Question about ppm and ph
Lordhooha
Well-Known Member
Size of bucket or whatever your growing in? What’s the ph and ppm at the moment? Pics?
Blue brother
Well-Known Member
when u say water level stable do you mean no water is being used?
I think the question is hypothetical as he is researching the subject but hasn't got a setup running?
Generally if you have a bucket of water and you add nutrients, it will stay at a certain ppm and ph. If you add more nutrients the ppm goes up, if you add ph down the ph will go down but apart from that if the water stays untouched so should the ppm and ph.
If you were to actually grow plants then fluctuations don't mean that much, if you pay real close attention it can give you an idea of what is going on ie if the plants want more or less nutrients but generally for any beginner grower I would suggest you monitor the ppm and ph and adjust it when needed to keep it in the right range, never mind what it means, just adjust and keep the plants happy.
Generally if you have a bucket of water and you add nutrients, it will stay at a certain ppm and ph. If you add more nutrients the ppm goes up, if you add ph down the ph will go down but apart from that if the water stays untouched so should the ppm and ph.
If you were to actually grow plants then fluctuations don't mean that much, if you pay real close attention it can give you an idea of what is going on ie if the plants want more or less nutrients but generally for any beginner grower I would suggest you monitor the ppm and ph and adjust it when needed to keep it in the right range, never mind what it means, just adjust and keep the plants happy.
Smok3yMcChok3y
Well-Known Member
Nah some evaporation over time even with no plants will cause slight rise in ppm. However your res will never really be static. It'll always be evaporating and as plants go they'll be drinking. Other factors like low or high humidity will effect water levels over time. Also don't quote me on this but I think degradation in salts by things like like lights or uv can effect the ph. Especially if there are bacteria that are eating things in there and creating biological byproducts. It's way more complex than just what the paper says. But as far as my use. As a rule of thumb I like my ph to go from 5.5 to 6.1 or 6.2 in about 8 days. And in that time I like my ppm to stay about the same until I top off. Obviously that lowers the ppm so I top off with nutrient solution in the original res strength after abojt a 300 ppm lowering. If it's raising at all you are either evaporating more water than the plants are drinking or the ppm is too high and you can back off some. You may not always notice overfeeding. Especially if you use high end frets that don't use a lot of ammonia based nitrogen.
Edit for spelling
Second edit to add:
Also different strengths of nutrient solutions fluctuate differently. Seedling levels at 300-500 ppm will swing ph way faster than full.bloom strength at 1200 ppm because of the additional salt buffer
So ya really gotta just make some runs and feel it out. You'll fail a bit and win a bit. All in the process
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