Hey guys. I'm doing a dwc grow. My tap is coming out at 8.0 ph. And around 270 ppm. I've already went threw a lot of ph down for 4 plants the water in the dwc buckets keeps rising back up every day. Used one quart in around 2 weeks(20-40) gallons of water. Should i just buy ro water or buy a gallon of ph down. Im using general hydroponics flora mix but haven't started adding nutes yet. Will they balance with 8.0 ph starting? Just need some advice not sure which would be best. Thanks in advance
It's probably your hydroton. I had the same problem and I used a 5 gallon bucket to soak my hydroton in tap water ph'd at 5.5. I did this for several days checking on it daily and adding ph down as needed. You also want to wash the hydroton during this process... so this means you will need to change the water a couple times to get it clean but it will help a lot with the ph drift. Best of luck!
Well last night i phed 3 5g buckets of water to around 5.8 or so. This morning 2 buckets are almost at 9.0 ph and one is still at 6.2 im really confused. I ordered some hard water micro hopefully it works for me. I added a little bit of nutrients to a res and its at 6.1. But have just been pouring a little around the plants like twice a day, i lowered the water levels some but the plants are still small.
Yeah man if you didn't rinse your hydroton before starting the grow then thats all normal. Just keep using the ph down until it settles. I don't know how old these plants are but I would only do 1/4 strength nutes and check the ph twice a day since it's drifting that much
You're pH'ing water with essentially nothing in it which is a waste. I'll take a guess and say you're using GH pH products which aren't that strong so you'll use a lot more of it to hit your target pH than Bluelab or Advanced Nutrients pH products which are stronger. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
In another thread that he started about the same subject, he indicated he was using distilled vinegar to lower pH. That could be the reason for the lack of stabilization.
So it doesn't matter what the ph is right now? Only when nutes are involved? I'm afraid to add a ton of nutes to the water to get it stable that would cause burn right? I am using flora trio
Well yeah i am now because i ran out of gh ph down. It was doing the same thing rising a lot over a short period of time with the ph down. I've read vinegar works fine though. I'm not really 100% though
In your other post you mentioned that the pH swing only happens in the containers the plants are in and not in a storage container - that tells me it's your hydroton like big nate said above.
