PH rising plants collapsing

[zem]

Hi there. So this problem hit fast i have 4 plants in ebb and flow growrocks and i noticed that ph was spiking fast, a few days later a plant collapsed followed by another plant a day after that. The plants were big healthy and just collapsed. I tried to cut as many lower branches as i could to try and keep some life in them and increased the peroxide suspecting root rot in these high temps, but what is confusing to me is that i read that root rot lowers the ph so then the ph should not be spiking as it is. I have another res that is not recycling from these plants and the ph there is stable. What is going on.

 

[user 60570]

sounds awful my friend and I hope you get it fixed

i am no ebb and flow,or hydroponics grower so I have zero experience , sorry

hopefully there are some experts here who can help

 

[oldfogey8]

Hi there. So this problem hit fast i have 4 plants in ebb and flow growrocks and i noticed that ph was spiking fast, a few days later a plant collapsed followed by another plant a day after that. The plants were big healthy and just collapsed. I tried to cut as many lower branches as i could to try and keep some life in them and increased the peroxide suspecting root rot in these high temps, but what is confusing to me is that i read that root rot lowers the ph so then the ph should not be spiking as it is. I have another res that is not recycling from these plants and the ph there is stable. What is going on.

I was doing some reading. It looks like growrocks are clay. Clay is usually alkaline. Could the growrocks be breaking down and raising your pH?

 

[CrashMagnet]

I read a while back that when peroxide kills bacteria the resulting byproducts can raise PH significantly. I couldn't find the article, but it discussed replacing the reservoir more often and even cutting out discolored roots.

 

[WeedHopper]

Peroxide does help with yellowing slimy roots. A lot of time if your solution is to hot or you have light getting to your roots it will also cause root problems.

Found this.

So when I bought a bag of Growstones I soaked them a few days and used a pH test strip to check the water. It was almost off the chart on the basic end. I drained, rinsed, and soaked again with the same results. Getting serious and kind of pissed, I mixed up a pretty strong vinegar solution (pH about 4.5) and soaked the bag in there for a week. Then drained, filled, and rinse-soaked in fresh water overnight again (I really didn't want to be testing any of my vinegar solution, I wanted to test the glass). Then drained, filled, let it sit a day, and tested pH. That did it. Stable and neutral

 

[zem]

Hi and thank you all for the help i appreciate it. It was a hard day i have 1 plant left. I think that the most likely cause is root rot coupled with hot temps. And i think that what CrashMagnet said that the ph spike is due to peroxide killing bacteria is a likely cause. Anyway i shut down my timer completely i am waiting till early morning to feed them the cooler water, i want to at least try to keep the last one alive and maybe get some recovery from one that is not fully dead yet. Anyway there is a bright side to this story is that I have 2 plants in soilless medium 50/50 coco perlite and those are growing beautifully. I am new to soilless and i was trying to do a side by side to see if i can match my results in hydro, go figure.

 

[zem]

Hi all, many thanks for your input again. I discovered the cause of the problem. The roots clogged the drainage because they were oversized and temps were really hot. I have root rot so much that it reeks so I removed the dead plants. Only one from the ebb and flow system survived so far and 2 in soilless are doing great. I decided to switch to soilless and i can recycle the drain to feed strawberries or something. I will have way less to worry about. Ebb and flow worked great for smaller bigger number of plants but when i tried to grow trees with it, i noticed that the hassle outweighs the benefit. I am doing a 50/50 coco perlite medium that is hard to overwater really and i drain 10 to 15% every time 20-10-20 this is working better than i expected and is stable and easy to maintain. It was very harsh lesson how they all just turned from awesome to dead and the only sign i got was the rising ph, but as I learned a lot from it I came to terms with myself at last. Cheers!

 

[pute]

Glad to hear zem.

 

[zem]

Ok so now I have 1 plant in ebb and flow and 2 plants in soilless. Nowadays it is the soilless system that needs more work, there is one big setback to this system that is water consumption. If I want to water and leach like 10% I would have to fill and mix a new res every 2 days and in soilless it is not automated which i can fix. However the ebb and flow requires me to change every 7 to 10 days, i could go longer but nowadays I am testing so I want to try and limit mistakes. I changed my watering schedule on the soilless to watering smaller amounts daily and i will allow leaching every 3 watering runs to flush my medium. I really want the soilless to at least equal or exceed my results in ebb and flow. All 3 plants are green and healthy, I am worried that the ebb and flow wins lol I have been doing that system since way too long. I wish to have plants on caster wheels that are not attached to pipes. Also it would not need all the h2o2 or whatever treatment for the recycling water.
But it is not my choice, I will have to wait until the end of flowering to figure out the difference in the end result. If the difference is minimal, I am switching to soilless.

On a side note, I am frustrated from these clones I needed 9 to root so I got 7 fairly quickly and now I am waiting for 2 more from the same strain and it has been 25 days or more and they are just sitting there jeez. I know we all go through this issue sometimes so I wanted to just let it out.

 

[WeedHopper]

Sounds like growing to me. It can be a lot of fun and the reward is awesome,,,but it can also be a pain in the ass sometimes.
I like my soil grows outside. Don't have to worry about lights and they love the sun. So far no bugs which I think has everything to do with the strain and marigolds.
Use to love growing in DWCs. Andy52 and THG got me started in DWCs and I did that for a long time. My problem was fighting solution temps. Too fking hot in Florida and it's damn sure to hot here in Texas.
Hope everything works out for you brother.

 

[zem]

Ebb and flow worked good in hot temps much better than dwc IME. I grew huge trees with it this time i insulated the pots and everything was good until it clogged the drains and some drowned. Soil grow in open land is a blessing that i don't have. I have access to the sun on a hard floor so i am using this 50/50 coco/perlite in fabric. The level of growth and evaporation is demanding a lot of water.

 

[WeedHopper]

Yeah i never tried ebb and flow but its my understanding its more forgiving than DWC.