Do these plants all need to be scapped????

[Tarah Bertsch]

My plants shoot up and then have been slowly turning brown and get a white web ??? I am wondering what to do....should I scrap them and start all over??? What can I do to stop this trend 

[Tarah Bertsch]

Is this pythium???

[Keith Rowan]

your media is too wet..is that rockwool?

[Vlad Jovanovic]

yeah, it's rockwool...and it's way, way, super-duper too wet to be good news. Tarah, you can look forward to a world of various hurt with seeding material that wet. 

[Tarah Bertsch]

what should I use????

[Tarah Bertsch]

its a raft system

Tarah Bertsch said:

what should I use????

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Any thing that doesn't get that wet. Many folks use hydroton, hydrocorn, any type of LECA, volcanic cinders, rocks etc...

[Jim Troyer]

Hi Tarah

Your water is too deep, it just needs to touch the rock wool so it can wick water up into the media. 

The link below is the system is I use, it solved most of my problems,  I didn't like rock wool, the mulch plugs are the key, only fill the bottom tray with water until there is 1/4" up through the plug tray.  I transplant when they are an inch or two high into the AP system, leave the starter plug on the plant, it should barley touch the AP water.  Vlad says to clip the roots to create more root spread, it works well.  I am just slicing off a 1/4" of the plug with a razor blade during transplant to nip the roots..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ttcvegy7c

good luck

[Tarah Bertsch]

SOoooo this is not pythium?? I removed all the plants because they all either shriveled or got the brown spots. After looking at the pictures above do I have to drain and sanitize the whole system including fish tanks which are attached or what do you suggest I need to do before I start over with new plants??? There are millions of little gnats also...whenever I snatched one out of its whole... dead gnats lay in the water .....AHHHHH.   (SYstem is raft 8,000 gallons including fish tanks)

[Jim Troyer]

Just start new plants; spray the gnats with soapy water, then use a dip net to clean the water... 8000 gallons! Nice!