hello fellow blades, please reference the thread in my signature if you want the real detailed explination of how everything has been going day by day. problem basically comes down to this: 1 month into flowering, ph rising problem has been persistant for weeks and now that I've setup a soil plant in addition to my hydro plant I am getty very frustrated with how much attention the hydro plant needs for frequent ph down doses. i'm fairly sure the problem is some type of previous exposure to my ph-7 solution used to calibrate my digi ph meter. does anyone have any exerience with being unable to stop your soup from rising from 5.5 to 7.0 after 8-12 hours time no matter how much you wash the damn thing? i'm about to dip my digi ph meter in a 70% alcohol solution, i'm running out of ideas.
i use sparkletts office delivery water. it ppm's between 8-15 when it's fresh.... maybe I should try some distilled water from the store?
dwc or bubbleponics (airstone connected to an aquarium pump). using 'moon dust' nutrients 19-8-13 current soup ppm in the high 900's. have been using moon dust since start at a rate of 100ppm per inch of plant growth. increased from 700 to 900 recently when a few leaves started to show yellow dots in the middle of hte leafs/near the veins. ph problem has been around for a long time. I'm less tollerant of it now with this low maintenance soil plant.
What ppm does your water start at? If your ppm is 0-10 id suggest adding cal/mag to buffer your water. I think your water doesn't have much buffer (ability to resist the ph swing). I had this problem also. I now add 2ml of cal mag per gallon of water and set it to 100-120ppm before I add nutes. This worked for me. Good luck
Try backing you're nutes off for a couple days or add just water, I read some where on here that if your Ph is high the plants telling you it dosent want all the nutes its getting and is leaving some behind, likewise if Ph is persistently low they are saying up my doseage. That being said I'm still pretty new to growing so I could be totally wrong
When I was having my problem I was in the 300-400 ppm range. Everyone was telling me I was low in nutes and that's why. I found the more nutes I had the more stable my ph. But that's my case and like you, im new to growing. So take it for what its worth.
my ro water is around 8-12 when it is fresh... interesting. i'm going to start a new thread with pics of the yellowing leaves that lead me to increase the PPM thinking it was deficiency. i could be wrong and creating the problem worse by adding more nutes. http://forum.grasscity.com/absolute...help-yellowing-leaves-veins.html#post11080094
I had cut some colored roots not long before this, I'm starting to believe it is chlorasis from that but some external reinforcement would be great!
Hey Valerien, I used to have the same problem, the pH in my Ebb&Gro site system would climb daily... I'd set it to 5.8 and by next day it would be 6.2-6.3.. It was driving me NUTS!! So I set out on a quest to find out why and I ran into this document produced by the company which I always have despised of all nutrient companies... LOL But it gave me a LOT of insight into why.. The plants root system actually manufactures hydrogen ions (pH down) or hydroxide ions (pH up) and will directly change the pH of the growing medium depending on the elemental composition of your nutrients make up. To make a long story short, it is not just one thing, it is a combination of things which cause vast pH swings, being nutrient, grow medium, O2 in the water, the water itself, secondary elements which are lacking or too abundant, etc. etc... But read this document about pH, again it gave me a LOT of insight and now my pH will raise from 5.8 to maybe a 6.0 every 4-5 days.. I run a 15 and a 30gal res, and like every 4-5 days I have to add maybe 4mL of pH down.. Again, take a look at this doc.. It's a long read, but starts to get real good around page 5.. I've read it like 4 or 5 times now and about got it memorized... LMFAO Hope it helps ya...
thanks will give it a read later. I'm still convinced it's symptom of my ph-7 product used to calibrate my digi ph meter. it is NEVER 7.1 or above, NEVER, it's either 7.0 or on it's way to 7.0. and it will go from 5.5 to 6.8 in 6-8 hours... not 5.5 to 6.3 in 24 hours.
Holy shit man... 5.5 to 6.8 in 6-8 hours??? Ya, I would say that is a problem and you're correct, first make SURE you are in fact dealing with an accurate reading.. Also, not sure what type of pH meter you have, but all of the cheaper ones do not have temperature compensation built into them... pH 7.0 @ 60F will not be the same reading say @ 77F.. Its like 1 point difference... Neutral pH is temperature dependent, so at 32F Neutral pH is like 7.5 and on the other side, at 100F it is more like 6.1... So if you're using an elCheapo pH meter, make your calibration solution is the same temperature as your reservoir's water before you calibrate you meter...
i have this: Milwaukee Instruments - Manufacturers of quality instruments for measuring pH, EC, TDS, ORP, Dissolved Oxygen meters and testers yeah it will go from 5.5 to 6.6~6.8 in 6-8 hours and it will reach 7.0 in 8-12 hours. like i said though it NEVER goes above 7.0. i'm about to purchase a bottle of 70% iso alcohol and wash out my ph meter with it. I don't konw what the hell I could be missing that could have ph7 solution on it but nothing else makes sense.... I even wash my airstone and the bottom 4-5 inches of tubing with h2o2 everytime I flush/wash my res.
I should be more clear. I had the EXACT same problem. Same ph swing, same short amount of time. When explaining this to folks.they said I was wrong/crazy and or had faulty ph meter. I've come to the conclution that the ph buffer in the water I was too strong to stay put. I changed my water and doubled the amount of cal/mag I was using (from 1ml per gal to 2 ml per gallon) and instantly I had no.problem. Good luck
okay, I'm going to purchase some distilled water from the grocery store and some cal/mag from the hydro store today. wish me luck!
Ya, ElCheapo and does not have temperature compensation... I also would suspect a faulty pH meter... I setup a LOT of medical grows for people and against my advise, a lot of them get that one.. Guess what's the first thing they end up replacing... Yes, when you read that doc, there is a big section about water.. If you're going to be growing a long time, I would suggest an RO system..
hmm my fertilizer says its 2.5% calcium and 1% magnesium so i'm just gonna start with the distilled water and see where it gets me.
A little info.... -im using dwc bubble buckets -i use Ro water -i use advanced nutrients for nutes and my cal/mag -my Ro water starts at 1-2ppm. -i add 2ml of cal mag per gallon. -my goal is around 100-130ppm. I've now been running it at 125ish -for me, this is enough buffer. -all this was suggested to me from Roy at advanced nutrients. -advanced nutrients has a 1-800 tech line (there very helpfull)
Be careful, Remember distilled has very low ppm. This, if ran too long could cause nute def. Keep an eye on your fan leaves for change in color or signs of nute def. Your fan leaves will be first sign of "mobile nute def". Even if your soup is low on nutes the plant wont instantly show signs. It will use up nutes in storage first. If you don't fix your mixture in time you could have issues.
current RO water is 8-12 ppm when fresh so that's not much of a change. hopefully those trace minerals in the water after RO process are what are causing hte problem because this is an easy fix.