What are your nute PPM levels everyone?

if your using a medium like coco rockwool .. its a good idea to check the runoff EC and ph

gives an idea of whats going on inside the medium .. and to adjust the feed accordingly

well the run-off in my system goes back into the res. Flood and drain. And believe me i keep a sharp eye on what its doing. EC, PPM, TDS, call what you want. Looking for any changes and tweaking accordingly.

shambler said:

i just checked, and my blue lab guardian only reads to the 10th on ec 1.1 1.2 1.3

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Correct, they are only displaying the number to the nearest 1/10th. (Though they read higher internally.) I use my Hanna handheld if I need 1/100th display -- but to be accurate there it also takes a lot longer to give me a final #. I suspect the Bluelab is not showing the 1/100th because they don't trust readings that low, which means you also can't trust the movement of 10 on the PPM scale, either.

I run a very similar setup. I have a 65 gallon reservoir with a Bluelab Guardian Connect submerged in there. Recirculating ebb and flow (though not to a tray). I can't imagine ever worrying about movement of 1/100th of a point...

i also do flood and drain buckets. Do you ever have a problem with roots plugging up the fill and drain hose?

shambler said:

i also do flood and drain buckets. Do you ever have a problem with roots plugging up the fill and drain hose?

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I used to until I switched grow beds.

I am running The Bucket Company 10 gallon medical planters now, the insert screens that hold the hydroton also air-prune the roots as they grow out of the bag. They also prevent tiny pieces from building up and clogging in the long run, too. You can see most of the setup on my 24/7 Twitch stream.

DailyBlastin said:

just wanted to come back to update- after being urged by many to measure in ec rather than ppm i finally did, turns out my 1200+ppm solution was 1.9ec and that high concentration was pushing my ph down. refilled my res last wednesday and set to 1.3 ec, ph has stayed perfectly stable at 5.9!

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so i hate that im having to come back and update again but i went on a 3 day trip to the beach and came back to my 1.3ec solution being down to 5.2ph!!! im seriously starting to get pissed off because i used to run a 40gal res and never once needed a drop of ph up or down for the 5 years or so that i used that setup,but for whatever reason since switching to this 16gal res (like less than 2months ago) ive gone through a whole quart of ph up... shit is driving me crazy!!!

DailyBlastin said:

so i hate that im having to come back and update again but i went on a 3 day trip to the beach and came back to my 1.3ec solution being down to 5.2ph!!! im seriously starting to get pissed off because i used to run a 40gal res and never once needed a drop of ph up or down for the 5 years or so that i used that setup,but for whatever reason since switching to this 16gal res (like less than 2months ago) ive gone through a whole quart of ph up... shit is driving me crazy!!!

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If your like me and run 4 big plants in 20 gallons of water, your PH tanking after you switch to 12/12 is going to be a constant struggle until the end.
There is nothing wrong with it, just not much of a water buffer. Manage your PH best ya can. Add less bloom since most PH up is potassium something.

5BY5LEC said:

If your like me and run 4 big plants in 20 gallons of water, your PH tanking after you switch to 12/12 is going to be a constant struggle until the end.
There is nothing wrong with it, just not much of a water buffer. Manage your PH best ya can. Add less bloom since most PH up is potassium something.

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i run 4 plants perpetually but the system is drip to waste, 12/12 has nothing to do with the ph of the solution..

Keesje said:

Nice!

What you experienced is a good example of how things can get fucked up.
Apparently your meter uses the 0.64 scale.

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Thanks for that,had no idea about.64 scale.my pen reads 1280 in 2.0EC solution.I guess my pen is a bit of an odd ball.Now I know im feeding at 1 EC.

DailyBlastin said:

i used to run a 40gal res

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i think i would go back to the 40 gal.

DailyBlastin said:

so i hate that im having to come back and update again but i went on a 3 day trip to the beach and came back to my 1.3ec solution being down to 5.2ph!!! im seriously starting to get pissed off because i used to run a 40gal res and never once needed a drop of ph up or down for the 5 years or so that i used that setup,but for whatever reason since switching to this 16gal res (like less than 2months ago) ive gone through a whole quart of ph up... shit is driving me crazy!!!

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While more water gives you a greater ability to buffer the ph, having that drastic of a drop points to other issues.

Have you consulted the following chart yet? What is the EC and water levels doing while your ph is dropping like that?



Personally I'd flush the system and change the res w/ fresh nutes. Depending on what the EC is doing I'd either raise or lower the nute concentration for the new res.

SuperiorBuds said:

While more water gives you a greater ability to buffer the ph, having that drastic of a drop points to other issues.

Have you consulted the following chart yet? What is the EC and water levels doing while your ph is dropping like that?

View attachment 4469338

Personally I'd flush the system and change the res w/ fresh nutes. Depending on what the EC is doing I'd either raise or lower the nute concentration for the new res.

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Hes just drain to waste so i assume hes has an auto feed system,just take some water out and replace with new at a higher ph and mix.I guess if your away for awhile you need a res but i dont see the point of storing so much water when you could just mix daily.Ph is always good then.

SuperiorBuds said:

While more water gives you a greater ability to buffer the ph, having that drastic of a drop points to other issues.

Have you consulted the following chart yet? What is the EC and water levels doing while your ph is dropping like that?

View attachment 4469338

Personally I'd flush the system and change the res w/ fresh nutes. Depending on what the EC is doing I'd either raise or lower the nute concentration for the new res.

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so on this chart id be in the falling/static/falling category, as the water is used the water level falls, ec stays the same, but ph is dropping, my solutions in the past have been higher than 1.4 ec so that made since, this latest batch i set to 1.3 ec which means its in between the 1.0 and 1.4 range that the solution box suggests... the res gets emptied and refilled every 10 days, i even waste more water than i like to by allowing the hose to run while letting the fresh water flush out the chiller lines while also pumping the res out the drain line. i probably dump 10gals or more doing this "rinse out" but since ive been having these ph issues im desperate to make sure theres nothing left behind in the system that could be causing it. im finding no reason that my ph should be dropping on every batch..

DailyBlastin said:

so on this chart id be in the falling/static/falling category, as the water is used the water level falls, ec stays the same, but ph is dropping, my solutions in the past have been higher than 1.4 ec so that made since, this latest batch i set to 1.3 ec which means its in between the 1.0 and 1.4 range that the solution box suggests... the res gets emptied and refilled every 10 days, i even waste more water than i like to by allowing the hose to run while letting the fresh water flush out the chiller lines while also pumping the res out the drain line. i probably dump 10gals or more doing this "rinse out" but since ive been having these ph issues im desperate to make sure theres nothing left behind in the system that could be causing it. im finding no reason that my ph should be dropping on every batch..

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volume of water in a dtw res makes no difference. figure out what is different b/t the 40 g that worked and the 16 g that doesnt'.

What PPM you're running is dependent upon which system you grow with and what kind of lighting you're using. Less intense light can run a higher ppm solution. More intense light and a high ppm solution may burn the same batch of plants. I run drain to waste hempy buckets and if I feed over 900PPM my plants burn. I run my plants at 700-800PPM or 1.6-1.8 EC. If you're running your plants on the edge of burning them all the way through your flower cycle then you're feeding too much and your bud will taste like fertilizer. I've heard of some people "flushing" for 2-3 weeks which starves the plant in the most crucial stage of development at the end of the plant's growth cycle in an effort to compensate for over feeding early on. Flushing is a complete hoax and practice only believed by the uninformed. Don't over feed the plants chelated synthetic fertilizers and you won't have to "flush" anything. It's not an accepted agricultural practice because it's "bro science" propagated by idiots that don't understand plant science.

DailyBlastin said:

i run 4 plants perpetually but the system is drip to waste, 12/12 has nothing to do with the ph of the solution..

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Yeah, when you switch to 12/12 and your plants start using more P,K your PH should drop. But I did not catch you were running a dtw so that may not apply to you. I havent ever run a dtw.