within the cells of the root are not considered a part of the rhizoplane, but are instead called endophytes.

If you are wondering what some of these microbes do, here is a short list of the more important ones.

Bacillus - The unifying characteristic of Bacillus bacteria is that they are Gram-positive, form endospores, and grow in the presence of O2. The trivial name assigned to them is aerobic sporeformers.

Bacillus subtilis - (Bacillus uniflagellatus, Bacillus globigii, Bacillus natto) Bacillus subtilis cells are rod-shaped bacteria that are naturally found in soil and vegetation. Bacillus subtilis grow in the mesophilic temperature range. The optimal temperature is 25-35 degrees Celsius. Stress and starvation are common in this environment, therefore, Bacillus subtilis has evolved a set of strategies that allow survival under these harsh conditions. Bacillus subtilis bacteria are non-pathogenic. They can contaminate food, however, they seldom result in food poisoning. They are used on plants as a fungicide. They are also used on agricultural seeds, such as vegetable and soybean seeds, as a fungicide. The bacteria, colonized on root systems, compete with disease causing fungal organisms. Bacillus subtilis use as a fungicide fortunately does not affect human.

Paenibacillus polymyxa - Nitrogen fixer and plant growth-promoting rhizobacterium with a broad host range. Fluorescence microscopy and electron scanning microscopy indicated that the bacteria colonized predominantly the root tip, where they formed biofilms.
Certain bacteria are capable of fixing nitrogen. In this process, nitrogen gas (N2) is converted to ammonium (NH4+), a form of nitrogen that is biologically available to plants. The reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme nitrogenase. Because nitrogenase is inactivated by oxygen, the reaction must occur in a low oxygen environment. (So we don't get much of this in a DWC)

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens - strains of B. amyloliquefaciens bacteria, which occur in association with certain plants, are known to synthesize several different antibiotic substances, including bacillaene, macrolactin, and difficidin. Among NRPS antibiotics, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens was found to produce surfactin, iturin A, fengycin A and fengycin B. By modifying cell surface properties, surfactin and iturin were reported to positively influence cell spreading, swarming and biofilm formation and thus may globally favour plant root colonization. Furthermore, iturins and fengycins display strong antifugal activity and are inhibitory for the growth of a wide range of plant pathogens.

Another recently established role for lipopeptides from beneficial Bacillus isolates is the stimulation of the plant immune system. Surfactins and, to a lesser extent, fengycins can induce a priming state in host plant which allows an accelerated activation of defense responses upon pathogen or insect attack, leading to an enhanced resistance to the attacker encountered.

Trichoderma harzianum is a fungus that is also used as a fungicide. It is used for foliar application, seed treatment and soil treatment for suppression of various disease causing fungal pathogens. Trichoderma readily colonizes plant roots and some strains are rhizosphere competent i.e. able to grow on roots as they develop. Trichoderma spp. also attack, parasitize and otherwise gain nutrition from other fungi. They have evolved numerous mechanisms for both attack of other fungi and for enhancing plant and root growth. Different strains of Trichoderma control almost every pathogenic fungus for which control has been sought.

Glomus intradices - In numerous scientific studies G. intraradices has been shown to increase phosphorus uptake in multiple plants as well as improve soil aggregation due to hyphae. In hydro the hyphae greatly increase the surface area of the roots. Helps in displacement of harmful microbes by depriving them of housing and food.

As I stated, the plant will actually sense the presence of microbes, and send some food down to the roots for them. This can appear as a very slight coating of slime.

Plant-derived compounds are responsible for providing the additional carbon that allows the rhizosphere to host a large variety of organisms. These compounds fall into five categories: exudates, secretions, mucilages, mucigel, and lysates.

Exudates include surplus sugars, amino acids, and aeromatics that diffuse out of cells to the intercellular space and surrounding soil.

Secretions are byproducts of metabolic activity.

Mucilages are cells sloughed off the root cap as the root grows.

Mucigel is a slime coating the surface of a root that increases the connectivity between plant roots and the surrounding soil.

Lysates from within the cell become available to the surrounding microbial community when an epidermal root cell dies and is broken open



Sources
Microbe-wiki
mass nature
Bacteria textbook
Cell Factories

Heisenberg probably won't appreciate being labeled a "god," but he is my new hydrogod just the same. I've been struggling with that "brown slime" for nearly ten months, pumping hundreds of dollars into products that were guaranteed to clear it up, only to end up dumping crop after crop after crop, all the while paying through the nose for chillers and airpumps and enzymes and sterilizers and everything under the sun to make the slime stop. I found his tea recipe last week and thought it couldn't hurt to try, I've sure tried everything else. Today, I've got roots whiter than I knew roots could be, and they are so huge that I'm going to need a bigger DWC tank. One week! After eight months of extremely costly and frustrating treatments, I've got healthier roots than I've ever seen in just one week!

I can't thank this guy enough. I was honestly ready to give up on hydro altogether, it was just no fun at all, only hugely expensive and massively frustrating. No more snake oil for me. I am following Heisenberg's recipe not only for tea, but for nutes. Whatever he is doing, I want to be doing. I am tossing my whole massive backlog of products into my front yard oleander and wishing them luck. My hydro tank is now full of beneficial tea and DM gold nutes. Thank you again, Heisenberg. I made things so much more complicated than they needed to be, I feel like an idiot, but at least I'm on the right track now.

BTW...My college thesis was on Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason," I am right with you on the idea that two working hands accomplish more than a thousand clasped in prayer. I was already not wasting this life trying to save a soul which was never lost, but am now also not wasting it combatting brown slime with ineffective overpriced products. Thanks again!

Thanks for the praise. It always make me happy to hear when someone else defeats the slime. I understand your frustration very well. I know the feeling of ordering products and waiting for them to be delivered while wondering if it's really gonna do the trick this time, only to be disappointed once again. I spent hours and hours scrubbing and switching out ice bottles and wondering what I was doing wrong. In the end the slime always won. It really made growing a frustrating and laborious experience.

Hope you like the DM nutes. Be sure to save yourself some money and use the advanced line for veg, and save the gold for bud. I don't bother with the add27 veg boost either because my plants spend only a few weeks in veg. Once I move them to the bud room, I still give them veg nutes the first week. After that they get gold nutes and add27 flower boost, which is all you need. Absolutely be sure to pick up the liquid light and saturator, there amazing products.

If your into reason and logic hop over to the spirituality section of the forums, we can always use more sane people there.

Dear Heisenberg,

I am itching to try this tea. How often do you change your DWC rez?

neobes said:

Dear Heisenberg,

I am itching to try this tea. How often do you change your DWC rez?

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For veg I change when I switch tubs, so about 2 weeks. For mothers even longer. In bud I change every 7-10 days.



Dug out my old camera since I've been getting requests to see my roots. This plant was in veg for 2 weeks and has been in bud for 3 1/2. The net pot you see is 3in.



Here's the upper part, strain is cheese

+rep... After finding slim in my rez..on my air stones, pump ( none on roots , yet) I searched for hrs. (read till 5;30 a.m !).. Found this post.. Much appreciated! Going out now to find tea brew products... update,, Got lucky , my hydro store had everything exactly as you outlined,,, and a free sample of the zho... Im ready to grow my army.... thx a billion Heisenberg !