Slime Reservoir and Plants Deficiency
Hi everyone,
I am dealing with a nightmare slime/biofilm issue in my AutoPot setup and desperately need some advice because nothing seems to work.
Here is my setup for reference:
- 25L reservoir
- 50/50 coco/perlite mix correctly buffered
- Nutrients line all salt-based, using TerraAquatica/General Hydroponics TriPart with CalMag supplementation.
- pH 5.8 and 1.8 EC
- Reservoir temperature 20 ~ 22c degrees celcius.
- VPD 1.2 - 1.6
- Going to Week 5 of Flower.
Here is everything I have already done to try and solve it:
- Deep cleaned the entire system multiple times using bleach.
- Used long pipe brushes to physically scrub the inside of all the lines.
- Completely replaced all the hoses and plastic fittings/connectors with brand-new ones.
- Started running a low preventative dose of bleach in my main reservoir.
- Opened new nutrient bottles in case any were cross-contaminated (though not probable, as every nutrient bottle has its own pipette).
Despite all of this, the slime keeps coming back. At first, I was preparing the reservoir and 2 days later it was already cloudy with a lot of slime/biofilm and the PH dropping a lot (as shown in the second photo). After all the intensive cleaning and hardware changes, the reservoir is much clearer now (I can see the bottom of it), but I still find slime appearing around day 5 or 6.
Interestingly, I've noticed a pattern: it always appears in the valve trays first, and only after some time does it start to show up or cause issues back toward the reservoir.
To test if it was coming from inside the pots, I recently performed a top-down flush on the pots using a water and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) solution. Surprisingly, NO slime, chunks, or signs of root rot came out of the bottom drainage holes—the runoff was completely clean, indicating the core substrate and roots inside the medium seem healthy.
Has anyone ever experienced this specific issue where the slime seems to take over the trays first, even with a clean res and brand-new lines? How did you finally fix it? Could it be hiding on the root control discs, the pot plastic, or somewhere else?
Any help or insights would be highly appreciated. Thanks!