One thing that always gets told is “Hydroponics is very clean and doesn’t need microbes”.

Sure, mycorrhiza shouldn’t play as much of a role in hydro as it does for soil. The plants get all their nutrients directly from the fertilizer, and waste products should get flushed out regularly.

But, especially in the beginning, I always had trouble with root rot. Besides leftover organic matter and insufficient aeration as possible culprits, I think not having well established beneficial bacteria/ fungi was one reason the pathogenic microbes took over and killed almost everything in the container.

To counteract this, I recently bought water soluble microbes (a mix of dozens different fungi and bacteria) and tested them, especially in semi-hydro.

I’m not sure if it had any effects. For the already established plants, the effects were way less significant than for new ones.

One thing I definitely noticed is the very pleasant “earthy” smell, similar to a rainfall in the summer, when I stick my nose into the substrate.

And, those plants, where the roots got damaged (e.g. my ginger where I continually harvest, or recently transitioned plants with leftover soil) got some fungus gnats. Really not a lot, just here and there one or two, but there are some! They also disappeared a few days later and didn’t multiply.

The thing is, many hydro growers put A LOT of effort into keeping everything very clean. Some even proposed to include the ORP value (oxygen reduction potential) just as much as pH and EC, because it tells you how hostile the environment is to microbes and/ or how well stuff can decompose.

I just don’t know how I should keep my setup THAT clean outside. It’s just normal for me that small insects, leafes and other stuff fall into my reservoir.

And this litter needs to decompose somehow. And I’d rather have it decomposed by a well established microbial culture than some pathogenic stuff that lands on there.

Am I just messy, and I should take hygiene more seriously, or is this totally fine? What’s your point of view on this topic?