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Dark roots in my bubble bucket?

jsschrstrcks

jsschrstrcks

I followed the directions for a DIY hydro system that uses a 5 gallon bucket, an airstone and pump, and a basket filled with perlite.

The plant seems to be growing like crazy, but after a torrential rain, I had to fish the plant out of the perlite (pushed down in) I happened to notice the roots were brown.

The seedling was started in dirt, rinsed, and put in the container under a week ago. Its outside getting about 7hrs of the FL sun (though its shaded in the hottest part of the day).

I'm using alaska brand Kelp with micro nutrients for my nutes. I have a detailed account of the construction of my bucket in my glog (linked below, just copy and paste in the address bar of your browser).

Are brown roots something to be concerned with when your fertilizer is also brown?

They were white when I put the plant into the bucket.

The bucket is painted black, but doesn't seem to get over about 92, which was less than our high yesterday.
 
the nutrients used may be doing the staining, but im not 100% sure as ive never used them. But if you look inside your bucket and feel the sides as well as the roots, you want to avoid anything slimy feeling.

for the natural methods to get rid of it im not sure, but to keep the brown roots and slime down in my setups in the past... ive always used Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) this will kill benifitial bacteria as well as the bad though... so it will kill the mychorize in your kelp nutes if it has it. ive only used synthetic type nutes. Researching H202 applications could help you out ??
 
I've just been reading about that, h202 sounds like it has some beneficial uses.

I don't believe it has any myco in it.

I just read the datasheet the manufacturer puts out, and it says that it may stain your skin brown.

This underlining is annoying and won't turn off, even when I click the underline button repeatedly.

Any way, I think if it will turn my skin brown, it will likely turn the roots brown as well.

So it might be a false alarm.
 
I read somewhere that 2 tbsp per gallon is an appropriate dose?

Do you have an amount that you would recommend for a 5 gallon bucket?
 
I am willing to bet that the issue you are having is from the water being WAY to hot. Also, it looks like your water levels are a bit high as well, should just touch the roots to start out and once they grow down, the water level should be kept a half to one inch from the basket it self to avoid stem rot.

-J


edit: prime water temp should be in the mid to high 60s for max o2 retention
 
hahaha, 60.

in Florida? Thats an entertaining thought, but shy of a cooler, I'm not sure how I could get the temp down that far.

We haven't seen 60f during the day for.... well, since maybe january.

I have some snazzy plans for insulating it, but I bet that only buys me ~10 degrees.

If I can keep it out of the 90s in the afternoons, will it still survive?

Also good call on the water level, the rain filled the bucket. I hadn't thought about that.
 
That is the downside of setting a DWC outdoors without having a chilled or buried water source that is recirulating. If you are not able to get the water temps down your plant will never do much of anything but stay stunted with very little root development. I have a hard enough time keeping indoor DWC temps into the 60s to even consider doing something outside. Even without direct sunlight the heated air around the bucket will still heat the water regardless unless you insulate it and use something to cool the water ever so often to try and maintain temps in the 70s.

-J
 
You will have to control nutrient temp if you want to succeed with hydro. The more oxygen in the solution, the better. Oxygen will also control pathogens.
How do the roots smell? Often a good indicator of pythium.

oxygen-solubility-water-2.png
 
I used to work at a computer shop that fixed problems with HP DV6's that would over heat melting the solder around the chip that controls the video for the laptop...

We used aluminum foil to protect the rest of the board. The chipset would be hot enough to melt your skin if you touched it, but the stuff on the otherside of the foil would be cool to the touch.

I'm planning to experiment with making an aluminum foil box (bucket + 6 inches of airspace + foil + 6 inches + foil, all the way around)... How you ask?

If it works I'll post back how I made structural, and insulative foil :P.

Still not sure its going to get my temps down where they need to be.. But not everyone lives in Florida.
 
no.

If I can't cool it by building something insulative, then I'll move on to a different way.I've only got 1 of 365 plants in hydro. Its just an experiment. I'm ok with the plant dying for science. But IF I can't build something with materials I have on hand, that will protect it from the heat of the day, then I need to call the experiment a failure and move on.

If the thing I'm designing fails, then its time to talk about moving on.
 
I don't think living in FL really has much to do with it the issue at hand.

Could always try freezing some water bottles and tossing them in there to see how long the water takes to drop where you want it and how long before it starts to warm up again before replacing them. Just a thought.

-J
 
i had black buckets on a baclony, my res temps were into the 90's! here is what i did and it has worked! i wrap the buckets and lids with HVAC foil tape, bought a sheet of 2' thick Styrofoam insulation and some poly sheeting(black on one side,white on other) wrap with tape cut a little square of styrofoam to sit the bucket on so the heat from the ground does not transfer to the bucket, and i cut a sleeve of poly to wrap around the outside leaving an air space. and even on 90F days the temps in the res does not get about 72.

on a side note, you want to keep your air pump i the shade or in a cooler location as if it is pumping HOT air through it then that will contribute to raising the water temps,
here is a pic of what my DWC looks like wrapped in the plastic
DSC_0008.jpg
 
Well living in FL does impact the feasibility of having an outdoor hydro setup. I've built it with stuff I had on hand for the most part (except my old bubble wand was too big, had to pick up a smaller one). If this is going to fit in with my lifestyle, it needs to be low maintenance. Which is why I'm trying to build a passive cooling system... We'll see if it works or not, if If I can't get it down to where its going to be healthy, I'll dump it out, no worries either way.

Aye its in the shade.
 
I brought out my teperature gun, and scanned the air pump (which was in the shade) and it had hit 102 degrees. Which is MUCH hotter than I would like to see. I suspect that temp point would shorten the life of the airpump as well...

So I decided to merge in technology from my trade, and built a Heat Sync out of aluminum foil... Its ugly, and needs some refinement, but It lowered the temperature by 19 degrees in about 5 minutes. Once the glue dries, I'll put it back on the hydro unit.

The perlite is sitting at about 98 degrees.

If I can keep the heat out of the plastic, the water shouldn't heat up... Its theoreticaly possible for me to use this to bring the temps down into the 70s.... Not quite optimal, but leaps and bounds ahead of where I was.

Also the roots were turning white again after the rain, so it might not even be the heat that is causing problems... I did add the H2O2 however, and in the proportions I posted earlier.

All the pictures are in my glog as always.
 
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