Coco run off so high! What to do?

[baxbax]

Hi , I have some iron deficiency and checked my run off . 5.7 ph goes into coco and 7.1 is run off . watered 4 gallon of nutrient to 1 gallon of coco , again I watered same 4 gallon water with ph down to 5.2 , and run off came out 6.9 ? it looks like no matter how much I water ph is high like this , looks like something melting my pot ! I feed with grow , bloom , micro +calmag , silica , humic , seaweed extract . any suggestions ?

 

[Troy01]

Curious about your watering schedule. Are you allowing your CoCo to dry out between watering? I found that if I water to run off with each watering my PH stays relatively constant input to runoff. If I let it dry out then nutes start building up in the CoCo and the runoff start to increase PH.

My recommendation would be to move the plants to an area where you can do a really deep flush. By this I mean if you have a 5 gallon growing container run a minimum of 5 gallons of water through the CoCo. It might be interesting to measure your flushing water in and out until the run off is equal to the PH you are watering with.

After flush I would wait a day then resume your regular nutes - I would also watch your Silica. I recently had a problem with it and had to reduce my dosage. Another thing about Silica that I was told by a number of growers is that when using Silica you need to add it to your water first and mix well before adding your other nutrients.

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[baxbax]

I decide put my pot under shower and let sit for like a day under shower t

Curious about your watering schedule. Are you allowing your CoCo to dry out between watering? I found that if I water to run off with each watering my PH stays relatively constant input to runoff. If I let it dry out then nutes start building up in the CoCo and the runoff start to increase PH.

My recommendation would be to move the plants to an area where you can do a really deep flush. By this I mean if you have a 5 gallon growing container run a minimum of 5 gallons of water through the CoCo. It might be interesting to measure your flushing water in and out until the run off is equal to the PH you are watering with.

After flush I would wait a day then resume your regular nutes - I would also watch your Silica. I recently had a problem with it and had to reduce my dosage. Another thing about Silica that I was told by a number of growers is that when using Silica you need to add it to your water first and mix well before adding your other nutrients.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I used 8 gallon water to flush my 1 gallon smart pot . nothing changed ! I can tell you I overused silica from start but I added every time first to water before other nutrients . I think maybe silica crystals build up in coco can this be true guess ? I don't know why my coco tend to stay this high ph level ? how this happen ? I decided to rinse my pot under shower for a day and see what happen is this safe to do this ? as this water is tap water and no phed water . I always watered plant with phed ro water ?

 

[Bonsaiweed]

I'm worried your pH testing system may not be correct. You need a second opinion about that pH if it's not changing.

This is my opinion only!!

 

[baxbax]

I decided to check my nutrients and find witch of them caused this high ph buildup in my medium this is results :

*added 5 drops of each humic extract , seaweed extract and silica to tap water with ph of 8

seaweed increased ph by 0.1
silica increased ph by 0.2
humic extract increased it by 1.0 WTF ? I thought Humic is acidic ? and it brings down my ph ? my coco is almost black due to high amount of this humic I used and there's no wonder if ph of my coco be above 8 , is this usual humic acid be high at ph ?

I use liquid humic and bottle says it is humic extract from leonardit I don't know it should be high at ph or no ?

this is composition of this humic acid I used :

COMPOSITION
Organic substance as sampled 14%; Total organic substance 63% (dry weight); Humified organic substance 86% (of total organic substance); Organic Nitrogen (N) (dry weight) 0.7% C/N ratio 45
Extractor: KOH

should I continue use this humic extract or it has more disadvantages then advantages to me ?

 

[baxbax]

I'm worried your pH testing system may not be correct. You need a second opinion about that pH if it's not changing.

This is my opinion only!!

I bought new ph pen and calibrate it , my old ph pen still working but it's 5 years old electrode and take 2 min to show me ph number and need to sit in kcl solution after just one use it's electrode is so lazy , today I checked it with standard buffer solution to see if it's working fine and pen showed me the number of buffer I put them , by this I have peace of mind my reading ph about run off is true and real . what is your mean about ph testing system ?

 

[Bonsaiweed]

Not all people use a pen, hence the "system" statement. If you have confidence in your pH pen, then the pH is way out of whack.

pH pens typically are problematic, especially if they are the cheaper brands. Just from the threads, I've read.

I can't help much on the hydro part. I'm way out of the loop about up to date methods. All the hydro info I know is over 20 years old.

 

[baxbax]

Not all people use a pen, hence the "system" statement. If you have confidence in your pH pen, then the pH is way out of whack.

pH pens typically are problematic, especially if they are the cheaper brands. Just from the threads, I've read.

I can't help much on the hydro part. I'm way out of the loop about up to date methods. All the hydro info I know is over 20 years old.

I check my ph with this protable ph pen :

Milwaukee Instruments (716798) PH55 Waterproof Ph Dual Level LCD Tester

is it good ? I just calibrate it with standard buffer solutions 7 and 4 and check pen with buffer solutions every week to see if they read correct number . but don't calibrate it as often . just test them with buffer solutions and they read with 0.1 precision . witch brand do you recommend ? except blue lab ( so expensive )

 

[baxbax]

looks like they are recovering from serve iron deficiency after I give them 8 gallon ph 5.5 water , before this iron deficiency they were grow very green :

IMAG0333.jpg

• baxbax
• Feb 22, 2018

after I gave them a feed without correct ph due to my last ph pen ( It reads just one time and need sit in kcl for hour to can read again ) iron deficiency happen just in one day . it was completely white , but looks like it's becoming green from the inside again , picture of recovering plant ( I guess it's recovering not sure )

IMAG0336.jpg

• baxbax
• Feb 27, 2018

IMAG0337.jpg

• baxbax
• Feb 27, 2018

 

[Bonsaiweed]

No, with that pen I'm in error. You're using a good pen, and calibrating it. The pH is most likely high as you state.

I should have asked which pH pen you were using before I assumed it was a cheap one.

 

[Troy01]

If the top picture is the most recent I would say your on the way to recovery.

The other pictures are showing classic signs of Cal/Mag deficiency.

 

[Cultivator]

Stop using the humic and silica for now. go to your base nutrient and root stimulator and flush through with good amount of run off, set ph 5.5-5.8 in veg.

Feed everyday at least once, more feedings daily is better. Run off doesn't always tell a true story of whats happening in the plants, I rarely check my run off but on the rare occasions I do its often stupidly high EC/PPM yet plants are strong and healthy.

check my 'How too grow in coco - with feed schedule' thread and you will get tips and ideas there. Goodluck.

 

[baxbax]

If the top picture is the most recent I would say your on the way to recovery.

The other pictures are showing classic signs of Cal/Mag deficiency.

the other pictured you mentioned about cal/mag def is just recovered iron def the leaf was total white in grow because of iron def , after some flush it recovered as much as it can but some parts stayed white and beyond recovery

 

[Troy01]

interesting....I've not seen much in the way of Iron Deficiency.

 

[baxbax]

just fixed ph to 5.8 after running about 100 gallon 5.5 ph water through just 1 gall coco , I did it finaly