PPM Rising Extremely Fast

This is my first hydroponics system(I have done a few complete grows in soil and coco/perlite) and I seem to be having immediate issues with the PPM of my res, as well as PH. I was able to get control of the ph by waiting a while, and adding some PH Down, it seems to be stabilized at this point.
So here's my system to give a general idea of what I am running:

2x10 Site Versagrow drip system, using expanded clay balls in the pots(hydroton) and an airstone w/ air pump in each res.
2x400w MH w/ 6" cool tube
4x4 Secret Jardin Dark street 2
6' stealth f6 incline fan w/ speed controller
6' carbon filter
2 normal house fans blowing constantly across the main table area

My tap water comes out at 160-180PPM, so from what i've read, not that bad. The nutrient solution im using GH FloraNova Grow, and a bit of bioroot(2ml/5gal).
I put my seeds in rockwool(Kalashnikova fem from Greenhouse seeds) to germinate and once the taproot was exposed, transplanted into the clay balls in the pots and put the stakes in the pots right beside(maybe 2-3cm) the rockwool.
I had the sub pump running 24/7[250gph split between 10 hoses].

Now, I mixed my nutrient water at a total of 270ppm, so 170 for tap water and 100 for nutrient solution and ph'd at 5.8
I put the nutrient solution in my res, about 45L worth of it and fired it up.
everything seemed to running fine for the first hour or so, then I noticed the ph went up, was to be expected with running system for the first time, so I stabilized by adding ph down and waiting about an hour for the solution to mix it in and airate.
PH is now stable at 5.8 and hasn't moved at all in about 8 hours, however my ppm has rapidly been rising, I suspect it may be from the hydroton, I did rinse it very thouroughly before putting it into the system and planting the rockwool in it. after about 8 hours the water in the res has risen from 270ppm up to 670PPM!!!!

Not sure how to go about handling this, should I be worried, is it perhaps just dust i missed that is coming off the hydroton and mixing in with the nutes, or is something else amiss. Should i leave it, or empty res and re-mix new nutes immediatly.

if I did not provide enough details or missed anything please let me know and i will get back asap. any help is very much appreciated, i don't wanna kill off the little guys before they even get a chance to grow!

How big of a reservoir are we talking here ? Also how much ph down did you add ?

I'm not a hydro guy except for cloning but I have used GH ph down for it and it always raises my ppm. Not sure if that's bad but I don't use that product anymore and still get clones the same as before.

Drain out 2/3 of the resevoir then top off with water and check ppm again. Sounds like the hydroton was not completely washed off yet.

billy4479 said:

How big of a reservoir are we talking here ? Also how much ph down did you add ?

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The reservoir is about 45L

TheOrganic said:

I'm not a hydro guy except for cloning but I have used GH ph down for it and it always raises my ppm. Not sure if that's bad but I don't use that product anymore and still get clones the same as before.

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I am using Phosphoric acid, not the gh ph down

I should also note, I double checked my ppm after adjusting ph and it was the same as before.

I will drain the res and top off with plain ph'd water and report back on the results.

Dump whole Res an start again.

Should not go up that much!

You need to start with good RO/DI or Distilled water that's part of your problem with PPM and PH-rebound.
You have good water you don't need to PH down the nutrient solution. You don't need to allways run at PH 5.8. You can start low and let that rebound up to PH 6.5. over the course of 7-10 days.

I use RO/DI and have the opposite problem, pH always drops. It goes from 6.2 down to 5.6 in 24 hours, then I add 50-60 drops of pH Up to get it back up to 6.2 in a 35G res.

Going off what you have said.. my first question is, what type of PPM meter are you using? I have had the cheap $13 wal-mart versions do very odd things like you are seeing, but my Hanna meter seems to be better. I still get an occasional high PPM reading which is obviously wrong (I am running 700PPM in late flowering, but when the probe is not working correctly I will see 800+) so I take the probe and swish it around really good in the res and it fixes the PPM reading, making it seem like something was stuck on the probe and skewing the reading initially.

Yeah the ro post was kinda retarded. Ive never used anything other than city tap with great success.

superstoner1 said:

Yeah the ro post was kinda retarded. Ive never used anything other than city tap with great success.

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Dudes having problems with his PPM's. That's great you have great success running city water that has chlorine, or chloramide in it.
You should get an Award or something. OP's having problems. what your doing isn't working for him.
It's no big secret, the less PPM's, and the less ions you have in your water the less problems you have in hydro.
That's why people use them.

CaliJoe

I use RO/DI and have the opposite problem, pH always drops. It goes from 6.2 down to 5.6 in 24 hours, then I add 50-60 drops of pH Up to get it back up to 6.2 in a 35G res.​

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You make it sound like thats the only way to do it or fix his problem when experienced growers know better.

hrm submersible going 24/7 with air pumps too, i'd like to see what your res temps are.. also wouldn't hurt to do a few extra res dumps . Those buckets don't look too lightproof, have you considered putting a layer of the reflective bubble wrap around each pot and double wrapping the reservoir? You can put the air pumps outside in a cool spot and put the submersible on a recirculating timer to down the temperatures. That reservoir looks way too small for that amount of plants too and if possible , expand the reservoir.

Sorry for taking so long to post back, I emptied my res, remixed nute solution at 100ppm + the base 170 from the tap water, and it did rise about 40 over the course of 48 hours, probably some residual dust from the hydroton. My second res I rinsed the hydroton much more thoroughly and don't seem to have the issue. Also worth noting, in my second rez i switched over to AN Sensi Grow A+B w/ some BioRoot, and it seems so far that my PH and PPM are stable.

For a ph and ppm meter I am using the bluelab meters, paid about $95 each, they're not a combined meter, and I am measuring using the ppm 500 setting.

Also, my res temps are at 74F stable, a little higher than where I would like it, but it seems to be a pretty solid temp, Hasn't risen in about 48 hours. I was thinking about lightproofing the buckets, but I have the rockwool buried(just the top) in hydroton and with the pump running 24/7 with the 2x400w mh, the water seems to be a perfect level. I do have some of the seedlings, maybe 25% of them curling inwards, not from the tip but from the sides, so I need to address that next, maybe i need to dial back the nutes a bit, the seedlings literally just have their first set of leaves, so they're young still, first time hydro so I wasn't sure when to start running nutes :/

I also got the same problems too.Ppm from tap is 200 and ph is 7.2
I fill half of rez (50l) and mix part A and B into water to get the point 400ppm
Then I fill it full (100l),the final ppm is 600 (200 is the base,is it rite ?)
Correct the PH to 5.8 by 98% Acid sulfuric and PPM is 1000
what should I do ?!?