Please Help!

[Todd gunter]

This is my first hydro run and I’m having serious PH problems. I’m using General Hydroponics nutes, my ppm is 400 cause it’s a seedling and my water temp is 72. My ph keeps running up fast and I can’t figure out why. It’s a 6 bucket dwc system. Each bucket is its own res. I’ll ph it down to 5.8 and it will rise to 7.9 in less than 12 hours

 

[Old Salt]

New system and media? Did you rinse the media well with properly pH'd water before using it? Does the TDS in the buckets change as well?

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Probably tap water has too many buffers in it, unless you have light leaks in yer buckets and have goopies growing

 

[KingJoe83]

Can you get s filter for faucet sink help see if filtering bit more helps ?

Something is spiking it for sure and not keeping it stable ?

You ph down last right ?

 

[Todd gunter]

I didn’t rinse with ph’d water, it’s hydroton, and yes it’s a new medium. This has been happening since I started Sunday. Every morning I wake up it’s gone from 5.5 to 7 plus overnight or from morning to night it just won’t stop.

 

[Todd gunter]

New system and media? Did you rinse the media well with properly pH'd water before using it? Does the TDS in the buckets change as well?

New system and media? Did you rinse the media well with properly pH'd water before using it? Does the TDS in the buckets change as well?

I didn’t rinse with ph’d water, it’s hydroton, and yes it’s a new medium. This has been happening since I started Sunday. Every morning I wake up it’s gone from 5.5 to 7 plus overnight or from morning to night it just won’t stop.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Any pics of yer buckets, curious if any light leaks possible

So yer using tap water?

 

[Todd gunter]

Yes I’m using tap water. I put those over the top of the buckets to try and keep as much light out as possible and for insulation since I don’t have a water chiller

 

[Todd gunter]

Can you get s filter for faucet sink help see if filtering bit more helps ?

Something is spiking it for sure and not keeping it stable ?

You ph down last right ?

 

[sativuhhh]

What are you doing for an air pump/stones in there? When my airpump was getting cut off that exact thing would happen. You don't accidentally have the air pump on your timer circuit do you?

 

[Todd gunter]

It’s my first run and I’m 4 days in and it keeps going up on the same water. It just doesn’t make sense but what do I know. I’m used to coco and just thought I’d try this and it’s not going well.

 

[Todd gunter]

What are you doing for an air pump/stones in there? When my airpump was getting cut off that exact thing would happen. You don't accidentally have the air pump on your timer circuit do you?

Nope. It runs all the time and I have the air stone and pump it came with

 

[sativuhhh]

Also if there is nothing in the other 3 buckets you should probably cover/seal those up too if they are in the rwdc setup.

 

[Todd gunter]

Also if there is nothing in the other 3 buckets you should probably cover/seal those up too if they are in the rwdc setup.

 

[Todd gunter]

It’s not recirculated. It’s 6 separate buckets I’m just not ready for the other three especially with this going on.

 

[sativuhhh]

What model air pump is it? A lot of the kits come with pretty crappy ones that can't always keep up. Do you know the ppm of your tap water with nothing? Also I thought it was rwdc, not stand alone. So all 3 are shooting up independently? Can you flush and re-add water and nutes in one and see how it goes? Are you running Z7 or Hydroguard? That would be a good idea as well with a res temp of 72.

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Like I mentioned, your tap may have lots of buffers in it unbalancing you pH

I use a small RO Buddy system
Before that I got 5 gal jugs of RO water from the machine at the grocery store

Buckets look good, black and light proof, gotta be yer tap water

 

[NOOOBIENOT]

do you have a water softener on the water in your house as this will screw with your ph also , I learned that one the hard way years ago .