Ppm and ph

So ppm levels are not always going to be the same depending on the grower, their environment, as well as the strain they are growing. That is part of the challenge of growing, to be able to watch the plants response to certain amounts of nutrients because some strains will be more hungry than others. So ppm deals with the Tds (total dissolved salts) which involves how much nutrients or fertilizer you are feeding the plants. So if you add a lot of different fertilizers to the plant, the ppm will raise, and as you feed lower amounts of nutrients, the ppm will be smaller. You can buy a tds meter to measure this or you can simply use an Ec meter and take that value, multiply by 1000, then divide by 2 and that will give you the ppm of what you are reading. Here is a basis that I use on plants but it changes for every strain so that is why they tell you to start low nutrients at first and see how the plant responds. Here is an example of ranges I have used on certain strains.
Veg Week 1-3: 100-1000ppm
Veg Later stage:1200ppm
Start of flower: Near 700ppm
2 weeks of flower: 1200ppm
Flower:1500ppm
I never really go higher than 1500-2000ppm because I have had some burn issues with specific strains.
Im not saying these are the best ranges, but this is what I have done in the past. Hope this helps! Happy Growing

 

As far as Ph, that will fluctuate depending on what fertilizers you use/mix together. While the ppm will be the value of the strength of nutrients used, Ph deals with the category of acidic or alkalinity. As you add more nutrients and raise the ppm, depending on what you use, the Ph will fluctuate unless you are using products that contain buffers that will regulate the Ph for you so you don't need to worry. Or you can use Ph up or down or other products to regulate the ph yourself.