You know what, I am going to link you to another thread in this forum. Instead of trying to lat it all out again about pH here, read my posts, that is if you are interested in my opinion. I'll come back here to see if anything I said in that thread interested you and you have any specific questions for yer grow. I'll also start by raising my eyebrow to:
You need to spend some time in a lower pH range. When you say,
I keep, is that in you are using pH adjusting stuff to do so? It would help, too, if you can give us a little wider angle pic on your bucket system, and maybe a little more info.
If you want my take on pH, read my posts in this thread. I've engaged in an exchange of ideas with a pleasant chap (I assume, perhaps a chapette) and see there is another post I need to read, but I haven't finished my dissection of the pdfs, so don't get lost in that discussion as far as ferreting out my general take on what pH range you should be using in your system, and how it applies to what you got going on i your growroom right now.