Need Growmie to Help

If you been active here in the last week you know I am really struggling with soil ph acidity, don't matter what I do ph will not raise over 5.5 whatsover.

Things I tried,
Watering with Tap at ec 0.3 instead of RO due to buffering presence of Carbonates
Watering at 6.8-7ph with substantial runoff, medium stays at 5.3.
I am using Nitrate nitrogen so we know its not an Ammoniacal nitrogen release
It is not overfeeding because runoff ec comes out right
Its not Carbonic acid because I am not supplementing with substantial co2, The bag is new so I only get 450ppm of co2 at most
It is not root rot and death matter because roots are healthy, white, not rootbound and I use enzymes.

Things I haven't tried,
Dolomitic Lime

Growing in 60% coco perlite 70-30 from mother earth, 30% worm castings, 4% hydroton, 4% Vermiculite, 2% or less of pistachio biochar and azomite micronized.

Now, I bought advanced nutrients Ph perfect connosseur line and some osmotic stabilizer that will arrive in a few days but let's say I didn't or they won't fix the issue.
Probably the only thing left to check since it is very symbiotic with ph, absorption and microbiology is a Cation Exchance Capacity check.
I am not a scientist and even if I am still going to do it myself I am asking you to check how many positive and negative ions are in the feed in the picture.
If you can tell me in detail what is the CEC of the compounds I am using and in what kind of water (Ro, Tap, 50-50, or whatever) I should dissolve them to achieve the perfect CEC within the medium I am using in order to stabilize CEC and ph to 6, 50$ is happily waiting for you.
I am not a scientist and I don't know if I asked something impossible to apply to my situation due to too many variants but I hope there someone passionate enough here that loves science and can help me out, whatever the case I am man of my word and a week from now I will still send money to the most helpful message even if we couldn't find a solution. I decided to put something up from my end because this might be a tedious job so I wanted to respect the kindness and expertise of my helping growmie.
Thank you to anyone participating and trying to help me out!
A blessed day to y'all

I only care about week 4 and 5 really as I should be able do the ratios and find the sweet spot for the previous weeks.

Thought this might be the beach I am looking for after reading this:

The Chemistry behind Coco Coir: a (strange) journey from ferts bottle to to buds

Growing is something strange as it can be as much complicated as you want. Beside that, some growing methods needs a better understanding of the involved chemical processes than others. Coco coir (in my opinion) is one of them.

"Coco Coir tend to adsorb Calcium and Magnesium", "pH of nutrient solution should always be adjusted to the correct value", "checking drainage ec and pH is also important" as well as "checking drainage pH and ec makes no sense as coco holds nutrients and modify pH", "Coco is an inhert media"or "Coco has high CEC" are only few exemples of how many confusing infos can be found on the internet.

If you haven't heard none of this rules before, you are likely to have never grown in coco or at least, you were lucky enough to not need search the web for hints and tips.

Encyclopedia, Salt: elettrically neutral chemical compound, made of 2 or more Ions with opposite electrical charge.

Lets take a look at the seasalt, almost everybody knows that its chemical formula is NaCl. In its solid form is a quiet stable compound, but what happens when we put it in water?
Correct, it dissolves, but what it means?
What actually happens is that salt divides in its Ions: Na+Cl-
If we want to be exact, there is no salt in the solution, its crystalline structure got dissolved, just positive and negative Ions. Keep those last word in mind and put them in a corner, we'll need them soon.
Everything clear till now?
Good, lets go ahed.

Water!
Water has many characteristics, almost everyone quite unique. But when the talk is about Ions, two becomes particullary important: water is an amphoteric and polar compound. Lets start from the last one.

While the term "polar" could suggest something related to cold places, it actually referres to magnetic/electric poles. Saing water is "polar" simply means that its molecule is electrically asimmetric. Everybody knows water chemical formula is H2O and if you don't, please, pick up a lighter and set your hair on fire for punishment.
So 2 Hydrogen atoms and 1 Oxygen, but maybe not everyone knows that its structure it's like that:

As you can see, water molecule has some sort of triangular shape, with the oxygen side been slightly (it all depends on the point of view) negative charged, and viceversa.
Could seem a little thing, but without this there would be no plants to grow.

Amphoteric is somehow a weird word. Anyway it basically means that water can act as an acid as well as a base. For definition, an Acid is something capable of releasing H+ ions, while a base is something that attract them. If put thogeter with someting more acidic, water will act as a base and viceversa

Pure water at room temperature is made of stable H2O molecules, but a really small amount "divide" to H+ and OH-

Beware that "divide" is not correct, is more of an addition:

2 H2O <--> H3O+ OH-

At the end of the day it's basically the same thing, we always have a H+ on a side, and a OH- on the other. From know on, please consider H+ and H3O+ as the same thing. In most reactions you'll see H3O+ cause it's the real form, while when talking we'll refer to H+ for easier reading.

Anyway, I sad "only a small amount". Guess how many? 1 every 10.000.000 or 1 × 10-7. Look at that "-7". Ever wondered "why pH7"? now you know.

As we have seen pH7 also mean that H+ and OH- are present in the same concentration.
If you use RO water, thats quite near what comes out from the blue hose

But if we put an acid in it, water will act as a base, bonding to an H+

H2O + HCl -> H3O+ Cl-

More H3O+ compared to OH- The pH is lowering. Ten times more H+ means 1 point less in pH.

Viceversa H2O+NH3-> OH- NH4+
More OH- compared to H+. The pH is rising.

So I've just said pure water has pH7 so same amount of H+ and OH-.
Oh, well, there's a last minute problem, like when you see there's only 10gr left and you're still in Veg: pure water is a great solvent, enough powerful to react with CO2 normally present in air to create Carbonic Acid.

H2O+CO2 -> H2CO3

Being H2CO3 an acid, water play its role as a base, actracting H+ from the newcomer and lowering pH till a 5.5 value.

Why till 5.5 and not more? I've said water act as base when toghether with someting MORE acidic. In that case, 5.5 is the equilibrium point. Maybe you are allready thinking that adding your pH+ would be a simple solution but think about it: if you raise the pH, water will be once again basic if compared to H2CO3, at that time will start to act as a base as before.

Seems frustating doesn't it? Well, actually it's a great thing: the fact is that water by its own has a very low inertia to pH adjustment. In other word, easily matches pH of surrounding substances.

Know you should start to understand why the amphoteric behavior is so important.

But what about polarity?

The answer is quite simple (or at least more simple than the amphteric thing): polarity enables water dissolve salts crystalline structure and idrate positive and negative Ions.

keep in mind that any significative change from pH7 could cause serius issues. As said before, 1 point more in pH means 10 times more OH- and 2 point more means 100 times more OH-, the opposite for H+ ions.

Roots use H+ and OH- to adsorb macro and micro elements, so pH balance in the nutrient solution is very important to make it possible. Beside that, different pH causes different equilibrium between ions, making possible reactions that doesn't happen under neutral conditions, resulting for example in unsolvable salts.
Undissolved salt means (quite) no ions, and no ions means no food for the plant.


So now you should have a clearer view of what happens when you mix those high quality ferts in water.
But in wich way plants actually eat (or maybe drink) them?
On a chemical level, two main things come in place: osmotic pressure and ion exchange.

Before we start there is a very important thing you must have clear in mind: everything in chemistry goes in the direction of maximum equilibrium or, if you prefer, maximum stability level.
Salts dissolve into Ions simply because, when put side by side to water molecule, that is the most stable form. If something changes (pH for example), also equilibrium point will, and things will start moving again seeking the new stability level.

Osmotic pressure and ion exchange makes no exception: they'r all about stability and equilibrium.

Osmotic membranes (like cellular membranes) are also called "semipermeable membrane". Basically, it means that they are able to let some molecules (like water molecules) pass trough, while blocking others (like ions).
At the same time, osmotic pressure is an intrinsecal chemical property of solutions. The lower the concentration of ions, the higher the osmotic pressure.
If concentrations, and for direct conseguence osmotic pressure, on the two sides of a semipermeable membrane (like root cells membrane) are different, water will be forced to move from the higher pressure side (low concentration) to the other (high concentration). Once the concentrations on the to sides are the same, so will be osmotic pressures: equilibrium has been reached. Under normal conditions, ion concentration inside root is higher than that in the nutrient solution, so water will be literally pushed inside roots trought their semipermeable membrane by means of osmotic pressure.

End of part 1

Part 2


So, while water is somehow "pushed" inside plants, ions are litterallh captured by them.
We just said that water inside roots is quite rich in ions, and this is a key point. Some of those Ions are micro and macro elements that were already adsorbed, while others are simply H+ and OH- resulting from water dissociation.
Since like every Ion, micro and macro element ions in solution have their own electrical charge (K+ for example) plants can't just "take" them, otherwise equilibrium would be broken. What they actually do is swap them with equivalent amount of H+ and OH-

For exemple

potassium (K+) swapped with 1xH+
calcium (Ca++) swapped with 2xH+
magnesium (Mg++) swapped with 2xH+
ammonium (NH4+) swapped with 1xH+
iron (Fe++) swapped with 2xH+
manganese (Mn++) swapped with 2xH+
zinc (Zn++) swapped with 2xH+
nitrates (NO3-) swapped with 1xOH-
phosphates (HPO4--) swapped with 2xOH-

In this way electrical charge equilibrium remains the sama and at the same time, roots releasing H+ or OH- make pH fluctuate.
This is a well known behavior for hydroponic growers, where there is quite no buffering power in the media to oppose to this.
I said buffering? Keep reading...

Step 3, those damn colloids! pH buffering and Cations exchange capacity in coco coir

Coco coir is characterized by a quite high colloid content and therefore, good CEC or cation excange capacity.
Keep in mind that "Cation" is just another name for positive charged ions, so this basically quantifies the substrate ability to exchange positive charged ions (with nutrient solution as well as with roots)

Now, imagine colloids as big spheres with a negative charged surface. Being so big and at the same time having such a strong electrical charge, makes them able to bond to a very large amount of Cations (+Ions).
Even if electrical charge has the same "weight" between different ions (for example K+ and H+ or Ca++ and Mg++) Ions are still differently attracted by colloids. Many factors come in place like ions dimensions and steric configuration for example. Anyway, the most important one is still the electrical charge, so Ca++ and Mg++ are more easly abtracted than, for example, H+ or K+.
This is very important, and explains quite well why its common tought that extra Ca/Mg are needed when growin in coco.
I said common tought because, in fact, the plant need the same amount of Ca/Mg in coco as in other substrate. Its just a matter of fullfilling CEC.

So, we have seen that coco can retain some Ca/Mg beside other Cations as well, but is this GOOD or BAD?

The answer is neither one or another. In fact, coco acts as a buffer on nutes level. Once the CEC is fullfilled (for example by multiple feeding or, better, one night submerged in the nutrient solution), colloids will have reached an equilibrium with nutrient solution. In this situation, if we feed pure ro water, colloids will release cations, if we feed a very high ec solution, colloids will be forced to bond to more cations.

This is also true for pH buffering. As H+ is a Cation, colloids will abtract them in great quantity. If we feed high pH solution (lot of OH- and few H+), colloids will release H+ and viceversa. As we have seen before, its all about equilibrium.

So, its now clear that the most important part is correctly fullfilling its CEC. This can be easly achieved by letting coco coir sit in a balanced nutrient solution with correct pH level for some time (say, for example, a night).

This also mean that checking in/out ec is important too. Inlet ec higher than out ec means colloid are actracting ions, while inlet ec lower than out ec means colloids are releasing ions. This is a very useful information about CEC in that specific moment and also suggests if corrections are needed.

Regarding pH, providing a nutrient solution corrected to the right value is not bad, anyway slight deviations from correct pH value will be at most compensated by the coco coir it self.

At the same time, tring to keep run-off pH at the correct value by changing pH input could do more harm than good. As we have seen before, pH fluctuation is a natural consequence of ions exchange operated by plant roots. Beside that, having a substrate that also affect pH makes thing even more complicated.

At the end of the day, you should correct pH if your starting water has high ec (that means high Ca/Mg wich act as pH buffers). An high buffered water will make it more difficult for the colloids to bring pH to the correct value (as an high buffered water will need higher amuont of H+ ions to change it's pH if compare do low buffered / low ec waters).
Long cicles with such water at very high pH could, week by week, unable the substrate capacity of compensating pH (anyway this is a very rare situation)

Using ro water or tap water with medium or low ec (say <0,4) usually makes pH correction quite useless.
As we have seen, water without buffering ions vary its pH very easly so an incorrect value should be quickly compensated by the substrate.

Any way, lets review the key points:

- starting water: the best solution is to use tap water if ec is <0,4 or slightly higher. With high EC tap wather, is really suggested to use a RO system, than cut RO water with tap water till 0,3-0,4mS/cm

- pH: if your starting water is like the one mentioned above, pH adjustment shouldn't be necessary. You can always adjust nutes pH but please, do not rise or lower it to achieve correct run off pH: it doesn't make any sense. Run off pH can fluctuate a lot due to roots activity, and that's absolutely normal

EC: of course you should adjust your feed EC to the right value. It's also very important to check for run off EC once a week more or less. Run off EC should be as close as possible to feed EC. If you find it lower or higher a good way to take it back to normal is to just increase your feeding time. For example, if you are feeding 2 times per 10 minutes each, switch to 2 times 12 minutes.

Feeding Times: you should adjust your feeding time to achieve a sufficient run off. That way you can assure coco CEC is always buffered while also preventing salts build up. You should also adjust number of feeding to let the substrate dry a bit between a feed and the other.

Hope it helps!

TC

You remind me of the vintage racer who buys a a Formula one car and has not mastered driving a Formula Ford.

Can't really help you I grow big plants in dirt.

You are drowning in information you need to get a simple base line working and grow on that, think keep it simple.
One thing we learned at the track make one change at a time......

Someone was bound to say it....

Simple answer … too much shit . I run mother earth coco ( out of bag ) with a simple calmag presoak at 5.8 ph.

Then feed GH MAXIBLOOM alone for full run.
No unnecessary crap that will cause antagonism. That is what is happening - too many products for a simple coco medium.

No need to get into weeds with “ acids / ratios or other nonsense “ - what other plant needs all that feed analysis ? ……. None.

Stop growing weed & join the air force & build rockets....

I'm just bullshitting with you...
You seem chemically smart...but your plant is suffering.

I have seen your setup...
I have no idea what your end goal is...but your setup screams...micro
Not a bad thing ...just a real thing.

I cant believe you wrote that much on PH fluctuations...lmao super brain
If you are a scientist now is the time to test PH
Factors in coco coir...

If not...
Feed an flush til you get your PH to move up to a key zone

I get it guys and I can only agree as it really is my first grow. But I am having a truckload of fun its awesome! This is what I am by nature always striving for the best and the unknown without any fears because this is what life is about and how humanity advances so I don't regret jumping in the deep pool, how are you gonna know what you are made of if you don't push your limits in a healthy way? My ambitions give me a high tolerance on stress so I am very comfortable in this uncertainty and it pushes me to become better everyday and master this craft in this particular case.
Sometimes I like the easy way out too but it's mostly for things I don't care about, looks like we can say I care about this a lot, and it's reminding me how beautiful and spectacularly complex the world is! Looking for answers is a phylosophical needs of humans and I am enjoying this process.

You are growing 50 sour diesels...right??

Trap Star said:

Stop growing weed & join the air force & build rockets....

I'm just bullshitting with you...
You seem chemically smart...but your plant is suffering.

I have seen your setup...
I have no idea what your end goal is...but your setup screams...micro
Not a bad thing ...just a real thing.

I cant believe you wrote that much on PH fluctuations...lmao super brain
If you are a scientist now is the time to test PH
Factors in coco coir...

If not...
Feed an flush til you get your PH to move up to a key zone

Click to expand...

I already did a flush with RO a week ago cause I overnuted a bit, but now that you mention it a flush with Tap water could be helpful thanks to the carbonates but I already am feeding with tap since yesterday so I don't know If I'd strip naked the soil once again and if it would be more good than stressful for the plants.
Setup screams micro? you mean you see a lack of micronutrients? if thats what you mean you are right I am pretty positive the white tips are some micronutrient lockout due to ph at 5.3
I am not a scientist I am actually a Chef lol but I like or at least respect and accept every aspect of life.
Also the long scientific report was another guy's thread I just wrote the message before the nute pictures xD

Trap Star said:

You are growing 50 sour diesels...right??

Click to expand...

Super Silver Sour Diesel Haze* technically but yeah pretty much
My end goal is to find the best possible pheno and pat myself on the shoulders for achieving that results because I know I discovered something good, and humanity likes good stuff, so It's my way of finding a purpose in my hobby, I need this mentality because otherwise It wouldn't make sense for me to do things that I like not in the best possible way for myself and humanity

No...
Micro as in small grow...

You look like you have all the correct nutrition

Is this personal or do you have hopes of selling this herb??

Trap Star said:

No...
Micro as in small grow...

You look like you have all the correct nutrition

Is this personal or do you have hopes of selling this herb??

Click to expand...

No bro I would never sell it! My precious pheno hunted SSSDH?? I might gift vegetative clones to interested collectors but not selling any flower for sure.
Yes bro its a micro grow its a hobby for me, open to big scale business if some company happens to find me a good fit for their facilities but I am a business owner so after some employee time to perfect my methods quality and costly wise I would have to franchise a facility or something

Good...
Don't wig out so much over minor things....
As you grow...you will get to test feed schedules more an more...
Until you get "tapped into" exactly what the plant likes....

I meant selling the bud by the way...

I grow to sell bud...
So I don't have any room for error.

My crops have to look A 1
Smell A 1
Smoke A 1

Or I can't sell it.
That's why I asked.

formularacer said:

You remind me of the vintage racer who buys a a Formula one car and has not mastered driving a Formula Ford.

Can't really help you I grow big plants in dirt.

You are drowning in information you need to get a simple base line working and grow on that, think keep it simple.
One thing we learned at the track make one change at a time......

Click to expand...

A beatiful analogy thank you very much, I definitely agree one way of doing things is one at a time, but as a formula racer you will understand why I like a fast life and I always have a thermosuit for incidents so I am all good and happy! its just a sharp turn with many cars right now but we'll surpass all of this mfers and win the race!

Trap Star said:

I grow to sell bud...
So I don't have any room for error.

My crops have to look A 1
Smell A 1
Smoke A 1

Or I can't sell it.
That's why I asked.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you grow some real fire, do you journal your grows somewhere?