Flood and drain reservoir maintenance?

Hi all,
So i have 2 flood&drain tables for clones and teens and a 25 gallon res for their nutrients.
I have come to ask the community how you guys maintain the water for a few days.
What can be added in the res to keep it from growing algae and cyanobacteria?
I tried h2o2 - it keeps it clean but then i get a boom of cyanobacteria growing in it.
Also tried adding hydroguard 2ml per gallon but the next day my water smells like crap and also cyanobacteria is growing in the res.
So would love to find out what you guys do in this case? unfortunately i am not able to get a chiller for it and temps in the res can go up to 80 degrees.

its probably one of your additives that is the culprit, when i first started flood and drain i used gh whole line of maxi series. I had more growth in my res. than the plants i was growing. Now i still use maxigro or maxibloom only, no additives, and I'm very careful what i put in my res. Oh and my res. is clean and clear.

is your res light-proof? sounds like no if you are getting algae

rkymtnman said:

is your res light-proof? sounds like no if you are getting algae

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What about 80 f res temp?

@shambler - i use GH micro grow bloom + gh calmag and nothing else
@rkymtnman - its in a 25 gallon gray trash can and yes it might have light leak but cyanobacteria could care less about light or no light lol
@Herb & Suds - ya lol , i know chiller would be very helpful but cant afford it right now.

Im just wondering if anyone has tried to keep their res sterile with something or with bennies and has been successful.
I know SAG ( garden friendly fungicide ) works as good if not better then hydroguard but from my experience they need roots to latch onto, and since this is my ebb&flow res i dont see how this would work. oh and shout out to @rkymtnman for introducing me to SAG about a year ago

now this is what i have tried to do.
I have an orp dosing pump , so i made myself a strong concentrate of liquid bleach and water, then i set my orp to hold it @about 500mv , it was doing its job but eventually i noticed that its using too much of the concentrate and im worried it might damage and deform my clones.
Last run i started to get single leafs coming out and deformed , I think it was due to too much bleach.

also i was thinking of buying a whole house uv light filter and attaching it to my 3 stage filter - kinda expensive so if anyone has had good luck with it please let me know.

Pool shock is where it’s at!

I ran a perpetual flood and drain system for 10+ years. After the first 5ish years I discovered using shock to create a sterile res environment. I learned that chlorine is infact a building block of growth for plants. So I gave it a try and never looked back.

I would mix 1 teaspoon shock granules into 1 gallon of water. That created a base solution which I added to my res every 3-4 days. I used 1oz per gallon in my res.

After I got used to about how much it took I just poured some in. Kept my res crystal clear and never had an issue again with shit growing.

Thundercat said:

Pool shock is where it’s at!

I ran a perpetual flood and drain system for 10+ years. After the first 5ish years I discovered using shock to create a sterile res environment. I learned that chlorine is infact a building block of growth for plants. So I gave it a try and never looked back.

I would mix 1 teaspoon shock granules into 1 gallon of water. That created a base solution which I added to my res every 3-4 days. I used 1oz per gallon in my res.

After I got used to about how much it took I just poured some in. Kept my res crystal clear and never had an issue again with shit growing.

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I have read and heard about pool shock a lot on this forum so thank u for reminding me of this.
what percent pool shock do you use?
When u say 1 teaspoon per gallon do you know how many mg that is? i looked it up and it says 1 teaspoon is about 5.6mg.
then you add 30ml per gallon of your base? sounds a little too much so just double checking
thank u for your help. Im actually gonna drive down to the pool store right now to pick up some pool shock.

Darknes01 said:

oh and shout out to @rkymtnman for introducing me to SAG about a year ago

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you're welcome.

the guy that turned me onto it ran dwc cucumbers outdoors in AZ in the summer. so res temp is important but can be overcome.

Darknes01 said:

I have read and heard about pool shock a lot on this forum so thank u for reminding me of this.
what percent pool shock do you use?
When u say 1 teaspoon per gallon do you know how many mg that is? i looked it up and it says 1 teaspoon is about 5.6mg.
then you add 30ml per gallon of your base? sounds a little too much so just double checking
thank u for your help. Im actually gonna drive down to the pool store right now to pick up some pool shock.

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HOnestly I can't remember for sure what percentage shock it was I wanna say 40-something. It was just standard shock, came in a pink container I think hth brand, but I only bought it once. I spent $9 on the container and it lasted for 5ish years before I threw the last out when I moved. I know there are a few threads on this site about sterlie reservoirs and using shock with the instructions. I'm pretty sure the original instructions I followed called for .5 g/gallon for the stock solution. I only weighed it once, and saw about how much it was and then used a little scoop after that.

I've been using .2ml 6% bleach per gal

Is there any airation to your rezz? You didn't mention it

I'm a bit cornfused. Algae does grow in light and Canabacteria photosynthesize in light, right?

So wouldn't a light resistant rezz be good?

Is the rezz changed frequently?

@Gemtree I tried that as well , it was working ok but i was worried about what else might be in the bottle of bleach so now going to test it with shock.
@BobThe420Builder I used to have air stones in there but took them out as cyanobacteria feeds off that and does not care about light, meaning it can grow pretty much in darkness. I change my rez frequently ( like every 3 to 4 days because of all this crap growing in it) but i was trying to figure out a way so it could last at least 7 days.
I just made some stock solution with pool shock and going to test it out, if i burn my plants then well i learned something lol, hopefully it wont and all works out.

I run a Rez pretty much always with air stones

Only real issue I've ever had was from light creating goopies in it

I use hydroguard and or z7

Light is not good in a Rezz after a few days

But I don't know...what I do anyways

I'm curious

What nutes are u running in your Rezz?

BobThe420Builder said:

I'm curious

What nutes are u running in your Rezz?

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GH micro+grow+bloom+calmag
i know airstones or water with hi DO levels prevents algae from growing but my issue is not the algae but the dam cyanobacteria, this nasty bacteria grows almost anywhere and in any condition. Even adding h2o2 does not kill it rather boosts it, its weird. only thing so far is bleach but its super easy to mess up and go overboard with bleach and kill the plants.

I tried 2 days go with new water + nuts + hydroguard and after 2 days it was a zoo in the rez so i just dumped out like 20 gallons and made a new batch. Im scratching my head trying to figure out a way to solve this forsaken cyanobacteria issue.
Interesting thing i that for my flower room i have 2 systems with a total of 44 buckets in RDWC setup and i also get cyanobacteria there but as soon as i get roots and i hit it with SAG or hydroguard it goes away, but since my ebb&flow rez has no roots basically in it , hydroguard just dies and becomes food i guess. not sure.

Tap or RO water?

BobThe420Builder said:

Tap or RO water?

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tap with 3 stage filter ppm is 250 after the filter

All I see is that Canabacteria uses light to grow

Cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, are microscopic organisms found naturally in all types of water. These single-celled organisms live in fresh, brackish (combined salt and fresh water), and marine water. These organisms use sunlight to make their own food.

I've always struggled, long term, in a Rezz with tap water

Too.much crap in it I guess

RO Buddy is my friend

I always just used plain old Clorox bleach/sodium hypochlorite. Kept things clean and didn't harm the plants. Pool shock/calcium hypochlorite is used by many people as well. Either one works.