I've seen some conflicting info on watering schedules. I am new to hydro and am still dialing in my set up. On this trial run I have been getting abnormal and stunted growth in veg stage. 4x8 ebb and flow (table is home built with a pond liner). 2 1000w hps lights 18on/6off. I have a cheap soil ph tester that gets the job done for soil, but is horrible for hydro. Even adding ph down it keeps creeping back up to 7. Have an air pump with 6 stones on it that run when the pumps turn on. Medium is hydroton on bottom of pots with big city soilless on top 3/4 of pots. Keeping ppm at around 700. (after a week I found that we have extremely hard water. 225ppm outta the well. Using creek water which is at 75ppm till I can get a R/O water filter.) Currently running pumps at 15 mins on 45 minutes off. My main question is, am I overwatering with the hydroton and big city?
Thank you for the detailed account of your grow. The best way to determine a good watering schedule for your plants is to pick a day that you can peek in on them once an hour or so, and stop watering all together. Note the time of the last watering, then let them dry up. See how long it takes for them to begin to get a little saggy, then you'll know that you should be watering before they get saggy. That should give you a basic idea on the max time you can go without watering them. That said, you can probably easily feed for 10-15 minutes every 2 hours (depends on plant size and root system size, and your environment) This extra time to oxygenate the root zone will be very good for your plants. Additionally, it sounds like maybe your pH is having an effect on the plants. Rather than using pH Down, try adding more nutrients, which are acidic, and will lower the pH for you. Only after you've reached 1200 PPM, then maybe use a little pH down. As long as these are mature plants (or rooted clones) and not just seedlings, you should be able to feed up to 1200 PPM without any worries. This may help your pH issue. pH rising is likely a sign of calcium in your base water. This could be good for your plants if you leverage it right, but acts as a buffer raising your pH. You can either filter it out, or add more nutrients to counter the effects of the calcium in your water. Hope this helps!!
Thanks Original, Today I picked up a decent ph tester and was sitting at 6.9. I dropped it down with the ph adjuster. Which nutes do you reccommend to bring it down that are stable. I have read about some(citrus, vinegar) that can create a up and down effect over a couple of days. I'll do the watering test tomorrow and post back how it goes. As well as up the ppm. I'm interested to see how that changes the ph. The plants are 1 month old clones that I stunted by keeping in the cloning tray too long. I was going to toss them, but instead decided to use em to get my hydro running right. I didnt want to stress out a crop that I was going to take to bud.