PPM increase?

[BrokrnEyes]

I don't know if this matters, the two numbers being so close but:

My Hydro system I tested the PDS of the water about a half hour after adding the nutrients in it registered at 930. Today when I tested the water during the regular check it said the TDS was now at 990. I'm using an HM Digital TDS-ez meter, is this number difference within the margin of error? The reason I ask is that tomorrow is the plants next feeding (I feed it twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, splitting up the full dosage so the plant doesn't suffer nutrient burn) but seeing as the meter is saying that it went up rather than going down since Monday I am a bit concerned about feeding it tomorrow.

White widow auto flower in a era garden ultra LED equipped with a air stone and using flora nova grow and super thrive plants for vitamins.

 

[go4snypr]

I am not quite following. if you are in hydro, you can continually give nutrients. The ppm will change based on the rate a which the plant is using water and nutrients. if you start with 1000 ppm and a couple days later your at 1100 then the plant is taking up more water than nutrients. If it goes the other way the plant is using more nutes than water. this is completely normal.. When you say you are feeding every monday and thursday, are you just topping up your res on these days??

 

[BrokrnEyes]

I should've been a little bit more elaborate with what I said;

The aero garden is an Ultra LED model equipped with a secondary air pump with a air stone inside the main reservoir. There's also Anderson reservoir attached to the era garden that provides a continuous topping off of the water supply as the water dips below a certain point inside the main reservoir, however seen as a plant is only 15 days old or so and is still working on its first set of leaves, I can't imagine that it has consumed enough water to make the reserve tank kick in.

My concern is that scene as the meter is saying that the total dissolved solids has actually gone up, should I feed it tomorrow? If as you say it's currently drinking water rather than using the nutrients, would it cause nutrient burn if I proceed as usual?

 

[hydro1000]

Not sure if I can help with this as I don't use ppm meteri..........Here is my res 15 gallons water I use Jakes grow 1-1-1 nutes as per bottle directions, 1/2 tablespoon per gallon molasses, 1/2 tablespoon per gallon of Epson salts. I could do a complete res change weekly, if my water is good I just add the above again...I will only add ph water at mid week to top up res.......No issues really. If they start to burn I will do a quick flush to contain it. The plants tell me really quick if they don't like what there getting. Lots of bubbles lots of bubbles they like that.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

Cool set up but not what I'm looking for, first time grower so I guess I'm just over analyzing everything.

 

[hydro1000]

a 15 day old plant I only give ph water and then 1/4 nutes after 21 days or when I see they start showing def..

 

[hydro1000]

Ok I did a little searching since I'm not doing much at the moment. The ppm is rising because the plants are drinking the water or the water is evaporating and the nutrients aren't being taken up at fast. When this happens it's an indicator that you need to lower your starting ppm. Probably to more like 200ppm for brand new rooted plants and clones

 

[BrokrnEyes]

So what should I do then? Should I change out the water or should I just leave it and let the plants use what is already in the tank?

 

[hydro1000]

Personally. No nute burn yet? I would lower ppm for the young plants as they are only needing ph water, ppm that high will burn or kill seedlings only 15 days old.... Remember I'm new like you, an always learning!!!

 

[BrokrnEyes]

Okay... Bit of the equipment failure moment apparently. After you said Laureen the PPM was necessary I took a much closer look at the water level in the main tank of the aero garden and was shocked to see (or rather to feel) The water was far lower than where it should've been (my eye problems make it very difficult to perceive reflection on the water a list for hits it just right). Attaching the reserve tank from the main, I discovered that water was not being fed from the reserve to the main tank, apparently I had not completely blood all the air out of the hose in there was just enough air to prevent the water from traveling from the reserve into the main. Apparently, my plant has been guzzling water as it took several cups to bring it back up to the ideal levels however as a result thankfully the PPM has gone down significantly and the meter is now reading between 790–820 (I think I might need to get calibration food for this damn thing and or a glass beaker so that I know I have a clean container every time).

In any case I'm going to monitor the hardware over the next few days to make sure that water is flowing properly and I probably am going to skip tomorrow's feedings with the plant can make use of the rest of the nutrients, likely picking it back up next Monday with the dosage I was planning on getting it tomorrow, hopefully then the plant will not be in any danger.

The lesson to all of this, even though the reserve tank may be A water pressure system, doesn't mean jack if there is A tiny air bubble in the line. Always bleed your lines!

 

[DRM Ranch]

PPM adjustments can be made by adding pH'd water to the mixture, basically diluting the mixture.

You can effectively go the entire vegetative stage on 500-600 or less PPM.

Assuming you start with 0 PPM you can ramp up to 550 PPM by the time you switch to a flower light schedule.

A ten week schedule moving up to 500 PPM might look like this; week 1 at 50, week 2 at 100, week 3 at 150, week 4 at 200, week 5 at 250, week 6 at 300, week 7 at 350, week 8 at 400, week 9 at 450, week 10 at 500.

As for making adjustments to your PPM, it makes sense to increase nutrient concentration if your PPM readings are falling and decrease the nutrient concentration if your readings are trending upwards.

I believe you will see more pH fluctuation with lower nutrient concentration than you will with higher nutrient concentration. One way to combat this is to simply use the largest practical reservoir possible. More frequent watering can help minimize pH swings too, assuming the reservoir is sufficient in size to help keep pH in check.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

Okay I paged through the journal and here's the past TDS measurements

158 - starting
590 - 1/6 - starting veg (great white present & 1/4 tsp fert)
930 - 1/18 - feeding
790 - 1/20 - check

As the data shows about 630 PPM is the current frets. From what I read the TDS doesn't detect the biological stuff from the great white and its consumed about 140 units in 48 hours. So how's that sound for a 15 day old autoflower?

As for the PH it's been pretty consultant around 6.0.

 

[go4snypr]

To me that sounds hot for a 15 day old plant with 1 set of leaves. I usually wait for 3rd set of leaves then start at 150 ppm. and work my way up to 500ppm. Personally I would thin out that res to 200 ppm, but if you are seeing no ill side effects then maybe there is no need to.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

Out of curiosity does a single set at 15 days for an auto flower sound about right? This is my first grow and I really have no experience one way or the other.

 

[DRM Ranch]

I don't work with auto flower varieties, however the rules still apply.

Dialing in a strain is a several grow experience. With each grow you refine some aspect of your method to do better.

At some point you can't make any more adjustments that result in a better result. This is a dialed in grow.

 

[CAT345longsti]

would that be the same for soil ppms

 

[DRM Ranch]

would that be the same for soil ppms

I'm afraid I've never paid a great deal of attention to ppm or pH when growing plants in soil, so take the following with a grain of salt.

Soil in some cases is a food source in and of itself, if your soil is of this type all bets are off as to what ppm you might want. I simply do not know.

If your soil is made up of mostly inert ingredients veg between 50-500 ppm and flower from 500 up to 1200 ppm in week 5 or 6 (depending on the length of flowering) then down to the lowest ppm you can manage for flushing.

Best of luck, I've seen a few nice looking cannabis plants grown in bio biz soil using their nutes exactly as directed, I would personally try a few grows using 90%, 80%, 70%, and so on till I found the lowest acceptable nutrient concentration, I don't like to waste nutrients or money.