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It's my first time doing hydroponics, I am using the GH Flora series. Yesterday I changed my Basil's water to use those nutrients, along with epsom salt and CaMg.

Everything was fine all day yesterday, and today, until a few hours ago I checked and everything was "bad".

Here is a folder of all the pictures:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cH5gRP2ddOce01VeVU-78B6wqkqOewQh?usp=sharing

The plant still looks healthy for now, and obviously I shouldn't have a clear container, but I noticed this same stuff in one of my other plant's containers, which was spray painted opaque.

Any insight would be helpful, I don't want to mess up really bad :(

benn
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d4rk s1gm
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1 Answers1

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They look like salts from the nutrients you are using and suggests that you have too many nutrients in the water. The same thing happens on terracotta pots at the bases. You should flush the nutrient solution you're using and use a fresh mix. It's suggested that you use reverse osmosis water to flush your media.

https://www.maximumyield.com/remember-to-flush/2/1206

Graham Chiu
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  • Might also be precipitates from reaction between hard water and the nutrients. You might want to get a ppm meter to see where your source water stands. If you can't get RO water, distilled works as well. – Wayfaring Stranger Dec 03 '17 at 15:58
  • From research on a pot site I think it's more likely bacteria buildup due to the basil's dead roots. It happened in all other containers with roots that still had some peat moss on them, and some of their older roots were black and rotting as well, just like the basil's. I mixed the nutrients according to manufacturer (GH) and PH was good. Water temp was also ~75 degrees for a while. Not sure that it was salt buildup in < 24 hours, especially for my other containers the scum grew in 12 hours. This was completely fresh water + nutes, not there for more than a day. – d4rk s1gm Dec 04 '17 at 20:41
  • Well, your pictures have disappeared so I can't confirm my recollection that the roots were white, which is not dead. Perhaps upload a couple of images to imgur and link from there. – Graham Chiu Dec 04 '17 at 20:46