300 PPM water.

So my water is at 300 PPM.

With this level would I be able to just add my nutrients as usual and change out the resevoir every week and not worry about checking it?

I wouldnt go about 1000ppm nutrient solution. Mix nutrients and recheck ppm....

seedlings-400ppm
veg-600
aggressive veg/flower- 1000-1200

hydro systems can take more but i run hydro and stick to this range. with 300ppm base water, you will be mixing roughly 3/4 nutrient strength.

300ppm seems high. You also don't know what percentage of that 300ppm is toxic to your plants.

My first advice to anyone considering hydroponic growing is to focus on the hydro before anything else. Sort out your water quality even before you hook up your first light or mix your first drop of nute. With hydroponics it all begins and ends with the water. Would any soil growers use a medium with a percentage of mystery solids in it? Of course not.

Get a good reverse osmosis system going. Roughly 200.00 bux for 100gph, 150.00 for 50ghp. It's worth the investment if you want to conduct successful hydro grows... And none of us get into it to fail, right? You'll find that that mixing nutes and figuring ppm ranges is a lot more straight forward when starting with below 10ppm filtered water.

If something goes wrong in your grow, you don't want any unknown variables. And mystery tap water solids will ever leave you second-guessing yourself if your plants encounter problems.

While i agree With lordjins diagnosis on, there being lots of unknowns in your water, you could still use the water with the right set of nutes, I would recommend Gh flora hard water. Great buffers, i have used the stuff on normal feeding programs with, horrid water (450ppm,would not even drink it water) and, It manages to tickle the ladies just right. Although i do think lordjins also right about getting an ro filter, (Clean water is like a blank painting)But you can still have a fairly controlled system with tap water.

I'm sitting here laughing at myself.


I am just not the person who can sit down and read tons of shit and collect information by books. I mean to some degree yea, but I am a total hands on experience learner. With that being said, I started hydro about 7 weeks ago from scratch. I thought it would be the easiest and most efficient method but obviously with my degree of experience it has not been. I didn't want to have to deal with the soil.

The worst thing about this is I started this small grow of 3 plants for personal use to save money. And now I'm having to fork out so much into this hydro setup it's almost ridiculous.

How reliable are cheap PPM meters..?

Also, isn't the PPM of distilled water usually around 7-10?

My plants like 2 weeks into flower (buds just started forming a couple days ago) but my plants older leaves are disentegrating towards the tips at a light brown color. They feel like velvet. Also the lower leaves are yellow appearing to be a nitrogen deficiency. I posted a few pics on here, people all said it was nitrogen deficiency.

The thing is, they have been on recommended Aqua Flakes A & B nutes and I've even given them extra hand feedings of some organic (Earth Juice) grow supplement with additonal nitrogen. They are still showing these signs so it can't be nitrogen def unless there is some kind of nitrogen lockout. But my PH is usually in the range from 5.4-6.4. I try to keep it at 5.8 but it fluctuates.

Last night I became pretty annoyed and ended up pouring a shitload of Organic Earth Juice Grow and Bloom into a mixing cup with about 2 cups of water and just poured that shit all over the plants. (I was hearing that its nearly impossible to get burn with organics). Well I came back this morning and plants are extremely wilted.

Its just bagseed, but if I could I'd like to save these plants. But not if I have to keep spending so much on hydro fuck this I'll start over from the beginning at soil. (Though it kind of sucks because I have almost everything I need now I guess.. Nutrients, system, ph meter, PH7 tester, PH up down) but no PPM meter.) but without good water wtf can I do? besides spending 200 or whatever on a RO filter.

If distilled water is ok then I'm thinking I can go from there to save these plants but even 7$ a week having to replace my resevoir with 1$ gallon distilled waters sucks. Soil seems much cheaper

Cheap ppm meters are worthless, if your gonna use a meter it has to be exact, i have never seen one under 70 bucks do the job good at all. I would really use gh flora micro and flora bloom. Use the lucas formula amazing for ease and results, it is simply 8ml of flora micro per galon, then 16ml of flora bloom per galon, shake and let sit for 1 day then adjust ph (the day is to let the ph settle)

hey thanks everyone whos responded this far. i know some people flame about not knowing shit but hey I already started this along time ago and currently between school/work i have hardly anytime to do more research.

muffercomper1 - i have to leave for work right now so im out but my plants are suffering atm. very wilted from the organic grow juice i put on it. probably about 2 tablespoons of grow and 1 tablespoon of bloom Organic Earth Juice mix. Its mostly organic but the hydro guy said it does contain some salts which technically arent organic.

Anyway I flushed this morning with 1 gallon of straight up tap water since i didnt have any water handy and no time to get any. Res ran again cuz i forgot ot turn off timer but only once since then and no more.

Im heading to get some distilled water later and try that. if you look in my past posts you will see the conditions. i chnaged them from 400 to cfl due to heat issues tho. might go back later. i thought at first it was a humidity problem due to a 8,500 ac in a prob 10x6x3

late for work be back later. i dont want to give up on my hydro yet hopefully i can get some smoke going from this. any Kindbud would be nice from where i am.

I use a cheap ppm, i keep it calibrated and it works fine. I can take + or - 200ppm because I don't overfeed or push my plants feeding to limits..

My base ppm is around 170, I grow hydroponics with great results. Never got into the RO....not sure if RO is necessary for 300ppm. You can burn with organics....I have burned with the earthjuice lineup. Sounds like you ran into a problem and tried to correct it without the proper diagnostics. You got wilted plants...just keep goin with the 300ppm water. Adjust nutrients according to plant size and health. Never push over 1000 unless you are sure you know what you are doing. Plants can thrive in 600 ppm nutrient solution. Strain plays a role in how much nutrients can take as well.

As far as the bagseed comment. It not having a name doesn't justify its genetic makeup. You could always name it....

muffromper1 said:

While i agree With lordjins diagnosis on, there being lots of unknowns in your water, you could still use the water with the right set of nutes, I would recommend Gh flora hard water. Great buffers, i have used the stuff on normal feeding programs with, horrid water (450ppm,would not even drink it water) and, It manages to tickle the ladies just right. Although i do think lordjins also right about getting an ro filter, (Clean water is like a blank painting)But you can still have a fairly controlled system with tap water.

Click to expand...

Hm. That's an interesting bit. Thanks for the info!