PH in Reservoir / Going out of town

Florida Girl

Florida Girl

Well-Known Member


OK… so I’m growing using the hempy bucket method. Medium is Perlite with a little Coco.

I have a 13 gallon reservoir (plastic kitchen trash can) with 2 airstones and a water pump with tubes to top water the plants.

I have a business trip coming up and I will be out of town for 5 days. Everything is on timers and I recently added a digital timer to the water pump so I can water the plants when I’m gone.

Here’s my problem…. The PH climes up pretty quickly in the reservoir… I have to adjust it every day. I try to keep the PH at 5.7 …. I get it set… then the next day it’s over 6 so I have to re-adjust. My plan is to manually water the plants on Monday before I leave with the correct PH water… then get the reservoir set to water on Wed. & Fri for 3 minutes each day. The roots have reached the bottom of the buckets so I figure Wed. & Fri. should be sufficient. HOWEVER…. My fear is that by Wed. & Fri. the PH will be over 7. I’m basing this on how much it rises every day.

I’ve been thinking that if I manually water on Monday with 5.7 PH… then get my reservoir set… but adjust the PH to say 4.5 before I leave…. I’m thinking that by Wednesday it will be 5.7 and by Friday possibly 6.7…. or higher.

This will be my first time leaving them unattended so I’m really stressing about the climbing PH as I had a problem with it in the beginning of the grow and the plants suffered… I’d rather not have them go through that again.

So my question is… does my plan about setting the PH in the reservoir really low sound right…. Or is there anything else I can do to stabilize the PH in the reservoir so it doesn’t climb so much over the course of a few days.

I should mention that I’m currently using the powder PH down… and I’m noticing the PH fluctuates more using the powder then the liquid. With the liquid PH down it still climbs… but not nearly as much as with the powder. Anyone else notice this?
 
U

unity

Well-Known Member
Hi mate, How old are the plants and how many ppm do they eat a day?
Are your res temps fluctuating?

Usually, depending on what you all add in there the ph goes up because of the nute uptake of your plants (keep in mind that temp changes in your res will also trigger ph fluctuations). So you can also use add back nutes to bring the ph down again since there are buffers in your nutes.

A ph from 5.2 - 5.8 is ideal (depends who you listen too, check growfaq)
So, you can always ph the res down to 5.0 before you go. Let's say it climes to 6.5 by the time you are back, it will still be fine. Just keep in mind that if you notice them not taking up nutes anymore after you bring the ph down again that you have a lock-out and all you need to do is a res-change and start over. But most likely you will not have any issues!

Good luck,
Unity:peace::joint::peace:
 
Florida Girl

Florida Girl

Well-Known Member
I have 6 plants. 3 are 5 weeks and the other 3 are 3.5 weeks. I'm keeping the PPM between 950 - 1000. I had a problem early on with too high PH and too high PPM and the plants suffered. Anyway... I have a meter and monitor everything carefully now.

I test the runoff and the PPM seem to be the same coming out as what's going in.... the PH however always comes out 1 point higher on the runoff.

My air temp is consistent at 77 degrees F. I have a stand alone a/c to keep the temps consistent. The temp of the reservoir stays pretty consistent at 73 degrees F. Humidity is 50%.

I’ve attached some pictures of my setup… including one of my meter. As you will see the PH is at 7.1 (no I won’t water with it like that) I just wanted to show an example of the jump. I watered yesterday and the reservoir was 5.7 (at 10:00am). By the time I went to bed the PH meter read 6.9…. woke up this morning it was 7.1 (as you can see in picture). IMO that’s a huge jump in a 24 hr. period.

I haven’t watered today as today is the day I clean out the res., re-calibrate meter, etc. and I haven’t got around to it yet.

As you can see by my pics my plants aren’t the healthiest… this is my first grow on my own and I’ve had my share of problems while learning. I feel like I have things under control now…however I can’t figure out why the PH fluctuates so drastically in 24 hours. I have to go out of town and have no choice but to try and figure out how to compensate for the PH.

Basically I want to know if my plan to manually water on Monday with 5.7…. then adjust the res to 4.5 so that by Wed & Fri the PH will have adjusted up (I’m sure it will still be too high). I’m thinking on Wed. it will be fine but by Fri it will be too high. Since I’m doing Hempy perhaps I only need to water them on Wed and skip Fri (I will be home Fri night late). I have one week to figure it out before I leave.

Thanks for the help

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U

unity

Well-Known Member
Florida Girl said:
I have 6 plants. 3 are 5 weeks and the other 3 are 3.5 weeks. I'm keeping the PPM between 950 - 1000. I had a problem early on with too high PH and too high PPM and the plants suffered. Anyway... I have a meter and monitor everything carefully now.

I test the runoff and the PPM seem to be the same coming out as what's going in.... the PH however always comes out 1 point higher on the runoff.

My air temp is consistent at 77 degrees F. I have a stand alone a/c to keep the temps consistent. The temp of the reservoir stays pretty consistent at 73 degrees F. Humidity is 50%.

I’ve attached some pictures of my setup… including one of my meter. As you will see the PH is at 7.1 (no I won’t water with it like that) I just wanted to show an example of the jump. I watered yesterday and the reservoir was 5.7 (at 10:00am). By the time I went to bed the PH meter read 6.9…. woke up this morning it was 7.1 (as you can see in picture). IMO that’s a huge jump in a 24 hr. period.

I haven’t watered today as today is the day I clean out the res., re-calibrate meter, etc. and I haven’t got around to it yet.

As you can see by my pics my plants aren’t the healthiest… this is my first grow on my own and I’ve had my share of problems while learning. I feel like I have things under control now…however I can’t figure out why the PH fluctuates so drastically in 24 hours. I have to go out of town and have no choice but to try and figure out how to compensate for the PH.

Basically I want to know if my plan to manually water on Monday with 5.7…. then adjust the res to 4.5 so that by Wed & Fri the PH will have adjusted up (I’m sure it will still be too high). I’m thinking on Wed. it will be fine but by Fri it will be too high. Since I’m doing Hempy perhaps I only need to water them on Wed and skip Fri (I will be home Fri night late). I have one week to figure it out before I leave.

Thanks for the help

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Hi Florida Girl, let me back up here. You are not re-circulating?!
Also, your res is not covered and allows light in. Both are bad, all your feed lines, reservoirs etc. should be black as to not allow any light in. You do not want to encourage algae growth, as it can cause all kinds of ph problems etc.
What water do you use? What do you use to control ph?
BTw, 68 degrees max for res would be better, but I read that up to 72 is ok, 73 is where shit starts happening;)
Unity
 
Florida Girl

Florida Girl

Well-Known Member
unity said:
Hi Florida Girl, let me back up here. You are not re-circulating?!
Also, your res is not covered and allows light in. Both are bad, all your feed lines, reservoirs etc. should be black as to not allow any light in. You do not want to encourage algae growth, as it can cause all kinds of ph problems etc.
What water do you use? What do you use to control ph?
BTw, 68 degrees max for res would be better, but I read that up to 72 is ok, 73 is where shit starts happening;)
Unity
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply,

Now that you say that about the Res not being covered it makes sense... I'll get on that pronto! As to the circulation.... I have 2 airstones in the res so the water is always moving.

I use tap water.... and PH Down from general hydroponics. Currently I'm using the powder... I need to go back to the liquid because it seemed like fluctuation was not so drastic with the liquid form.

As to my Res and meter... I thoroughly clean the res once a week and I clean and calibrate my meter at the same time.

I think you found my problem with the lid thing on my reservoir. I have noticed a small amount of algae each week..... I'm going to get it covered as best I can and see if that helps.

Thanks again :D

 
hothousemary

hothousemary

Well-Known Member
I think you should probably have your run off recirculate to the your rez... also tap water is not great to use.. I use distiled water (huge pain in the ass) but getting a osmosis filter soon.
 
Florida Girl

Florida Girl

Well-Known Member
hothousemary said:
I think you should probably have your run off recirculate to the your rez... also tap water is not great to use.. I use distiled water (huge pain in the ass) but getting a osmosis filter soon.
Click to expand...

Thanks HHMary..... I thought about having my runoff recirculate to my res however.... my runoff is always at least a point higher PH. Likely because I used Miracle Gro Perite (it was all I could find at the time in my town). Anyway.... until I get the runoff PH under control I'm not going to have the runoff go back to my res.

I see a lot of people use distilled water.... I just know me... and there's no way I'm going to be purchasing and carting around gallons and gallons of it. I will consider the RO filter..... seems a lot of people use it and love it.

Thanks again for the input :D
 
hothousemary

hothousemary

Well-Known Member
I hear ya! I fn hate going to sprawllmart for water... Im using 15 gal now to.. really sucks.. but tap water starts off at 8 so after adding nutes its way to high.. the filter is going to be next major purchace after the a/c. Im curious how much did you pay for you ac unit? Im looking at 11,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner
its the cheapest I can find and I HAVE to get one...
Check out my grow I would love to get your thoughts..
 
Florida Girl

Florida Girl

Well-Known Member
hothousemary said:
I hear ya! I fn hate going to sprawllmart for water... Im using 15 gal now to.. really sucks.. but tap water starts off at 8 so after adding nutes its way to high.. the filter is going to be next major purchace after the a/c. Im curious how much did you pay for you ac unit? Im looking at 11,000 BTU Portable Air Conditioner
its the cheapest I can find and I HAVE to get one...
Check out my grow I would love to get your thoughts..
Click to expand...

Hey Mary I believe I paid $299.00 at Wal*Mart for the A/C (mine is 10,000 BTU)... The one piece of advice I'd give you is get one with a 24 hour timer. Mine only has a 12 hour timer... and it's not really even a timer that you set to go on or off at a certain time. You can set it to turn off up to 12 hours after it goes on... and set to go on up to 12 hours after it goes on.

This doesn't help in Veg cycle because it's 18 hours the thing has to run. I thought this would be ok because I plugged the unit into my other timer that controls the OFF time of my lights.... so the a/c would shut down at that time... then I set the A/C unit to turn on 7 hours after it's shut off. Didn't work... when the unit is shut off by losing power via another timer going off... you have to manually turn the unit back on. No way around this.

Anyhoo... if you're going to spend the money... get one with a 24 hr. timer... (not 12)..... it will save you a bunch of frustration.
 
U

unity

Well-Known Member
Florida Girl said:

Thanks HHMary..... I thought about having my runoff recirculate to my res however.... my runoff is always at least a point higher PH. Likely because I used Miracle Gro Perite (it was all I could find at the time in my town). Anyway.... until I get the runoff PH under control I'm not going to have the runoff go back to my res.

I see a lot of people use distilled water.... I just know me... and there's no way I'm going to be purchasing and carting around gallons and gallons of it. I will consider the RO filter..... seems a lot of people use it and love it.

Thanks again for the input :D
Click to expand...
Thanks for the rep. Florida Girl:-P
 
BlessAmerica

BlessAmerica

Well-Known Member
FL Girl,

You should be using r/o water, or distilled water.... It is a pain in the ass though. Here in FL our water is drawn from ther Floridian Aquafer. Which's parent material is limestone (The Ocala formation to be exact). As a result the limestone causes all city and well water to be ~8.0. Your plants will adjust the pH of the water to uptake different nutes at different times, but also the chemical composition of the water with dissolved lime in it will always eventually bring your H20 back up. Thus why I say you need filtered water. I did an experiment. My city water is 8.2, when ran through the Britta filter it is 6.8... Not bad as you want it 5.5-6.5, :peace:
 
U

unity

Well-Known Member
BlessAmerica said:
FL Girl,

You should be using r/o water, or distilled water.... It is a pain in the ass though. Here in FL our water is drawn from ther Floridian Aquafer. Which's parent material is limestone (The Ocala formation to be exact). As a result the limestone causes all city and well water to be ~8.0. Your plants will adjust the pH of the water to uptake different nutes at different times, but also the chemical composition of the water with dissolved lime in it will always eventually bring your H20 back up. Thus why I say you need filtered water. I did an experiment. My city water is 8.2, when ran through the Britta filter it is 6.8... Not bad as you want it 5.5-6.5, :peace:
Click to expand...
I second that:grin:
 
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