I'm a newbie to hydro and am in my first grow with it. I plan to change to fresh nutes tonight and am preparing a bucket for the change. When I first fill it with RO water (5 gal), I get a ppm reading of anywhere from 5-8ppm. OK, so far so good. Next, I get a pH reading of 8+ (today's was 8.54) so it's way up there.
Now I'm reluctant to add any nutes to water with a pH that high (to say the least) because I'm concerned about precipitation of the micro-nutrients. OK, so I add some pH down. Even a tiny bit takes it down by 4-5 points! I assume that this is because of lack of buffering of any kind. What blows my mind though is that after adding pH down (using GH, the orange stuff), now my ppm is 150. If I overshoot or undershoot (I just want it down in the 6's before adding any nutes), and add more pH up or down I add just increases the TDS level even more.
Is this normal? Does pH up or down use impact TDS readings that much? I mean my tap water runs about 150ppm so it seems like a waste to be using RO water when I'm already starting out at 150ppm without filtering. Obviously, I'd still need lower pH with tap water and so would be adding on top of the 150ppm but it just seems like I'm negating any advantage i get in terms of keeping TDS levels down to a reasonable level.
Just trying to understand if I'm going about this properly and benefit from someone else's greater knowledge & experience.
I'm thankful for any help I can get with this.
Now I'm reluctant to add any nutes to water with a pH that high (to say the least) because I'm concerned about precipitation of the micro-nutrients. OK, so I add some pH down. Even a tiny bit takes it down by 4-5 points! I assume that this is because of lack of buffering of any kind. What blows my mind though is that after adding pH down (using GH, the orange stuff), now my ppm is 150. If I overshoot or undershoot (I just want it down in the 6's before adding any nutes), and add more pH up or down I add just increases the TDS level even more.
Is this normal? Does pH up or down use impact TDS readings that much? I mean my tap water runs about 150ppm so it seems like a waste to be using RO water when I'm already starting out at 150ppm without filtering. Obviously, I'd still need lower pH with tap water and so would be adding on top of the 150ppm but it just seems like I'm negating any advantage i get in terms of keeping TDS levels down to a reasonable level.
Just trying to understand if I'm going about this properly and benefit from someone else's greater knowledge & experience.
I'm thankful for any help I can get with this.