Is this salt buildup? Help

Discussion in 'Hydroponic Growing' started by Fliiix, Dec 5, 2021.

  1. Hello, so this is my first time growing with DWC, so I ran my system with fresh water for about 48 hours without problem, yesterday I tried to lower my pH down with GHE down and got it down to about 6.4 and a couple of hours later it went back up to 8.0, and today when I checked my 20 pots all of them having this white stuff in it, I had no idea what it was first but after some research I think it's salt buildup but I'm not sure,

    Luckily my plant's haven't got enough root yet, but can anyone here tell me what this is and how do I get rid of it? Does it harm my plants?

    [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
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  2. What is your source water? RO, tap, what is the starting ec/ppm ?
     
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  3. I'm not sure what I'm looking at, but it is making me uncomfortable... :bolt:
     
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  4. tap water, my pH/PPM and EC in my system is currently: pH 8.5 / ppm 213 / ec 0.44
    and the starting pH/PPM and EC are pH 7.9 / ppm 218 / ec 0.49

    I bought a RO from GrowMax but I have not received it yet.
     
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  5. I have what sounds like the same issue with my tap water. I have not completely wrapped my head around the answer has something to do with water hardness/calcium, it's a pretty deep rabbit hole. Lol
    Just get that Ro filter installed and you'll leave this problem behind.
     
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  6. Okay, so the problem got fixed for you when using a RO filter?
    But the question is, how the heck do I get all this shit out of my system? It would be easy if I only had like 4-5 pots, but I'm running a system with 20 pots and all of them have this in it, and I guess it's in all my lines also.

    Does anyone know if there is anything I can put in my water to get rid of it?
     
  7. IDK what I'm looking at. Are those little hard white balls kinda in the water?
    Do you every change the water out like you are supposed to?
    Do you run something for the roots?
    What kind of shit are you running for nutes?
    If ye plants are small, pull em' out of the system, run that purple power through the system for a couple hours,
    drain, re-fill with water, run it a hr, drain, fill up add a couple cups of bleach and run for a couple hours.
    All that shit should be gone.

    Refill and take some pic's of ye plants, buckets, res, air pump, stones while they are in the buckets filled with water, etc...
    Your plants will die at a PH of what you are running.

    Here is a PH chart, study it.
    Get back with me for more questions, all I grow is hydro.
    Ph chart.jpg
     
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  8. Yes, it's only in the water, and when you touch it with your finger it's like slime.
    I filled the system like 74 hours ago so it's basically freshwater, I only added GHE pH down, so no nutes are added yet, but I will be using Fearless Gardener Brand.
    Yes, all my plants are still small and haven't got roots out of their pots yet so I have to get this shit fixed ASAP.

    I had my system with this water for 48 hours and had no problem, the problem appeared when I turned my airstones on and added pH down, but I guess it was the water combined with the airstone that made this shit start to grow in my system.

    Unfortunately, we do not have Purple power in my country, I live in Europe.
    But there should be anything similar that works?
    I found this but idk, Flashclean® (florakleen®), unique, high performance rinse and soil conditioner for all substrates and systems.
     
  9. First off you don't use and PH adjustments stuff till you add the nutes, then adjust your ph.
    Florakleen I di use right before a water change.
    Clean a couple times with bleach.
    If there is any light that could penetrate into the water it will cause stuff to grow.
     
  10. I did not know that, thank you.
    I cleaned my entire system today and I think this white stuff is lime,
    Because the water here is very lime-rich, and when this white stuff dried it became like a white powder, exactly like this image How to Make Limewater - Lime Water Solution | HST Guide

    So I think it's some kind of reaction when I started the airstones in the water.

    First clean:
    [​IMG]
    Second clean:[​IMG]
    It took me the entire day to remove all the water and clean the entire system

    Now I'm going to wait for my RO to arrive before filling up my system again,
    hopefully, the RO will remove the lime from my water so this doesn't happen again, if it does than I will remove the system and just grow with soil.
     
  11. The RO will take you to almost nothing on the PPM's which is what you want for RDWC.
    Did you bleach that? Do you drink that shit? From the looks I wouldn't even want to shower in it.
    If there is that much lime in your tap water can you catch rain water? I ask cause the filters will need changing quite often if so.
     
  12. I contacted a hydro expert and he told me that the RO from Growmax will get jammed quickly if my water is like that, also that the growmax filter doesn’t remove calcium which sucks for me because this issue is of a very high levels of calcium in my tap water.

    I did not bleach this, I did not have any bleach at home so I just used very little soap and water.
    No I only drink bubble water from the store haha.

    They also recommended me to use rainwater but it’s currently winter here so I’m not able to use rainwater…

    And a filter that’s designed to remove calcium is too expensive for me to buy to use for just one grow before I move away from this place. So currently it looks like I will be removing my hydro system and just grow in soil which sucks..
    Watering 33 plants by hand every 3 days will take me a lot of time :(
     
  13. Damn man that sucks. The RO systems around 70 bucks if you can save ur money it would be well worth it.
    When u go back to hydro send me the link to ur journal.
    Hydro is all I do.
     
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  14. You hit It on the head about what is causing that meaning hardness, hell if he has a water softener hooked up it would probably do the same thing with the chemicals added to soften it. Hell that the same crap that covers my faucets if I don't maintain them when I had well water
     
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  15. It makes the ph stubborn as hell also. Takes 3ml of ph down per gallon to bring mine in range.
     
  16. Good God man!
     
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  17. Right, I tried for a long time to use my tap water, finally gave up.
     
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  18. It’s calcium! I have the exact same problem. You need to get a water softener and hook it up in line before any appliance, like a water heater. You can easily destroy a water heating element with that much calcium.
     

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