7/18/13: I can totally identify with the first sentence of your post, Roark. Finally a moment to sit down and make another post. It's been over a week since our last post, just been too busy. Helping some friends with a collective garden do some trimming, great practice for these ladies coming up, heh, heh...
So right before this trimming work came up, our plants started to develop brown root algae, starting as a clear snot like substance growing on the roots, I read that cleaning all your lines and stones and doing a fresh bucket change, along with spraying off your roots can sometimes clear it up, so I tried this first, and for one day it seemed to be working, but just a couple days later the stuff was back, worse than ever, and finally
progressing to this:
Fortunately since I'm a member of a great forum such as this one, I had only to look to the posts of others who had dealt with the same problem. The DIY compost tea thread was fabulously helpful, although I did end up deciding to buy an all in one compost tea in a box. It was $49 for a supply that will make 40 gallons (enough to supply us for several grows) I had to brew the tea overnight:
while I went to help out my friends at the collective, then apply it, and go out to my friends from Friday night through Sunday morning. Needless to say, I was more than a little nervous leaving our babies for this long. My wife was here, but she doesn't yet know all the ins and outs of the garden, and with the brown algae the buckets ph has been jumping 2.5 to 3 full points in a matter of hours, but I sucked it up, ph'd the buckets, and left. Unlike me, you don't have to wait, here are the results:
I can't sing the praises of that compost tea enough! If anyone runs into this difficulty, I highly recommend it. Not only did the roots do a great job of healing up, but over a 2 day period, I didn't have to re-ph one bucket, every one fell comfortably in the proper ph range and some even stayed exactly where I had left them!! Wow!! The girls were starting to look a wee sad before, but now they're perking right up.
Another hurdle surmounted, and I don't believe we'll suffer from this issue any more. The NL's are finally starting to flower, when they get a little farther along more pics. Thanks to all out there following this thread, and looking forward to its successful conclusion.
:stylez rasta smoke: