Advanced Nutrients Ph Perfect Issues.

So, after having grown in an aeroponic system for a few years, I discovered Advanced Nutrients pH Perfect line for the first time just recently. I decided to give it a go. I thought, "Awesome, I don't have to fiddle with pH anymore." So I wanted to share my experience with pH perfect and address some of the issues that I've consistently heard people mention in various forums in regard to problems and plant deficiencies using A/N's pH Perfect line.
 
1. IMHO, A/N pH perfect is too "hot" to use on young plants. I grow from seed usually, primarily just for the sport of it. I do it for fun. No production facility business guy am I. My system is a homemade aeroponic system which naturally aerates the water. Even so, I've added a air stone to the reservoir anyway just to be sure. I'm typically starting sixteen plants, but this time that has dropped to seven girls after weeding out the males - usually my ratio is much higher, but you can't hit them all out of the park. (Now I'm wondering if the nutes have something to do with that. Hmmmm.) Anyway...
 
So after getting my seedlings to the 1 week point, I'll typically install them into my aero system. In the past I've started them off with a very light General Hydro solution (about 20% of recommended), and that has worked well. I tried to do that with pH perfect and it shocked and stunted them. It took an extra week for them to finally come around. So...probably should stick with a very light, simple mix initially and just go through the adjusting-the-pH hassle. Actually, it's not much of a hassle at all since the seedlings are really not needing much at this point, but other factors can creep in that mess with the pH, like overall quality and ppm of tap water, etc. 
 
2. After doing a significant amount of research in growing forums, the problems I kept seeing over and over with A/N's pH perfect line was that people were having what appeared to be either calcium or magnesium deficiencies, or both.
 
A/N strongly suggests that RO water should be used, so I bought a filter and generated my own water because my city water is 400ppm+ and research had indicated that was way too high even tho I had done okay in the past with it. I really wanted to have this grow go right, so I followed their instructions to the letter.
 
When researching, people would usually say that they would call or email A/N's tech support with a deficiency issue and would usually be told the same thing each time (I was told this too):
 
"Use RO water. DON'T add Cal-Mag or any calcium or magnesium supplement. It will screw up pH Perfect's ability to control pH. If the pH appears out of whack on your meter, don't worry. As long as it stays between 5 and 7, you're good because pH perfect is designed to expand and maximize the pH range at which your plants can optimally uptake the nutes."
 
Okay, fine A/N. So that's what I did. Two weeks into vegging I began noticing what was obviously a deficiency, and it appeared to be a magnesium deficiency. So remembering what A/N had told me, and probably countless others. I decided to foliar feed with Epsom salts. Didn't work. It just appeared to make the plants sad. So I then tried foliar feeding with Cal-Mag. That seemed a little better, but the plants seemed to not like it much since, apparently, there is also nitrogen in Cal-Mag and it appeared to be a little much, but the plants did seem a little happier and greened up a bit with new growth not showing the same deficiency as before. I did not try actually adding Cal-Mag to the reservoir. I didn't want to screw all the plants up since it was just a half dozen showing problems. So things are going along fine and with a little A/N B-52, the plants exploded during vegging and looked healthy. Great!
 
Comes time to flower. I set up for flowering and swap out the nutes for A/N pH perfect Connoisseur. A week into flowering and I'm noticing a pronounced deficiency of some kind. A little more research reveals that it's either nute burn (with a ppm @ 1000 and an EC of 1.5? Hmmmm. That doesn't seem right.) and/or calcium magnesium deficiency. 
 
Now other folks in other forums have said many different things in regard to problems with pH perfect. Some say they use city tap water with a high pH and/or high ppm count and have had no issues with the pH staying right in the pocket and the plants staying healthy. Others have said that they've noticed the same type of deficiencies I have and have had trouble keeping those deficiencies under control. Yet others state they're adding Cal-Mag to their reservoirs, or watering cycles and have had no further issues when doing so. I had deficiencies and wanted a solution, but A/N just stated what must be their most politically correct and business protective reply which I've mentioned above. I understand their response because they have a business to protect and they can't know exactly what's coming out of your tap, so they have to tell everyone the same thing based on their own testing and as long as you're using RO water (even tho the quality of RO water can vary from filter to filter), at least they have a somewhat established point of reference to advise from. 
 
My opinion is that if your tap water is within the generally-understood-to-be-safe range of around 150 ppm, you'll be fine using pH perfect, but if it's lower than that, you may have problems using the product. My RO water coming out of the filter unit was 10 ppm - very low -, I was using a 50% mix of pH perfect and keeping the ppm right around 1000 in the reservoir. I shouldn't be having deficiencies, right? But I was. WTH? I'm getting frustrated now. All other environmental factors, e.g., reservoir temp, room temp, humidity, lamp height. etc., while not spot on perfect, were very close. Everything in my experience was telling me that the ppm should be higher and that somehow, supplementing with a calcium/magnesium supplement mixed up in a lab or on a factory line was not the way to go. Others had stated they had no trouble, but.....WTH was going on?
 
My intuition was telling me that using Cal-Mag or another supplement like it might create nute lock. I figured since I had had decent results, not great results mind you, but decent using 400 ppm city tap water, then maybe the best thing to do was mix city tap water with RO water until I got a meter reading of around 150 ppm, then mix in the pH perfect nutes until I got to around the 1000 ppm mark. 
 
It freakin' worked! The plants appear much better. I'm guessing there is something about the bio availability of "natural" calcium and magnesium in the water-as opposed to a factory chemical formulation-going on here. I also think that perhaps while A/N's insistence about using RO water is probably a good idea, if the ppm coming out of the filter is too low, or if the filter removes too much calcium and/or magnesium, you might just have problems to deal with. Perhaps my filter is just a bit too efficient. 
 
Here is mechanically what I did to solve the problem:
My reservoir is 18 gallons. I fill it to 15 gallons to leave room for ice bottles to keep the reservoir cool (no issues with them) so that makes 56.78 liters. Two five-gallon buckets of RO water and one five-gallon bucket of city tap water and, boom, smack on 150 ppm! Then I add the pH perfect nutes at about 75% strength (based on the liters) and that brings me to 1000 ppm. All good now!
 
I know there are many that have had issues with the A/N pH perfect line and I hope my story above will help. Having said that, I, like Advanced Nutrients, don't know what's coming out of your tap, so if you live in an area that extensively treats its water and adds chemicals to control it (such as chlorine, flouride, etc., I can't guarantee your results will be the same, but if you have had some success using city water in a hydro, or aero system previously, trying what I did above might solve some of the common issues I've consistently read about and make the difference between a good harvest and great, healthy harvest. 
 
Good luck,
Colorburn