pH issue

cmd420 said:

I have four sativas in 12/12 that have the pH go up nearly every day

....I have four indicas in 12/12 that go down in pH every day....

I can dig on what Pepper is saying about the differences in a plant's respiration with respect to the stage of life it's in, BUT...

what's the deal with the daily pH fluctuations? I am in the same boat as Surrepititous...

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Welcome to the hydroponic World If hydroponic systems were easy systems to grow in nobody would use soil.

As I mentioned before there are many reasons why you have ph fluctuations, you have to take the time to learn your system, your strain, etc, and adjust by trial and error, that is the best way to learn how to grow in a hydroponic system.

cmd420 said:

that's the thing..I don't just clean the stuff, I replace all tubing, fittings etc..

and as for my buckets, I use FloraClean and FloraShield soakings and scrubbings...

I don't use a rez, I just top off as needed...

my tap water is at like 7.0 (ish) and it's ppms are around 50 or so....

I hope I'm not jacking this thread, but I think others have these issues as well....

c'mon Pepper..stay with me...what ya got next?

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WOW talk about a good cleaning.
You dont have to go to that extreme, no need to replace tubing etc
Your water has ph buffers in it, what that is doing is it is fighting what you are trying to do which is lower the ph.
Never top off using plain water always add nutes to the water, so you maintain the proper ec/ppms.

Try this, get a large rez that will hold the same amount of water that you use in your buckets 5 galons, 50 galons, etc fill it with water, add your nutes, add air stones, and run that system for at least 48hrs, then use that water and nutes in your buckets.

Certain nutes are also better than others at maintaining the ph more stable I only use fox farm, my friend uses canna, we dont have these problems.

At times I may have to make minor adjustments but never nothing major. Like I said before many times when the ec is to low it becomes hard to maintain proper ph due to the buffers in the water, and the plants feeding and not having enouth food.

That's it Pepper..I said it in my ec thread, but I realized that you are right!..the lower my ppms, the higher my pH fluctuates...

I think that M.E. said that his babies that aren't recieving high ppm's are fluctuating up in pH.....

makes sense...I'm going to test it out when I raise my ppms..wow..that's absolutely ground breaking for me..THX AGAIN PEPPER

Does this fit for you M.E.?

i cleaned everything thoroughly (with alcohol). i increased the nutes to 500 PPM, i'm using tap water (i let it sit for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate). i will take some pics in the morning.

cmd420 said:

I hope I'm not jacking this thread, but I think others have these issues as well....

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not at all, i'm here to learn as much as possible.

surreptitious said:

i cleaned everything thoroughly (with alcohol). i increased the nutes to 500 PPM, i'm using tap water (i let it sit for 24 hours to let the chlorine evaporate). i will take some pics in the morning.

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Are you in hydroton? Or are you in rockwool? If you are in hydroton or rockwool and if you did not flush your system with clearex you may have high salt in your medium or root system, that is still throwing your ph around, this is just a possibility. When you get a chance pick up 1 galon of clearex its your best friend in hydroponics, every 2 wks flush your system with clearex for about 10 hr's and clean EVERYTHING.

You may need to raise your ec even more to around 1 or 1.2 thats about 700 to 800 ppm but dont do it yet, wait a few days because you just brought your ppm from 150 to 500 so take it easy in the mean time just keep the ph at about 6 not lower than 6that wil ensure that your plants dont suffer from any more deficiencies plus the ph swing will not be as drastic.

MindzEye said:

Im at about 800 ppm right now, is this low?

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That tells me nothing.

I dont know at what stage your garden is in, and I dont know what strain you have, etc.

Pepper said:

Are you in hydroton? Or are you in rockwool? If you are in hydroton or rockwool and if you did not flush your system with clearex you may have high salt in your medium or root system, that is still throwing your ph around, this is just a possibility. When you get a chance pick up 1 galon of clearex its your best friend in hydroponics, every 2 wks flush your system with clearex for about 10 hr's and clean EVERYTHING.

You may need to raise your ec even more to around 1 or 1.2 thats about 700 to 800 ppm but dont do it yet, wait a few days because you just brought your ppm from 150 to 500 so take it easy in the mean time just keep the ph at about 6 not lower than 6that wil ensure that your plants dont suffer from any more deficiencies plus the ph swing will not be as drastic.

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hyrdoton. i do not have any clearex. i will pick some up as soon as i can get back to the hydro store.

I have another question. I have the exact same set up for my mother plants but i'm using t-5 fluorescent lights instead of a metal halide light and i dont have these problems with my pH there. Those plants are over 3 feet tall now. Would the light make a difference?

Thanks for all your help.

surreptitious said:

hyrdoton. i do not have any clearex. i will pick some up as soon as i can get back to the hydro store.

I have another question. I have the exact same set up for my mother plants but i'm using t-5 fluorescent lights instead of a metal halide light and i dont have these problems with my pH there. Those plants are over 3 feet tall now. Would the light make a difference?

Thanks for all your help.

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Yes it can make a differance because of a few things like for example, the more light your plants receive the faster they grow so that means the more they eat than means the ec level will drop faster, also your plants and your medium will receive more concentrated heat from a hid than they will from a t-5. Hydroponics can be very finicky at times it takes time to learn it does not happen over night. Your water could also be cooler under the t-5 than the hid.

i will check the water temperature and report back.

ok, so the temp in the res is 76-77 degrees. i guess that's my problem. i'm going to move the res out of my light tent. hopefully that will fix my issues. i'll make the changes and let you know.

ok, so immediately the temp went down to 74 degrees after i moved it out the tent.

i guess i should invest more in a reservoir than a cheap rubbermaid container from walmart.

pepper. my res temp is now hovering between 69 and 72 degrees, but i'm still having problems. my pH will still get to about 7 after a day.

i've attached some more pictures.

what else can i do?

thanks

surreptitious said:

pepper. my res temp is now hovering between 69 and 72 degrees, but i'm still having problems. my pH will still get to about 7 after a day.

i've attached some more pictures.

what else can i do?

thanks

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That is good that you were able to bring your rez temp down try to keep it that way, because its very important.

Your ec/ppm is still to low thats why your ph is rising so fast, your plants are still deprived of food. It looks like to me that you still have a potassium deficiency, you need to raise your potassium.
What is your current ppm? If your current ppm is at 500 bump it to 800/1000.


Once you find the correct ec/ppm your PH will not drift, and if it does it will be very little + you will not have any deficiencies in your garden, but keep in mind the bigger the plant gets the more nutes you will need to give it.

It is hard starting out in a hydro, specialy trying to learn the correct ec/ppm to feed the plants, and maintain the correct PH.
I do not recomend trying every strain on the market for the reason stated above every strain feeds different, etc plus white widow is not beginer frendly in the first place, you probably should have picked up an indica strain much easier to grow, not has picky.

So I would suggest to you that you stay growing the white widow, you will learn its likes and dont likes in this current grow, keep a log of everything you do to your garden + dates, time, etc, write down everything, this will be your personal reference log book.

Your next white widow grow will be much better, and the longer you grow white widow the better it will be because you will know your equipment/garden/strain.

I love white widow really good stuff, very good all around smoke

i appreciate your help. i will kick up the nutes to 800 and let you know how that goes.

surreptitious,

Try contacting the nute manufacturer for advice about ph and ppm ranges and causes for fluctation like that. They spend a lot of money solving these type of problems, and as much as I hate to imply that our members are less qualified to give you advice, all of us are pretty much only able to tell you what has worked or failed for us. Unfortunately, one little difference between your grow and ours can change every thing by a lot and thus one small over looked detail may cause you to get disastrous advice for your grow that is dead on for others grows.

surreptitious said:

i appreciate your help. i will kick up the nutes to 800 and let you know how that goes.

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Once you have the correct ec your ph will be stable so if you raise it to 800 and your ph still drifts fast, bump it to 1000/1200 keep bringing your ec/ppm up until you no longer have ph drifts.

Also once you raise the ec/ppm it may take 3 to 5 days for you to notice a difference in your plants, so dont start freaking out if the plants look the same in a day or two it takes time.

"Rome was not built in 1 day"

pepper: roger roger, nutes have been bumped up to 800 and i'll report back in 5 days.

DonJones: understood. i'll keep that in mind. thanks

got another question pepper. it's been a day or two since i bumped up the nutes to 800. the pH is still rising, but it's much slower. after 2 days it has raised from 5.9 to 6.4 or so.

should i increase the PPM now? or should I wait a few days?

thanks

surreptitious,

Are you adjusting the ph of your base water while it is dechlorinating? If you are starting off with a ph outside of the normal 5.5 to6.6 range then it is really going to complicate your drift problems.

Once again, contact the manufacturer of your nutes and see what they say about PHing the water before you add the nutes and checking it after the nutes are mixed in. I have always heard from the manufacturers that I deal with that their products are either ph neutral or some where in the 5.5 to 6.5 range.

Also are you sure that your PH tester is functioning correctly? If you can take it to a hydro shop and compare it to one of their properly calibrated meters.

What you are hearing about experience is very true as is the advice to keep a detailed jorunal so that you can refer back to it to see what happened when you changed something. And try for consistency unless your plants are suffering! For instance, I make my own PH Down from concentrated sulpheric acid. I played with it a little and discovered that if I dilute the acid 3 parts h2o to1 part acid and use 1.3 ml of the PH down solution in one gallon of my tap water while I'm letting the chlorine dissipate, my ph comes out exactly 6.0 which is where I start before adding the nutes. Now I only check like maybe 10 to 20% of my water after treating it.

I'm using the 6.0 ph because that is right in the middle of what I'm seeing recommended here on the forum and it also seems to allow for the widest specific nute availability. So far it has worked out very well for me. Also, I'm growing in dirt & additives so the ph isn't qutie as critical as in hydro. I'm sure that I will have to do things a little differently when I start using the water farm system than I do with the dirt. In fact, I'm running half of this crop in black gold and I'd bet that I have to change things from the dirt a little too. I have already seen that the black gold won't take nearly the watering that my dirt has required.