PH question
- Thread starter Kal1424
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BuddroGreen
New Member
Pretty much most growers in hydro run 5.7 - 5.8 pH, that range is where the most nutrient elements are available to the plants. pH is very important to plant growth and health in hydro & soil, imagine the nutrients are the lock and pH is the key.
In Soil they like 6.5 pH
In Soil they like 6.5 pH
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- #3
Doozy
Well-Known Member
If your EC levels are right, in veg you should get a slight rise every day in PH. Start them at about 5.6, and then when they get up to 6.2 re adjust back down. That's what i do.
BuddroGreen
New Member
Flowering you use same pH, use 5.7 - 5.8 pH throughout entire grow veg/bloom. You can bring it down to 5.7 - 5.8 pH right away.
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- #6
if it dips to 5.4 or 5.5, should I freak out or should I just let it rise naturally back up as it seems to do anyway!
Basically, should error to the side of more acidity vs the higher PH? I will and try to maintain the most stable level, but its hard sometimes as this is not my full time job.
Basically, should error to the side of more acidity vs the higher PH? I will and try to maintain the most stable level, but its hard sometimes as this is not my full time job.
BuddroGreen
New Member
if it dips to 5.4 or 5.5, should I freak out or should I just let it rise naturally back up as it seems to do anyway!
Basically, should error to the side of more acidity vs the higher PH? I will and try to maintain the most stable level, but its hard sometimes as this is not my full time job.
Just try to keep it at 5.7 - 5.8 pH as best as possible...usually it doesn't drop, it usually rises...maintain a proper pH and it will be easier to keep under control in the root zone.
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- #9
thanks bud.
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- #10
I agree, it never drops on its own, it always goes up. Sometimes I over correct it for whatever reason; thats the case I was talking about... sometimes i think 10ML of PH down should be good and it ends up dropping the PH more than I anticipated.
Like last night... I corrected the PH, but it hovered around 5.5 for a bit... I was kind of freaking out and not sure what to do. I don't even own any ph up lol. So this morning it was 5.7 and right now, 5.8
BuddroGreen
New Member
Make sure to mix nutrients in water first, supplements and then pH the nutrient solution. The Sensi Grow & Bloom should have pH perfect buffers in it to help keep your pH in a good place for 4-5 days (still test twice daily) if you started in the 5.7 - 5.8 pH range, that's what my pH Perfect AN GMB (Grow, Micro, Bloom) nutes do in my tap water with a 7.5 starting pH.
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- #12
yep, I do mix the nutes and supplements then PH. I do not see the PH perfect part in play yet. The PH moves pretty good daily. .2-.4 everyday going up
My res is stable and I have not adjusted it in weeks. But when I get a new one I try to run it down to 5.4 then let it raise to 6.2 before dropping it again to 5.4. The Cal Mag I use suggests it has best uptake above 6.2 which is a point where most other nutes are not working too well. Also when adjusting I do it slowly. I take at least 12 hours to drop it from 6.2 to 5.4. The reason for the cycle is nutes have optimal uptake at different pH levels. traditional Hydro outside of the cannabis world preaches this. By keeping it at one pH you are making it easier for some nutes than others which can cause it to get out of balance. By letting it naturally go up and down you get more even nute uptake. Usually once I have done one cycle it stabilizes and I never touch it again until the next flush. I am seeing this result both with AN pH perfect and with non pH buffered Nute products.
And bad leaves wont ever repair. You can fix the res and new growth will be happy but the bad ones will stay bad so don't worry about them when they don't improve.
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- #14
My res is stable and I have not adjusted it in weeks. But when I get a new one I try to run it down to 5.4 then let it raise to 6.2 before dropping it again to 5.4. The Cal Mag I use suggests it has best uptake above 6.2 which is a point where most other nutes are not working too well. Also when adjusting I do it slowly. I take at least 12 hours to drop it from 6.2 to 5.4. The reason for the cycle is nutes have optimal uptake at different pH levels. traditional Hydro outside of the cannabis world preaches this. By keeping it at one pH you are making it easier for some nutes than others which can cause it to get out of balance. By letting it naturally go up and down you get more even nute uptake. Usually once I have done one cycle it stabilizes and I never touch it again until the next flush. I am seeing this result both with AN pH perfect and with non pH buffered Nute products.
And bad leaves wont ever repair. You can fix the res and new growth will be happy but the bad ones will stay bad so don't worry about them when they don't improve.
cool thanks for the advice. This seems like a solid system to follow. I don't see myself adding PH down everyday and I think a spectrum of PH really does allow for a balanced uptake of nutes!
But one question: When you say Flush, youre talking about a Rez change? or a flush without any nutes?
Well before I answer about flush let me add...
5.8 is the general consensus for perfect. I know people who run between 6.0 and 6.5 exclusively. Most plants other than cannabis grow better closer to 7 then cannabis. So don't fret about it getting a little high. 6.2 is not high and is actually good for the plants. At 6.6 I would definitely stop it but I still wouldn't freak out. If you come home and something drastic changed in the res and it jumped while you were gone up to 6.2 it is no where near dangerous yet for the plants. The worst thing you could do is dump a ton of straight pH down in there to drop it fast back to 5.8 and possibly shock them. More important is to try and diagnose if something bad happened to cause a huge jump in a few hours. And lastly before I get it into a stable state you can see it go up overnight by a decent amount. pH is not a linear scale it is a decade scale like the Richter scale for earthquakes. So the change from 5.0 -> 6.0 is ten times the change going from 6.0 -> 7.0 so keep that in mind as well when adjusting. meaning changing from 6.4 to 6.0 is actually much smaller of a change then changing from 5.9 to 5.5.
okay flush... Yeah I mean when I dump my res completely and refill, not the end of run flush (my bad). There are a lot of different opinions about regular res flushing. Everyone you talk to at a store selling nutes will tell you to flush and start a new res every 4 days. Then when you get on their good side and ask them how they are running their own system you find out they are not doing that at all. I have a friend who never flushes at all. He just tops off every few days through the entire run. Even in the end he just stops adding nutes but he runs a small res. I flush between veg and bloom and then I flush again at the end and run it clean for the last of it. I use beneficial bacteria and fungi and enzymes and run a living tea that makes it all of this way less work. I am running an over sized 37 gallon tote on 4 plants. I start it out at the bottom of the baskets (~30 gallons). Let it drop 10 gallons then add 5, letting it cycle between -5 gallons and -10 gallons under the pots. So each time I add 5 gallons I am adding with the nutes combination I want for that week and I add just enough nutes to the 5 gallons for the 5 gallons. The ppm in the res never changes during the week just the water level drops. I retest ppm every time I add a new 5 gallon batch because I keep adjusting the concentration and mix as I go according to the nute schedules you can find on the bottles or websites. My pH runs typically between 5.84 and 6.04 an I don't have to touch it.
When I do my Res Change I start the new one where the old one was, let it sit a day (it usually starts climbing) then the next day I start dropping it to 5.4 and then I don't have to do anything again.
5.8 is the general consensus for perfect. I know people who run between 6.0 and 6.5 exclusively. Most plants other than cannabis grow better closer to 7 then cannabis. So don't fret about it getting a little high. 6.2 is not high and is actually good for the plants. At 6.6 I would definitely stop it but I still wouldn't freak out. If you come home and something drastic changed in the res and it jumped while you were gone up to 6.2 it is no where near dangerous yet for the plants. The worst thing you could do is dump a ton of straight pH down in there to drop it fast back to 5.8 and possibly shock them. More important is to try and diagnose if something bad happened to cause a huge jump in a few hours. And lastly before I get it into a stable state you can see it go up overnight by a decent amount. pH is not a linear scale it is a decade scale like the Richter scale for earthquakes. So the change from 5.0 -> 6.0 is ten times the change going from 6.0 -> 7.0 so keep that in mind as well when adjusting. meaning changing from 6.4 to 6.0 is actually much smaller of a change then changing from 5.9 to 5.5.
okay flush... Yeah I mean when I dump my res completely and refill, not the end of run flush (my bad). There are a lot of different opinions about regular res flushing. Everyone you talk to at a store selling nutes will tell you to flush and start a new res every 4 days. Then when you get on their good side and ask them how they are running their own system you find out they are not doing that at all. I have a friend who never flushes at all. He just tops off every few days through the entire run. Even in the end he just stops adding nutes but he runs a small res. I flush between veg and bloom and then I flush again at the end and run it clean for the last of it. I use beneficial bacteria and fungi and enzymes and run a living tea that makes it all of this way less work. I am running an over sized 37 gallon tote on 4 plants. I start it out at the bottom of the baskets (~30 gallons). Let it drop 10 gallons then add 5, letting it cycle between -5 gallons and -10 gallons under the pots. So each time I add 5 gallons I am adding with the nutes combination I want for that week and I add just enough nutes to the 5 gallons for the 5 gallons. The ppm in the res never changes during the week just the water level drops. I retest ppm every time I add a new 5 gallon batch because I keep adjusting the concentration and mix as I go according to the nute schedules you can find on the bottles or websites. My pH runs typically between 5.84 and 6.04 an I don't have to touch it.
When I do my Res Change I start the new one where the old one was, let it sit a day (it usually starts climbing) then the next day I start dropping it to 5.4 and then I don't have to do anything again.
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- #16
I had no idea that was the case and I was a chemistry minor... lmao! this is quite an education.
back to you.- Thread starter
- #17
Well before I answer about flush let me add...
5.8 is the general consensus for perfect. I know people who run between 6.0 and 6.5 exclusively. Most plants other than cannabis grow better closer to 7 then cannabis. So don't fret about it getting a little high. 6.2 is not high and is actually good for the plants. At 6.6 I would definitely stop it but I still wouldn't freak out. If you come home and something drastic changed in the res and it jumped while you were gone up to 6.2 it is no where near dangerous yet for the plants. The worst thing you could do is dump a ton of straight pH down in there to drop it fast back to 5.8 and possibly shock them. More important is to try and diagnose if something bad happened to cause a huge jump in a few hours. And lastly before I get it into a stable state you can see it go up overnight by a decent amount. pH is not a linear scale it is a decade scale like the Richter scale for earthquakes. So the change from 5.0 -> 6.0 is ten times the change going from 6.0 -> 7.0 so keep that in mind as well when adjusting. meaning changing from 6.4 to 6.0 is actually much smaller of a change then changing from 5.9 to 5.5.
okay flush... Yeah I mean when I dump my res completely and refill, not the end of run flush (my bad). There are a lot of different opinions about regular res flushing. Everyone you talk to at a store selling nutes will tell you to flush and start a new res every 4 days. Then when you get on their good side and ask them how they are running their own system you find out they are not doing that at all. I have a friend who never flushes at all. He just tops off every few days through the entire run. Even in the end he just stops adding nutes but he runs a small res. I flush between veg and bloom and then I flush again at the end and run it clean for the last of it. I use beneficial bacteria and fungi and enzymes and run a living tea that makes it all of this way less work. I am running an over sized 37 gallon tote on 4 plants. I start it out at the bottom of the baskets (~30 gallons). Let it drop 10 gallons then add 5, letting it cycle between -5 gallons and -10 gallons under the pots. So each time I add 5 gallons I am adding with the nutes combination I want for that week and I add just enough nutes to the 5 gallons for the 5 gallons. The ppm in the res never changes during the week just the water level drops. I retest ppm every time I add a new 5 gallon batch because I keep adjusting the concentration and mix as I go according to the nute schedules you can find on the bottles or websites. My pH runs typically between 5.84 and 6.04 an I don't have to touch it.
When I do my Res Change I start the new one where the old one was, let it sit a day (it usually starts climbing) then the next day I start dropping it to 5.4 and then I don't have to do anything again.
whats the standard flowering cycle for DWC? 9 week? less or more? I am sure its strand and other factor that make a difference, but just as a rule of thumb?
Do you have an exact recipe for your tea that you would be willing to share? I have no idea where to start and you seem like light years ahead of me on this.
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- #18
Well before I answer about flush let me add...
5.8 is the general consensus for perfect. I know people who run between 6.0 and 6.5 exclusively. Most plants other than cannabis grow better closer to 7 then cannabis. So don't fret about it getting a little high. 6.2 is not high and is actually good for the plants. At 6.6 I would definitely stop it but I still wouldn't freak out. If you come home and something drastic changed in the res and it jumped while you were gone up to 6.2 it is no where near dangerous yet for the plants. The worst thing you could do is dump a ton of straight pH down in there to drop it fast back to 5.8 and possibly shock them. More important is to try and diagnose if something bad happened to cause a huge jump in a few hours. And lastly before I get it into a stable state you can see it go up overnight by a decent amount. pH is not a linear scale it is a decade scale like the Richter scale for earthquakes. So the change from 5.0 -> 6.0 is ten times the change going from 6.0 -> 7.0 so keep that in mind as well when adjusting. meaning changing from 6.4 to 6.0 is actually much smaller of a change then changing from 5.9 to 5.5.
okay flush... Yeah I mean when I dump my res completely and refill, not the end of run flush (my bad). There are a lot of different opinions about regular res flushing. Everyone you talk to at a store selling nutes will tell you to flush and start a new res every 4 days. Then when you get on their good side and ask them how they are running their own system you find out they are not doing that at all. I have a friend who never flushes at all. He just tops off every few days through the entire run. Even in the end he just stops adding nutes but he runs a small res. I flush between veg and bloom and then I flush again at the end and run it clean for the last of it. I use beneficial bacteria and fungi and enzymes and run a living tea that makes it all of this way less work. I am running an over sized 37 gallon tote on 4 plants. I start it out at the bottom of the baskets (~30 gallons). Let it drop 10 gallons then add 5, letting it cycle between -5 gallons and -10 gallons under the pots. So each time I add 5 gallons I am adding with the nutes combination I want for that week and I add just enough nutes to the 5 gallons for the 5 gallons. The ppm in the res never changes during the week just the water level drops. I retest ppm every time I add a new 5 gallon batch because I keep adjusting the concentration and mix as I go according to the nute schedules you can find on the bottles or websites. My pH runs typically between 5.84 and 6.04 an I don't have to touch it.
When I do my Res Change I start the new one where the old one was, let it sit a day (it usually starts climbing) then the next day I start dropping it to 5.4 and then I don't have to do anything again.
Something else I am confused about kind of. My PPM never really drops much as the week goes on. Yes, the water level goes down some, but the PPM stay the same. I guess when I replenish that water with regular water, the PPM then drops, but only then. Is that normal that the PPM not change?
Well lets see if I can get to each question in order...
1) There is no "standard cycle" for flowering. There are many factors, a few of which you eluded to. An expert grower who knows how to not induce stress and can provide optimal environment for flowering can get most indica strains done in 8 weeks...many sativa strains can take 10-15 weeks. Most people are running a cross of some sort and are not perfect (we all make some mistakes on every run for the most part) so somewhere between 8-10 weeks is fairly normal. The better question is to know when to pull the trigger on a new strain and start the flush. after a few runs you can get a feel for it but the first time you run a new strain it may be different then what you have done in the past. It may be very similar...all depends on the breed.
2) No I do not have a recipe for my tea and it is definitely not exact. I am still experimenting with a new RDWC and I think too many environmental factors are in play to just transfer my tea from my setup to yours. Also the total composition is changing every week of what I am adding (see below comments). I am a firm believer in the fact that there is a lot of hype and re-posted ignorance on the internet. Nothing I write or anything you read from anyone should be taken as fact and should be double checked. 10 different people read the same well written under researched post by some pot head and re-post the gibberish. Then someone else reads 10 different re-posts of the same hog wash and thinks its fact and starts believing it and telling everyone to do something like keep their pH 5.8 +-0.2 which in fact is not ideal for the res. There are many forums about hydro that are not cannabis and you should read a few things there and just in general about plants if you really want to know. When I first got into growing I bough Ed Rosenthal's book at a bookstore (this was before the world wide web existed) and read it cover to cover many times each time getting something new. There is no reason anyone on here shouldn't do the same if they want to have a basic understanding period. That said... Most of the nute companies publish a schedule of nutes that vary over the life of the grow. The bottle will say one thing like 4mL / L and that is it but if you get their literature it will outline a varying amount that changes each week. Also it will show you when to add some things and not others. (example just below) Advanced Nutrients shows theirs with all the additives and beneficials and stuff we have been talking about in various threads. It is a good idea to maybe understand what they are doing and why even if you want to use someone else's product. For my tea I play it a bit by ear right now as I am experimenting with a new res setup. But like I said in the other thread... Bacteria don't last long but you don't need them full time. If you are making your own Heisenberg tea then it is cheap so add it every feed. If you are using Advanced Nutrients it is expensive so add it every other week at most. The fungus like I said I would follow the recommendations. Maybe the concentration can be cut down but a better way is to feed it directly to the pot not into the res. Take a 1/2 gallon measuring cup and scoop out some of the res, add the fungus and pour it directly into the netpot so that it goes full strength into the root zone. I hate to promote one brand over another and I try to be vague on that because I don't want to be one of these pushers telling you that you must use this or that (with the exception of one product). We survived for years on Miracle Grow and nothing more so most of what is out there is not necessary. If you know your stuff and can read a plants symptoms you can get ideal results on way less products. Advanced nutrients is specifically designed for the person who doesn't want to think. They even water it down to a point that makes it so all of the bottles have the same mix ratio on the label. But if you go to their website they have a chart like this that shows things changing.
3) Having the PPM not change while the water drops is ideal. If the ppm goes up then the plant is taking in more water then nutes. If the ppm goes down then the plants are taking on lots of nutes faster then the water. That isn't always bad but it could be due to too much humidity or some other factors like nutrient deficiencies and targeted pH. Having the water and nute uptake be even allows for more precise control.
One last side note. If you are using General Hydroponics pH Up and Down read the label. It specifically states that if you add too much it will force nute lockout even at a balanced 5.8 pH. Now as I recall it is a ridiculous amount but I suppose if you are trying to force it to a tight range and not changing out the res it can get there after a few weeks.
1) There is no "standard cycle" for flowering. There are many factors, a few of which you eluded to. An expert grower who knows how to not induce stress and can provide optimal environment for flowering can get most indica strains done in 8 weeks...many sativa strains can take 10-15 weeks. Most people are running a cross of some sort and are not perfect (we all make some mistakes on every run for the most part) so somewhere between 8-10 weeks is fairly normal. The better question is to know when to pull the trigger on a new strain and start the flush. after a few runs you can get a feel for it but the first time you run a new strain it may be different then what you have done in the past. It may be very similar...all depends on the breed.
2) No I do not have a recipe for my tea and it is definitely not exact. I am still experimenting with a new RDWC and I think too many environmental factors are in play to just transfer my tea from my setup to yours. Also the total composition is changing every week of what I am adding (see below comments). I am a firm believer in the fact that there is a lot of hype and re-posted ignorance on the internet. Nothing I write or anything you read from anyone should be taken as fact and should be double checked. 10 different people read the same well written under researched post by some pot head and re-post the gibberish. Then someone else reads 10 different re-posts of the same hog wash and thinks its fact and starts believing it and telling everyone to do something like keep their pH 5.8 +-0.2 which in fact is not ideal for the res. There are many forums about hydro that are not cannabis and you should read a few things there and just in general about plants if you really want to know. When I first got into growing I bough Ed Rosenthal's book at a bookstore (this was before the world wide web existed) and read it cover to cover many times each time getting something new. There is no reason anyone on here shouldn't do the same if they want to have a basic understanding period. That said... Most of the nute companies publish a schedule of nutes that vary over the life of the grow. The bottle will say one thing like 4mL / L and that is it but if you get their literature it will outline a varying amount that changes each week. Also it will show you when to add some things and not others. (example just below) Advanced Nutrients shows theirs with all the additives and beneficials and stuff we have been talking about in various threads. It is a good idea to maybe understand what they are doing and why even if you want to use someone else's product. For my tea I play it a bit by ear right now as I am experimenting with a new res setup. But like I said in the other thread... Bacteria don't last long but you don't need them full time. If you are making your own Heisenberg tea then it is cheap so add it every feed. If you are using Advanced Nutrients it is expensive so add it every other week at most. The fungus like I said I would follow the recommendations. Maybe the concentration can be cut down but a better way is to feed it directly to the pot not into the res. Take a 1/2 gallon measuring cup and scoop out some of the res, add the fungus and pour it directly into the netpot so that it goes full strength into the root zone. I hate to promote one brand over another and I try to be vague on that because I don't want to be one of these pushers telling you that you must use this or that (with the exception of one product). We survived for years on Miracle Grow and nothing more so most of what is out there is not necessary. If you know your stuff and can read a plants symptoms you can get ideal results on way less products. Advanced nutrients is specifically designed for the person who doesn't want to think. They even water it down to a point that makes it so all of the bottles have the same mix ratio on the label. But if you go to their website they have a chart like this that shows things changing.
3) Having the PPM not change while the water drops is ideal. If the ppm goes up then the plant is taking in more water then nutes. If the ppm goes down then the plants are taking on lots of nutes faster then the water. That isn't always bad but it could be due to too much humidity or some other factors like nutrient deficiencies and targeted pH. Having the water and nute uptake be even allows for more precise control.
One last side note. If you are using General Hydroponics pH Up and Down read the label. It specifically states that if you add too much it will force nute lockout even at a balanced 5.8 pH. Now as I recall it is a ridiculous amount but I suppose if you are trying to force it to a tight range and not changing out the res it can get there after a few weeks.
LOL AWSOME!!! 
All I can say to that is when I got up this morning my res was the lowest pH I have measured in weeks. It was at 5.73... I am down around 3 gallons of water since yesterday and my PPM has the exact same reading as yesterday.
All I can say to that is when I got up this morning my res was the lowest pH I have measured in weeks. It was at 5.73... I am down around 3 gallons of water since yesterday and my PPM has the exact same reading as yesterday.
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