Need help with lowering ppm in flood and drain systems

[kingromano]

your 1490ppm is still too high. like i said, try to get that down to 490ppm and see if they start eating.

i'm guessing that overfeeding has led to nutrient lockout. if you want them to live 3 more weeks, drop your ppms.

here's the proof you have salt accumulations issues
you need to feed that low to counteract this ..

 

[rkymtnman]

salt accumulation are inevitable in flood and drain

nope

i run up to 3.0mS in bloom and get the cleanest ashes

bro science

instead of rambling on about what you do, help the OP.

 

[rkymtnman]

here's the proof you have salt accumulations issues

his original ppm was 2200. that's 4.4 EC on a 500 scale. that's absurd. he needs to flush with plain water like i said in the beginning. which you said is bad for plants. which is also absurd.

 

[Rdubz]

i would never flood with pure water
you will shock the plants

well your not doing it right then , if you flush with straight RO you can actually learn a lot about what is going on and I’m talking about doing this for 2-10 hours depending on what kind of nute lockout situation you have but the point of this is so you can read your run off in a hydro system PH tells a lot about what the plants are doing ...

 

[rkymtnman]

well your not doing it right then , if you flush with straight RO you can actually learn a lot about what is going on and I’m talking about doing this for 2-10 hours depending on what kind of nute lockout situation you have but the point of this is so you can read your run off in a hydro system PH tells a lot about what the plants are doing ...

thank you.

 

[kingromano]

his original ppm was 2200. that's 4.4 EC on a 500 scale. that's absurd. he needs to flush with plain water like i said in the beginning. which you said is bad for plants. which is also absurd.

0.5 scale is TDS
0.7is PPM ..
but whatever

so everytime you need to "flush" your medium with water you need to empty the actual reservoir, replace with water, turn on the irrigation system ..
then again put the solution with fertilizer when you finished your "flush"...
that's a lot of work man

it seems to lack of adjustments

personnaly i never change my reservoir from the start to the end .. just top daily with fresh nutrients .. my ph is crazy stable

 

[kingromano]

well your not doing it right then , if you flush with straight RO you can actually learn a lot about what is going on and I’m talking about doing this for 2-10 hours depending on what kind of nute lockout situation you have but the point of this is so you can read your run off in a hydro system PH tells a lot about what the plants are doing ...

you talk about lockout, thats exactly what i try to explain to rky .. but he dont want to listen

if you have lockout thats because fertilizer dryout and accumulate in your medium ... and the cause of this is not enough runoff
at the end you don't know what is in your medium .. nor the ph in the rootzone

because doing rockwool/coco.. hydroponically with small runoff is a recipe for failure

people will feed light to counteract this, but its far from optimal
i did for years so i can talk

now i feed every 2 hours with large runoff and everytime i do, the large drain rinse the medium so i keep my rootzone at the same ph/ec of my feed

it's normal for rootzone ph/ec to fluctuate between feeds .. but it must be "reset" everytime you feed

doing this your plants will grow crazy fast because you replenish the solution/oxygen often, and keep the ph/ec very stable.. so you will need to feed at high EC, between 2.5 in veg to 3.0 in flower

i use co2 (propane), sealed environnement

 

[TheWholeTruth]

Not sure if this got resolved but id advize to flush feed from the top if possible with a mild solution. What ive found with flood and drain is you'll get a lot of dry salt resudue near the top of your media due to the way the system works especially with heavy feedings. Flush feeding from the top until your catching the same coming out at the bottom as your putting in at the top. In future do your best to keep it in range.

 

[rkymtnman]

0.5 scale is TDS
0.7is PPM ..
but whatever

OMG. you have no clue what you are talking about. different meters use different scales to convert EC to ppm.

keep posting. you make me laugh!!!

 

[kingromano]

Not sure if this got resolved but id advize to flush feed from the top if possible with a mild solution. What ive found with flood and drain is you'll get a lot of dry salt resudue near the top of your media due to the way the system works especially with heavy feedings. Flush feeding from the top until your catching the same coming out at the bottom as your putting in at the top. In future do your best to keep it in range.

thank you ... the next step is automatizing this in a way to flush the residue every time you feed. its the next level ..

using ebb flood it can be done by adding drippers over each pot, so that when you start a flood, you also water from the top to leach the "dry salt residue"

ultimate rootzone control ..

already said it but dutch grow in warehouses using this method for rockwool .. they flood the bottom layer of mapito pots and at the same time water from the top with an irrigation line with PC drippers ..
(i use this method too but with aquanappe under rockwool 6")

 

[kingromano]

OMG. you have no clue what you are talking about. different meters use different scales to convert EC to ppm.

keep posting. you make me laugh!!!

"ppm 500_ TDS" " ppm 700"
but honestly i don't care, i will not dwell on details

here is discussed salt accumulations in medias, not conversion scales, dont want to waste time on this

 

[TheWholeTruth]

thank you ... the next step is automatizing this in a way to flush the residue every time you feed is the next level ..

using ebb flood it can be done by adding drippers over each pot, so that when you start a flood, you also water from the top to leach the "dry salt residue"

ultimate rootzone control ..

already said it but dutch grow in warehouses using this method for rockwool .. they flood the bottom layer of mapito pots and at the same time water from the top with an irrigation line with PC drippers ..
(i use this method too but with aquanappe under rockwool 6")

Very long time ago I used to use a method exactly like you've suggested. It was flood and drain but wen the feed would switch on it would feed from drip lines from the top connected to a very powerful high pressure pump. Very rapid feeding leading it to flood and then go off and drain back out. It was actually very very stable for ph and ppm in the media. Even the reservoirs once up and running would stay extremely stable. Good suggestion kingromano.

 

[rkymtnman]

View attachment 4851422
"ppm 500_ TDS" " ppm 700"
but honestly i don't care, i will not dwell on details

here is discussed salt accumulations in medias, not conversion scales, dont want to waste time on this

lol. sorry but don't both of them say ppm? 1 EC is 500ppm, 700ppm or 640ppm. and you forgot the 0.64 conversion since you want to be "that guy". like i said, there are 3 main conversions used by meters to convert EC to ppm.

hook your cart up to kingromoron if you want to. he's the one that said flushing plants with plain water with "shock them". lol. i'm trying to help the OP who was running at 4.4EC on a 500 scale. and his plants have serious nute burn and almost definitely lockout. let's focus on that OK.

 

[rkymtnman]

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) are the total amount of mobile charged ions, including minerals, salts or metals dissolved in a given volume of water, expressed in units of mg per unit volume of water (mg/L), also referred to as parts per million (ppm)

good luck OP if you listen to these guys. have a nice weekend!

 

[kingromano]

kingmoron nice one ahah

i was talkin on 700 scale .. i measure in mS.. i stay around 2.5 to 3.0 mS.
use my method and you will produce the cleanest herb
salt accumulation is what destroy quality/taste .. i used ebb flood on my first run with good results and indeed i stayed around 1.2-1.4mS .
but final product always had a non pleasant taste

thats because, like Thewholetruth underlined it, flooding just from the bottom will suck salts to the top ..

your herb would probably give me a headache .. but i'm a fine mouth not sure you are

if you really flush brutally plants with RO water it will damage them for sure .. no need to be a genius to understand it

 

[Rdubz]

kingmoron nice one ahah

i was talkin on 700 scale .. i measure in mS.. i stay around 2.5 to 3.0 mS.
use my method and you will produce the cleanest herb
salt accumulation is what destroy quality/taste .. i used ebb flood on my first run with good results and indeed i stayed around 1.2-1.4mS .
but final product always had a non pleasant taste

thats because, like Thewholetruth underlined it, flooding just from the bottom will suck salts to the top ..

your herb would probably give me a headache .. but i'm a fine mouth not sure you are

if you really flush brutally plants with RO water it will damage them for sure .. no need to be a genius to understand it

we are beating this one to death today man ! Lmao
I agree with u on everything that salt builds up and u need to release it out there are several ways of doing it there is no point In arguing who’s way is better and the one thing I can’t agree on is flushing with straight RO will not damage your plants that’s BS think about it to dilute the salt build up why would u want to try and do it with more or less salt already in the water when it’s faster and cleaner to just do it with straight water , basically once you flush with RO and then your PH and PPM is normalized or even brought back down to zero then just add nutes to the RO why is that so much work as you say it is your not doing anything different but spreading the fixing process up ! Look u can do it your way set it and forget it or you can have a little more control by closely monitoring it and giving it back nutes when u know it’s safe to that’s all Man U can do your way and this way let’s just agree to disagree thank you peace ... happy growing !

 

[xtsho]

personnaly i never change my reservoir from the start to the end .. just top daily with fresh nutrients .. my ph is crazy stable

That's not good. A whole run without a reservoir change?

 

[Star Dog]

I'm missing something, ec/ppm can't rise like that without losing a shed load of water to the environment, hot and dry right?

It's getting flooded once for 15min in 3 hours, so wouldn't 2/3 times the frequency for 1/2-1/3rd of the time flooded level out the ec + adding water to correct after each cycle until its settles?

 

[Rdubz]

I'm missing something, ec/ppm can't rise like that without losing a shed load of water to the environment, hot and dry right?

It's getting flooded once for 15min in 3 hours, so wouldn't 2/3 times the frequency for 1/2-1/3rd of the time flooded level out the ec + adding water to correct after each cycle until its settles?

Very good point! It really depends on medium using on flood tables and when I was running mine I used Hydroton and I always did 15min every hour and it kept my medium fresh ! Also was using smaller pots so it depends on how fast dry time will be ..

Edit - also adjusted timing with plant size

 

[Star Dog]

Very good point! It really depends on medium using on flood tables and when I was running mine I used Hydroton and I always did 15min every hour and it kept my medium fresh ! Also was using smaller pots so it depends on how fast dry time will be ..

So we're on the right track at least, the op is using 3ltr pots with hydroton.
To infrequent?
I'm on 3hrs with coco.