PH and PPM both going down.

I am running a three bucket DWC. My question is both my Ph and PPM are both slowly going down??? I know if my PPM is going my Ph SHOULD go up, soo why are both of them going down??? The plants aren't showing any signs of problems, but when I check the Ph every other day it goes from 5.6 down to 5.0 or 4.9. Is this acceptable?

yea i dunno my ph was going down even before i started the flush...now i'm in week 7 day 6..been flushing for a week already and i'm using RDWC..total of 8 gallons.

i ph up to 5.9 to 6.0..by the next morning its down to 4.8 4.7..ohwell only about 1 more week to go and my plant looks health as hell.

Just out of curiosity, in your RDWC are you top feeding through your buckets?

Are you topping up your buckets daily with water?

yes topping off daily with R/O water and no i am not top feeding.

i have a return 3/4" ID hose at the bottom of my buckets and have another 3/4" ebb & flow..just below my 6" net pot,but no water flows over my hydroton..it just recirculates with a 160 GPH sunleaves pump.

the 3/4 ID tubing i'm using is Sunleaves brand,and its CRAP!!! the wall is way to thin so the walls like to collapse.

this RDWC system is a DIY...it was somthing i quickly threw together when i realized that i didnt want to be lifting the lid on this monster plant every morning to get my readings.

I packed: if your plants are happy, don't stress. Obviously they're not stressed. If you look back here about a year ago you'll see that I had the same problem. I pestered everyone I thought who could help me for advice. And the best advice I got was from the instructor at the hydro store who said, "If your plants look healthy don't panic. Readjust your pH daily and go with it."

Remember the first step of the scientific method of investigation: is there a problem? In this case, maybe not, just something different. What I found was that when your ppm's go down your plants are feeding on your nutes. When your reservoir goes down they're thirsty so refill it with pH adjusted R/O water to the full level. I changed my nutes every week to ten days thinking that would help but the problem persisted until just before harvest. I used a lot of pH UP on that crop and likely will again if it reoccurs but i got some very good meds. I hope that helps. HSA

how are you cooling the water? my first guess was algae, but it might be oxygen? maybe the do is low? hows the roots? white?

4.9 is a little low... i try to keep the water ph @ 5.7-6.3... if my ppms are constantly dropping i'll usually add more nutes (stronger dose) and then the ppm stabilizes. for large swings i may flush out the system and start with fresh ro water and new nutes

why does duct tape in a res always scare me?

iPACKEDthisBOWL4TWO said:

I am running a three bucket DWC. My question is both my Ph and PPM are both slowly going down??? I know if my PPM is going my Ph SHOULD go up, soo why are both of them going down??? The plants aren't showing any signs of problems, but when I check the Ph every other day it goes from 5.6 down to 5.0 or 4.9. Is this acceptable?

Click to expand...

Judging by the looks of those pictures, you need to get your PH up in a hurry! You are locking out essential nutes running your PH that low and the signs are starting to show it!(not sure how you and others don't see issues?) Are you using PH down at the start when you mix your nutes? Are you using PH up at any point in the same res? BIG NO NO!

Root rot could be to blame or pests. If both of those are not an issue, then I would say shoot for a 6.2 PH when you mix your nutes or so, and then when your PH lowers, you should be able to raise it enough again with just water to keep it in a safer range.

These are how they look as of today. The PH and PPM has pretty much stabilized now amd I can't really see any probs. I guess I was just conserned cause I've never really had to use PH UP before, I always had to bump the PH down if anything.

for those who read this... dont add ph up and down to the same res... it will quickly cause many many more issues.. if your ph dropped, add some ro water instead to raise the ph... avoid chemicals to fix the ph if possible... when i need the ph to drop i usually add some nutes if the ec/ppm will allow me to do so without overfeeding.

glad your plants are doing better...

what ppm are you trying to maintain??

The way I personaly grow in these buckets is every sunday I change the res. At this point I set the ppm at whatever I want being right now it is at 400. I don't top of throughout the week, the only thing I add to the buckets is PH up or down. I am currently running 400 but the superskunk was not taking nutes and was only taking water so for that plant I simply dumped the res and put just Ph'd water. I'll add nutes tomorrow after it flushes and sits for a day.