controlling EBB and gro ph and ppm swings

petrol420 · Nov 27, 2009

speedyseedz said:
How does your pic show that?

I can see problems in the leaves, yellow tips, curling leaves and all sorts, your plants have like a foot between nodes, and you expect me to take that photo as proof that ph doesn't matter.

OK dude

Well, the yellow tips on the smaller ones are because these were clones that I just put into the rockwool 4 days ago and these clones took about 22 days to root so naturally the tips turned yellow since there isn't any nutrient in the water I was using and even if there was, there aren't any roots for the clone to uptake the nutes so the plant used the nutes within. But these are growing great now and the new growth tips aren't yellow or curled.

The larger plants have no yellowing tips on the growth that's past the clone stage but they do have damage on the fan leaves from them growing and hitting the lights.

And I'm sorry, I didn't know that internode stretch was a cause of PH. I always thought it was because of the strain or the lights (which makes sense since I'm using CFLs) or a combination of both. I had a mother plant before this one of unknown origin and when I took clones off of her and started flowering them, they had short internode growth and the fan leaves didn't stretch out too far. This strain was perfect for SOG but it ended up turning Hermie on me.

The strain you see in the pics are Purple Dragon and this strain seems like it naturally has long internodes.

You know what dude? Why don't YOU show all of us some pics of your past grows instead of trying to talk shit about mine. I already admitted to being a noob and the things you nitpicked on were easily explained.

You said this "I've had my journey of different grow methods, i've done aero, dwc, drip, eff n flow, nft, coco and soil."

This makes it sound like you've been growing for quite a while which means you should have some pics of plants in various stages and pics of your yields and yada, yada, yada.

Instead of proving me wrong about my method of PH set-it-and-forget-it, you started acting like a child and started talking shit. Why don't you grow up and start passing on useful self knowledge we could all use instead of re-iterating stuff we all read ourselves in various forums and books.

And to Nocturnalreef, I apologize for hijacking your thread, but I did stay on topic about PH.

speedyseedz · Nov 27, 2009

petrol420 said:
Well, the yellow tips on the smaller ones are because these were clones that I just put into the rockwool 4 days ago and these clones took about 22 days to root so naturally the tips turned yellow since there isn't any nutrient in the water I was using and even if there was, there aren't any roots for the clone to uptake the nutes so the plant used the nutes within. But these are growing great now and the new growth tips aren't yellow or curled.

The larger plants have no yellowing tips on the growth that's past the clone stage but they do have damage on the fan leaves from them growing and hitting the lights.

And I'm sorry, I didn't know that internode stretch was a cause of PH. I always thought it was because of the strain or the lights (which makes sense since I'm using CFLs) or a combination of both. I had a mother plant before this one of unknown origin and when I took clones off of her and started flowering them, they had short internode growth and the fan leaves didn't stretch out too far. This strain was perfect for SOG but it ended up turning Hermie on me.

The strain you see in the pics are Purple Dragon and this strain seems like it naturally has long internodes.

You know what dude? Why don't YOU show all of us some pics of your past grows instead of trying to talk shit about mine. I already admitted to being a noob and the things you nitpicked on were easily explained.

You said this "I've had my journey of different grow methods, i've done aero, dwc, drip, eff n flow, nft, coco and soil."

This makes it sound like you've been growing for quite a while which means you should have some pics of plants in various stages and pics of your yields and yada, yada, yada.

Instead of proving me wrong about my method of PH set-it-and-forget-it, you started acting like a child and started talking shit. Why don't you grow up and start passing on useful self knowledge we could all use instead of re-iterating stuff we all read ourselves in various forums and books.

And to Nocturnalreef, I apologize for hijacking your thread, but I did stay on topic about PH.

nutrient availability in accordance with ph, which is obviously going to effect your yield,

I've tried to stay civil on this thread, but you seem intent on trying to teach the world that ph doesn't matter in hydroponics and if the plants you have currently, I fail to see how you can pass the advice on with such belief.

If your plants were a grade perfect then sure, but your getting really defensive, and this is just a forum, its a place for people to discuss and debate, if you can't hack it when someone disagrees with you then maybe forums aren't for you.

See this is the major difference bewteen us, you are intent to prove how much you know and ego is all important, but I really don't care enough, I have no need to prove anything to anybody.

Now I'm sure that what i've just written is going to invoke further response, but i've made my responses here the guy can take it or leave it and just go with your theory that ph doesn't really matter, it doesn't matter what hundreds of growers before you have experienced, because you and your 16 fantastic plants know otherwise.

Incorrect ph may not kill his plants, but it will effect them adversely.

I'm done.

peace :peace:

petrol420 · Nov 27, 2009

speedyseedz said:
nutrient availability in accordance with ph, which is obviously going to effect your yield,

I've tried to stay civil on this thread, but you seem intent on trying to teach the world that ph doesn't matter in hydroponics and if the plants you have currently, I fail to see how you can pass the advice on with such belief.

If your plants were a grade perfect then sure, but your getting really defensive, and this is just a forum, its a place for people to discuss and debate, if you can't hack it when someone disagrees with you then maybe forums aren't for you.

See this is the major difference bewteen us, you are intent to prove how much you know and ego is all important, but I really don't care enough, I have no need to prove anything to anybody.

Now I'm sure that what i've just written is going to invoke further response, but i've made my responses here the guy can take it or leave it and just go with your theory that ph doesn't really matter, it doesn't matter what hundreds of growers before you have experienced, because you and your 16 fantastic plants know otherwise.

Incorrect ph may not kill his plants, but it will effect them adversely.

I'm done.

peace

Dude, like I said earlier. Anyone of us could get stuff like that chart off the internet or out of a book. What I thought this forum's purpose was to discuss your own techniques and why you do such. Sure a debate here and there and also a disagreement here and there.

Also, I NEVER condoned not saying PH doesn't matter. What I said doesn't matter are the fluctuations since it'll fluctuate no matter what you do.

It appears that you're the one that has an ego. I feel I've been pretty objective in all of this and even through your shit talking, I calmly explained to you why I do the things I do. You even go on to say my plants look crappy and even then I explained each situation.

One last thing, you're trying to circumvent what I said earlier by challenging you by putting up some pics of your past grows. You post some PH chart that everyone should know before they even attempt growing and try and divert away from yourself by talking shit about me. Come on dude. Post some pics. You seem to be some kind of Grow Master Guru so show all of us the beans man. Put YOUR money where your mouth is.

Or are you gonna pull a "I'm done with you!" deal or "I didn't have a digi camera or a cell phone cam back then" and just take off without posting anything.

Or are you going to try and divert by talking more unsubstantiated shit about me.

The balls in your court dude.

petrol420 · Nov 27, 2009

Jack*Herrer420 said:
With the ebb and gro system, sometimes nutes and whatnot get stuck in the buckets and don't get recirculated with the rest of the system, causing ph and ppm swings. If you can, I would put my drain tube on the bottom of my bucket, and raise the buckets a couple inches to ensure it gets completely drained. I haven't really had that problem with my system, but I have read some threads where people did, and their solution was to do as I just mentioned. Hope that helps, I think they thought you were talking about a flood and drain table.

Actually, I was talking about a flood and drain table so my mistake. Can you tell me how the 2 are different?

GreenThumbSucker · Nov 27, 2009

Jack*Herrer420 said:
With the ebb and gro system, sometimes nutes and whatnot get stuck in the buckets and don't get recirculated with the rest of the system, causing ph and ppm swings. If you can, I would put my drain tube on the bottom of my bucket, and raise the buckets a couple inches to ensure it gets completely drained. I haven't really had that problem with my system, but I have read some threads where people did, and their solution was to do as I just mentioned. Hope that helps, I think they thought you were talking about a flood and drain table.

The water in the bottom of the buckets recirculates every time you flood. Read my journal in my signature line if you want to know how to properly use an ebb and grow.

GreenThumbSucker · Nov 27, 2009

petrol420 said:
Hey, I did admit I am a noob but I did provide pics to back up my claim that you don't need to worry too much about PH.

No matter how much proof I give, I always get blasted by someone about how wrong I am. How much proof do I need to give? I could see if everyone thought I was blowing smoke out of my ass if I didn't have anything to back up my claims but I always provide the proof.

speedyseedz: Answer me this. What do YOU want me to do to provide more proof as to not worrying about PH too much? Just ask and if its reasonable, I'll do it. I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.

Worrying about PH is analogous to an Oil Pressure Gauge in a car. Most cars don't have one anymore because the manufacturers were tired of people complaining about how much their oil pressure fluctuates and the customers always were afraid somethings gonna go wrong with their car. The manufacturers just ended up taking the damn gauges out because people were too stupid to realize that, yeah the damn oil pressure is always going to fluctuate extremely but your car is ok. If you have an oil pressure gauge in your car and you use conventional oil, try putting some synthetic in there and watch how much that pressure drops. Its pretty alarming at first but there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

PH is just like the oil pressure gauge.

Also, I have scanned these forums pretty extensively and I have yet to see a post where somebody said they had their PH all wrong and their whole crop was ruined. All the posts I see about PH problems are just fluctuation problems.

I feel if you change out your solution once every two weeks, you're not going to have a PH problem. And again, I am ready to back up any claim I made.

Your 'advise' on PH is stunningly irresponsible and speaks loudly of your inexperience. Your 'oil pressure gauge' analogy is laughable. PH doesnt drift up and down with the prevailing winds, as you seem to think it does. It generally goes steadily up. How fast it goes up depends on what type of fertilizer you are using, how big your plants are. How high your PPM is and a lot of other nuanced factors. Mine is going from about 5.6 up to 5.9 or 6.0 every day. If I ignored it for a few days, I would end up with severe nutrient deficiencies. When my plants were little, the PH didn't change for days, stayed right at 5.7. The PH rise is day and night compared to what it was two months ago.

I dont normally get into these types of spats, but your bad advise has no place in a hydroponics forum.

Jack*Herrer420 · Nov 27, 2009

petrol420 said:
Actually, I was talking about a flood and drain table so my mistake. Can you tell me how the 2 are different?

They are pretty much the same, they both use the flood and drain concept. With the ebb and gro, you have a res, a controller bucket, and buckets. The buckets fill up at specific times, and are then drained by gravity and pumps. It's like a flood table in a bucket system.

Jack*Herrer420 · Nov 27, 2009

GreenThumbSucker said:
The water in the bottom of the buckets recirculates every time you flood. Read my journal in my signature line if you want to know how to properly use an ebb and grow.

Hey dude, I was saying that if you adjust your ppm's or ph, the ppm's and ph at the bottom of the buckets will be different, and when the next flood cycle is activated, that water will then recirculate with the system, sometimes causing ppm and ph fluctuations. Like I said, I haven't had problems with that, but the solution for those who have has been to raise the buckets to allow a full drainage. Why are people so ornery on this thread?

petrol420 · Nov 28, 2009

GreenThumbSucker said:
Your 'advise' on PH is stunningly irresponsible and speaks loudly of your inexperience. Your 'oil pressure gauge' analogy is laughable. PH doesnt drift up and down with the prevailing winds, as you seem to think it does. It generally goes steadily up. How fast it goes up depends on what type of fertilizer you are using, how big your plants are. How high your PPM is and a lot of other nuanced factors. Mine is going from about 5.6 up to 5.9 or 6.0 every day. If I ignored it for a few days, I would end up with severe nutrient deficiencies. When my plants were little, the PH didn't change for days, stayed right at 5.7. The PH rise is day and night compared to what it was two months ago.

I dont normally get into these types of spats, but your bad advise has no place in a hydroponics forum.

First of all, did you even read the whole argument or just that portion that you quoted me on?

You mentioned that your PH varies little so good for you but if you read the original post from Nocturnalreef, he said his PH went from 5.8 to 7.0. That sounds like a pretty big fluctuation to me. My advice was that if your plant looks fine, then it probably is. I find its pretty easy to fix problems using Hydro so if you closely monitor the look of your plant, then you should know what kind of problem it's having.

Like I said earlier, I never check my PH, even when I'm mixing my nutes. I feel that if I change out my reservoir every 2 weeks, I'll be fine. GreenThumbSucker, do you advise that a person use the same nutrient solution for the whole flowering cycle?

I've provided pics to show you proof of my method. I could understand you saying that my advice about PH is irresponsible if my plants looked like shit and were all stunted in growth but exactly the opposite is true of my grow, they're nice and healthy.

I've provided this link:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/167187/soil-ph.pdf

If you scroll down, there's a little part that says "All plants are affected by the extremes of pH but there is wide variation in their tolerance of acidity and alkalinity."

I'm assuming All plants include cannabis as well.

I also included this link which goes in depth on why PH fluctuates so much:

http://www.tps.com.au/hydroponics/pheffect.htm

After reading the whole thing, this is what it says at the end:

"[FONT=Century Gothic, Arial, Helvetica]pH is not as critical as most hydroponicists believe. The main point is to avoid extremes in pH. Plants grow on soils with a wide range of pH. For most plant species there is an optimum pH in the region of pH 5 to pH 6"[/FONT]

The 2 links I provided are from places that aren't marijuana related so that means you're not reading stuff re-iterated by some anal armchair quarterback who in the end, doesn't know exactly what they're talking about.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

and to Jack*Herrer420: I'm sorry for being so ornery, some of these know-it-alls make me mad.

GreenThumbSucker · Nov 28, 2009

Jack*Herrer420 said:
Hey dude, I was saying that if you adjust your ppm's or ph, the ppm's and ph at the bottom of the buckets will be different, and when the next flood cycle is activated, that water will then recirculate with the system, sometimes causing ppm and ph fluctuations. Like I said, I haven't had problems with that, but the solution for those who have has been to raise the buckets to allow a full drainage. Why are people so ornery on this thread?

The PH or PPM difference from the couple of gallons in the bottom of the buckets have a very slight effect on PPM or PH in a 55 gallon system. Not enough to worry about. Im offering my experience, not attacking you. Don't be so hypersensitive.

:lol:

GreenThumbSucker · Nov 28, 2009

petrol420 said:
First of all, did you even read the whole argument or just that portion that you quoted me on?

You mentioned that your PH varies little so good for you but if you read the original post from Nocturnalreef, he said his PH went from 5.8 to 7.0. That sounds like a pretty big fluctuation to me. My advice was that if your plant looks fine, then it probably is. I find its pretty easy to fix problems using Hydro so if you closely monitor the look of your plant, then you should know what kind of problem it's having.

Like I said earlier, I never check my PH, even when I'm mixing my nutes. I feel that if I change out my reservoir every 2 weeks, I'll be fine. GreenThumbSucker, do you advise that a person use the same nutrient solution for the whole flowering cycle?

I've provided pics to show you proof of my method. I could understand you saying that my advice about PH is irresponsible if my plants looked like shit and were all stunted in growth but exactly the opposite is true of my grow, they're nice and healthy.

I've provided this link:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/167187/soil-ph.pdf

If you scroll down, there's a little part that says "All plants are affected by the extremes of pH but there is wide variation in their tolerance of acidity and alkalinity."

I'm assuming All plants include cannabis as well.

I also included this link which goes in depth on why PH fluctuates so much:

http://www.tps.com.au/hydroponics/pheffect.htm

After reading the whole thing, this is what it says at the end:

"[FONT=Century Gothic, Arial, Helvetica]pH is not as critical as most hydroponicists believe. The main point is to avoid extremes in pH. Plants grow on soils with a wide range of pH. For most plant species there is an optimum pH in the region of pH 5 to pH 6"[/FONT]

The 2 links I provided are from places that aren't marijuana related so that means you're not reading stuff re-iterated by some anal armchair quarterback who in the end, doesn't know exactly what they're talking about.

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

and to Jack*Herrer420: I'm sorry for being so ornery, some of these know-it-alls make me mad.

Google wont make you a hydroponics expert, experience will. You admittedly have almost no experience whatsoever with hydroponics. Your basically making an ass of yourself. Perhaps you should try posting in the newbie forum instead.

bgreenog · Nov 28, 2009

nocternalreef

i am currently using a bucket system with a large res.(100gal) that fluctuates a lot in a twenty hour or so period. i find it's never a bad thing to make sure your plants are feeding at the right ph. in fact it should be checked more regularly to maintained at the ph you are shooting for. if you let it sit that long it will rise with each feeding a little. do you make sure to balance out the ph before feeding your nutes in? also you say the ppm is rising when you come back to check it in 20 min or so...this could be several things did you ever figure it out?

petrol420 · Nov 28, 2009

GreenThumbSucker said:
Google wont make you a hydroponics expert, experience will. You admittedly have almost no experience whatsoever with hydroponics. Your basically making an ass of yourself. Perhaps you should try posting in the newbie forum instead.

Instead of talking shit, why don't you actually show ME where I am WRONG?

It looks like you're the one making an ass of oneself. I have provided what I needed to to show you that my grow is going great WITHOUT checking the PH. I then provide links as to why you don't have to be so anal about PH.

But instead of providing info that would prove me wrong, you just say how laughable and how inexperienced I am. I'll take inexperienced but laughable, come on dude. I have provided proof as to why you shouldn't worry too much about PH.

Why don't you provide info to me as to why I NEED to check my PH daily.

I find you're just like that other douche, speedyseedz. I provide the info to show you whats up and I just get a bunch of shit talk back. Are you going to be like speedyseedz and talk a bunch of shit and then take off when you're backed into a corner? Is all you can do is talk shit instead of being open minded?

I challenge you to show me how I am WRONG? Like I said earlier, I could see if my plants were looking like shit but the exact opposite is true. Just don't reply back on how much of a noob I am or how inexperienced I am. I get that dude but I must be doing something right.

I feel I need to say this again because I feel you'll forget. Provide me with info as to why I am wrong instead of talking shit. I offered an open minded opinion on not having to check PH so often or not at all. I NEVER said this was the only way to go. I never talked shit about you people who get all anal about PH and check it daily which I feel is a waste of time but hey, to each is own. Once again, I NEVER jammed it down people's throats as to why they don't need to worry about PH just like you try and jam it down people's throats as to why they need to be all anal and check it every minute of every day.

Hey, I have a thought. Why don't you offer classes on how to be an anal retentive prick? Judging by your posts, you'd make a great teacher.

petrol420 · Nov 28, 2009

bgreenog said:
nocternalreef

i am currently using a bucket system with a large res.(100gal) that fluctuates a lot in a twenty hour or so period. i find it's never a bad thing to make sure your plants are feeding at the right ph. in fact it should be checked more regularly to maintained at the ph you are shooting for. if you let it sit that long it will rise with each feeding a little. do you make sure to balance out the ph before feeding your nutes in? also you say the ppm is rising when you come back to check it in 20 min or so...this could be several things did you ever figure it out?

It seems Nocturnalreef is gone since I've unintentionally hijacked this thread for which I apologize.

I have a question for you bgreenog. What was the variance in PH in that 20 hour period. Did you add PH up or down to correct it or did you just leave it alone for another 20 hours and take another reading. I am curious as to how much it fluctuates in a reservoir that big.

DaivsCCS · Nov 29, 2009

i have ebb and flow also.. did you wash the hydroton before you planted? id consider using 6 inch cubes also in the future its better support and yous plants get a better opportunity to drink.. .. i give nutes once a week and almost everyday i top off with fresh water and check ph.. ph rises but should be pretty slow. i would advise a flush like flora cleen to break the nute bonds and salt buildup in there.. also when you plant soak your cubes in a mild nute solution with ph adjusted to 5.5 .. i dont think its your cube because its so small . but if you flush then you know there is no chance of it being any of the problems anyone has said.. plants are different everyday( sometimes they drink more water, you know this because the ppm goes up and water level goes down. sometimes they aborb more nutes and the ppm goes down. sometimes they use both and the tds drops or stays the same and the water level in your res goes down) i can go a few days without checking or topping off my res and they are ok.

i have also heard of alot of people only checking when they fill the res some call it luck but who knows.

only add nutes once a week because you cant tell what they take in in any way besides water color so jus keep giving more fresh water until your next nute change. i let my ppm go to like 600 sometimes just because.. but i change semi religiously every week.

hope that helps

nocturnalreef · Dec 1, 2009

LOL well i obviously missed a debate!! and argumetn thoes are always fun.... why do people think if you don't have 1,000 posts on here you know nothing.... i have been growing for years... and have like 7 posts... it doesn't mean you know little about what you are saying... then again if you don't know what the hell you are talking about why give advice?

ANYWAY!
I wanted to update this situation cause it was in a way figured out... my water temps weren't really high i keep frozen bottles in there now to keep it even colder.... the ph swings must have been the chemicals i was using.. i got sick of the mass adjusting that had to happen everyday so i went back to Fox farms, one, it only takes 15ml ph- to correct my ph swings.. my ppms aren't everywhere and my ph has only been going from 5.8-6.3

As for if my plants were showing damage.. some started to show salt issues/burn so i ran clearex and now that i started back on my old nutrients, my growth is exploding and the salt damage giveaways are no longer appearing anywhere.. they look very healthy.

So i dont know how i feel about the general hydros new line "BIO" i think in soil it would be great but hydro its not so good... i also grow another setup with BC hydro and my ph and ppms bearly ever go crazy like that new general hydro bio line. i think i will stick with my fox farms andB.C from now on.. like i said though i would like to try it in soil grows.. maybe this summer!!!!!

nocturnalreef · Dec 1, 2009

also for thoes asking about my meter.. yes i actually cleaned and re-calibrated it when things started jumping thinking the same thing but it wasn't that at all... like someone mentioned EBB and grow allows water to sit in lines and buckets so no matter what theres seddative sitting somewhere and with that bio line theres so many THICK THICK THICK LET ME SAY IT AGAIN THICK chemicals that im sure they were sitting somewhere...

im used to aeroponics, this is my first ever ebb and grow i just recieved my license and became a caregiver so i though i would buy a nice new system.. i chose the ebb and grow because of pot size and the ability to root a massive area. aside from the water sitting in certin areas and being a pain to REALLY completely clean i like it... it's a set and leave system.. never have to qorry about sprayers or clogs..

nocturnalreef · Dec 1, 2009

[also yea i always bleach my hydroton before use then soak in ph'd water for 24 hours before i place in the system then i run the system 2-3 times to soak the hydroton with chem water ...

the ph swing wasn't something basic... not to be rude i do know what im doing grow wise... this one just got me cause the huge ppm change and ph swing plus how much ph - it took was INSANE some days i was pumping 70ML of ph- just to drop .5 pts!! it was nuts..

nocturnalreef · Dec 1, 2009

QUOTE=petrol420;3459852]It seems Nocturnalreef is gone since I've unintentionally hijacked this thread for which I apologize.

I have a question for you bgreenog. What was the variance in PH in that 20 hour period. Did you add PH up or down to correct it or did you just leave it alone for another 20 hours and take another reading. I am curious as to how much it fluctuates in a reservoir that big.[/QUOTE]

My ph was going from 5.8 to 7.2 ALWAYS over 20-23 hrs.. depending on when i got home to check... my PPMS were raising 200 sometimes... but normally on a daily guarantee basis i would jump 100ppm per day always...

let me give you this for an example i an running 3 systems right now

Ebb and grow
largest ph +2.2
larges ppm +225ppm

Aeroponics fox farms
largest ph jump +1
PPM jump +23

bubbleponics (i wanted to try this so i built one!

) BC grow
+0.9
+19

controlling EBB and gro ph and ppm swings

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