Molasses & Hydro? Bad idea??

[woodydude]

Gixx, RDWC is recirculating deep water culture. Basically hydro buckets where the water is also pumped around the system. I have my pump feeding drippers which drip into the netpots. Not the kind of thing you want clogging up with sticky goo!

Casual, my plan was to disolve some BSM into boiling water, let it cool, then add to system.

LMAO @ bugs in Florida! I am in Scotland on the East coast, on the West coast they get midges but over here no such problems!

I read the article in my first post in this thread, it was good and made a very good case for using BSM. I understand it is meant for the microbes that live in soil but is it the microbes in the soil or the root mass?

Either way, I am going to run a little experiment over a day or so to see what happens. I will be using an old solution after a res change, it wont have the plants in it but it is not the plants I was worried about, more concerned with everything cloggin up with goo.

 

[robz]

Been there done that. Won't do it again. Slimy roots equals unhappy plants.

 

[woodydude]

Ok, so I've been running a test ojn the equipment over the last 24 hours.
I have uploaded some pics since someone asked about what a RDWC is and I thought it sensible to post pics to show howw I set this up as it is a little different from others.

Start with a bucket, this is 20l (just over 5 US Gal)

Stick an airstone in it with some tubing.


Connect tubing to a pump, for the purposes of this test, it is a 10l/min variable air pump. I normally connect 2 outlets to 1 bucket, giving 5l/min per bucket but I use 2 pumps with 1 connection from each in case a pump fails, it means I shouldnt have plants dying on me.

I also have a dripper delivering solution through the netpot, just 2l/h of solution, I saw it being used and since I had the equipment I thought why not. I have no proof if there is any benefit to doing this. The dripper is connected to a low power water pump.

The buckets are joined together by hoses which are connected by push fit connections which have a valve to turn off supply to any bucket so they can be moved, changed/whatever. I like building in some flexibility to anything I make.


This is a 4 bucket setup, 3 would normally contain plants, the 4th is the controller bucket which is used to save having to disturb the plants for checking ph, topping up, adding nutes etc. As the 4 are connected together, the level of liquid as the same in each. If I need to remove a bucket, say if a plant matures earlier than others, I raise its bucket above the liquid level, drain it, close the tap, then unhook it.


This was a test run for leaks, better if they happen in my kitchen than in the m iddle of my grow room. Since I wanted to try out the molasses on the equipment, I used a 2 week old nute solution I had from yesterdays nute change over. AN sensi bloom with big bud.

I disolved 2tbl spoons of molasses into boiling water and mixed. Then I left it for half an hour to cool before adding it to the solution and set up.

What did I learn from this? Well, the molasses didnt clog as I expected, everything ran fine and since I was using restrictive drippers, restricted to 2l/h, I thought they may clog up worse but I think a much longer test would need to be ran.
Of course there were no plants used in this test so I cannot say anything about slimey roots. When I have had slimey roots in the past, it has been algae and was cured by using H2O2 but since the idea of using molasses is to feed the friendly bacteria that live in the root zone, adding H2O2 would probably just kill them off so the whole exercise would be pointless. Since the aim is to feed the bacteria, I would think the benefit of doing this would be to do so early in flowering or evn through veg, to do it just for the last week or 2 of flower seems pointless to me, even in soil.

I intend to try it out for a week when I put some plants in to flower this weekend. Again, to check the effects on the kit and to see if slimey roots appear. I will be keeping a close eye on things though and the first sign of hassle will get rid of the molasses.

 

[niteshft]

Clogging happens over a long period of time by crystals forming around the opening and inside the tubing.

Has anyone made rock candy by hanging a string in a container of sugar solution? This is the same thing that is happening here but in the lines and around the openings rather than on the string.