Flushing Question

I've read that after flushing to see what level of nutrient your plants are needing you add your nutrient and adjust PH wait 24hrs and then test if your nutes went down then you need to add if they went up you should decrease and if they stay the same your good to go. But they also say that when you top off to only use PH adjusted water so you dont run the chance of adding nutrients they are not using and get lock out. So my question is after I test the next day is it ok to add nutes and adjust ph if needed or do I need to flush again and add more nutes wait another 24hrs and test again unti I get it right? Sorry if Im being a little confusing I hope Im explaining it right. Thanks

Adjusting ph is done after adding to a res. It is ok to add water then adjust ph of res and much easier.

This is the post from another forum that I'm referncing.

a lot of people seem to struggle with how much to feed their plants so I have made this thread so I don't have to keep explaining lol...

to do this you will need a nutrient strength meter, be it a CF, TDS, PPM, EC or any other, they do the same job.

first make up some nutrient solution, go with a weak one to start with to make sure you don't kill the plants

record the strength. for example let's say it has an EC of 0.55

24 hours later test it again.

if the solution has increased in strength, let's say it now has an EC of 0.70, then it means the plant is using up more water than nutrients, and therefore you now know that your original strength of 0.55 was too high, so lower it a little

if the solution has decreased in strength, let's say it now has an EC of 0.40, then it means the plant is using up more nutrients than water, and therefore you now know that your original strength of 0.55 was too low, so raise it a little

if there has been no change in nutrient strength but you can see the plant has used up some of the solution you know you have the strength spot on.

as the plant grows it requires stronger and stronger solutions so keep a check on it on a regular bases


as a side note.....

when topping off nutrient solutions when they get low only use PH adjusted water and not nutrient solution because plants don't always use the nutrients in the exact ratios that are in the nutrient formula you have chosen. adding nutes to top up a reservoir can leed to a toxicity in a particular nutrient

do a complete change of the nutrient solution regularly, timing depends on the size of your reservoir but every week or two is a good start

adjust your PH regularly, don't let it go out of 5.5-6.2 for long

And these are My first reading after 24hr flush of straight PH adjusted water, then I added nutes to this level ms/cm 1.44 PH 5.8 and PPM of 1050. The next day my readings are ms/cm 1.21 PH 5.9 PPM 879, So from what I've been reading is that my plants are telling me they want more nutes. So I'm wondering if I can top off and add nutes or do I need to do the whole process again until I get the right amount of nutes that my plants want? Thanks

Plants will uptake more nutes directly after a flush. Did you add the nutes to the flush water?

When adding back to your res, you will always want to use the same "base". Do not PH it or such! Once back to your normal level, then add your nutes and mix well. Then adjust PH!