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root removal from hydroton HELP!

My hydro experiment this year went much better than expected I am now however trying to remove the hydroton from the root system and need some help. I am not sure if its worth my time to try and get the hydroton out of these roots, they are hanging on tight. Will soaking them in hydrogen peroxide loosen them out or should I just use new hydroton? I hate wasting and dont really want to throw them away. Anybody out there know an easy way of doing this? I used a flood and flow system the holes in the roots are the inlet and outlet. Any help would be appreciated!

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wow, i guess success comes with its own problems. i usually just let them dryout and separated away the ones i could then tossed the rest. i stopped using hydroton a while back tho,tho i still find them in my driveway and grass, they get everywhere.

im not sure that peroxide would help... i dont think it would be cost effective. but maby toss a bag of pool shock into a bucket along with the roots?

oh yea... when in doubt use acid . gallon of pool acid is like 13 bucks tho.
 
wow, i guess success comes with its own problems. i usually just let them dryout and separated away the ones i could then tossed the rest. i stopped using hydroton a while back tho,tho i still find them in my driveway and grass, they get everywhere.

im not sure that peroxide would help... i dont think it would be cost effective. but maby toss a bag of pool shock into a bucket along with the roots?

oh yea... when in doubt use acid . gallon of pool acid is like 13 bucks tho.


I heard that HP helps bubble it away. been working on it making some progress. Did you find something else you like more than hydroton?
 
what about fire? and maby a wash with a hose :rofl: ? oxidizing away ALL the roots the stuff seems kinda overkill.
im not sure about peroxide tbh, it is a strong oxidizer, but its not terribly persistent like chlorine.
really I dont know tho, i always just let them dry out and shook loose what i could. THEN i would bath the geolite in a 5 gallon bucket with a cup of calcium hypochlorite(pool shock) the little roots that were left over got dissolved into some sort of pasty dust at the bottom of the bucket. ive never tried to recover 100% of the geolite tho so you are doing something quite different.
i would start by drying that mass out as best as possible, then seeing what methods work best.

edit: no i still use geolite, its just been a while since ive done a hydro grow.
 
I use gravel and the roots pretty much all came up. But I read in a book once that every couple of years you need to flush with a bleach solution to clear it out, so you might want to try that.
 
Hey Lazien... Why not fire? I don't think it will harm the clay that got put into a kiln. What kind of system were you running? I can't from the picture figure out what happened.
 
I've no experience with hydroton at all but-

When in doubt- burn it!!! Not always the best alternative, but it's always fun!!
 
Well the fire sounds like fun but ended up taking some scissors to them and soaking in HP than rinsing the hell out of them. Got most of the roots out of it. geolite looks very similar to hydroton. I didnt recovery 100% left a few near the top of the roots but happy with overall recovery rate. On to the next one.
 
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