PPM raising a lot and root rot?

[LazyToker]

Okay so to start off I will try to explain my setup because I cant post pictures cause my laptop is being stupid..

Anyway I have a 5 Gal bucket with 4 planters, 4Watt pump with airstone.. 8 23Watt cfls, 4 of the lights are hanging over top of the plant and 2 on one side 2 on the other.. So I have 1 Trainwreck plant growing in a rather small closet.. Now that there are many roots hanging down in the water I have been having a problem with my ppm rising a lot. The tap water I use is about 120 so when I changed the water in the bucket today I put in 250 ppm (360)PPM worth of nutes.. So I put my bucket back and turned the lights on and she went limp for about an hour which stumped me, the only thing I could think was it was away from the light for like a half hour.. Anyway an hour later she was fine and I could already see growth in some of the new leaves.. so I let her be for another hour came back and checked the ppm and it was up to about 450 already in 2 hours.. So I am wondering why the ppm is rising like crazy and I have to add new water and when I add new water I have to adjust the PH level again.. So my question is should I either add less or more nutes in this situation Or another option is the spring water I buy to drink comes in a 4L jug, The PPM is only 0.17 and the PH level is 7.0.. So am I able to PH this water to 5.5-5.8 and use it throughout the week to top up the bucket as needed?

Also I am having some temp problems and it's only March.. I am going to start putting a frozen bottle of water in once a day as summer comes up maybe 2.. has anyone tried this to keep there res cool for cheap?

Lastly I noticed some brown stuff on my roots and didn't know if it was the temperature problem or just the nutes sticking to the roots.. there was a bit of slime in the bucket when I did the nute change so I completely cleaned the bucket, filled my sink up PH'd the water and rinsed the roots until there was nearly no brown.. I then filled my bucket put it back so I am looking to avoid this from happening again..
Any help is great and really appreciated,
Thanks for reading

 

[LazyToker]

I should also mention that the nutrients I use are 1 part nutrient FloraNova 7-4-10.. I also PHd the spring water I have added 2L to the bucket and it went from 550-525 so that might not be the best option.. it's only about 20 Degrees Celsius right now in the room I don't know how the ppm is so high and should I put the other 2L of water I PHd or just change the bucket and put less nutes? I have only changed the bucket three times but I noticed within the first 2-3 days of changing water and nutes the PH usually rises slowly.. usually 6.0 each day and I bring it back down to 5.5-5.6 and the next day it'll be the same thing.. until the third day it stabilizes and don't usually have to adjust it the rest of the week.. but I never really had a problem with the ppm until I got a lot of roots and I don't know what to do besides change the water and put in less nutes.. it just seems almost a 200 ppm rise in one day I gotta be doing something wrong

 

[think difrent]

im not growing with a hidro sistem but it sound like you sould top your res with ph water sounds normal your plant arent using thenutrients maybi to strong stres .... do you have an air stone for your res .... do some more resurch (grow room on top) and maybi post some pics

 

[CronicHempHog]

my ph usually drops like its drinking more water than eating nutes
the water lvl drops too
everything starts out phed 5.8-6.2
I assume its drinking more water than nutes because when I do res changes and add nutes
the ph is usually low with a lot of nutes and I have to ph up
sometimes it does go up in which case I do a 1/4 feed with my top off of the day
I don't use a ppm meter tho so I don't know where that stands I just make sure my ph and water lvl is in the right range daily

 

[canadarolls]

Smack that computer.
I want pictures!
Frozen bottles is a good way to go for cooling. Helped me out.
Record your reservoir temps. Dissolved oxygen suffers quickly in temps above 21 Celsius. Leading to issues such as pythium

 

[LazyToker]

Thanks, I will try and get pics up next time, and yeah I will just have to top up the res from time to time.. And what type of thermometer or meter would I need to measure temp in the water?
I have a normal thermometer in the room and it reads about anywhere from 23-28 during the day and 20-22 at night. I felt the water and have a pretty good idea that it's way to warm but i wouldn't mind just a cheap meter just to measure the temp.
For now i will keep putting frozen bottles in but is there something else i can do come summer time for something more long term.. Do they have something that controls temp in the water? .. Would AC help? because come summer temps are only going to get higher and idk how good the bottle will work.

And I do try and do as much research as I can and most helpful info I get actually comes from this site even when I just google my question I always end up back on here.. I just couldn't find much this time and thought that I would just post my question with some pictures for best input for my situation, but unfortunately I was unable to upload pics but still got some helpful info which I appreciate. I love this site and all the info that's on here has probably saved my plant more then once but in this case I couldn't find what I needed to know although it probably is on here I couldn't find it and I was rather worried for her health at the time
Anyway she's looking good now, no more brown root stuff coming in and PPM hasn't rose since last night when I checked it.. Also has some nice new leaves coming in and starting to smell real nice. I'm going to put my focus on cooling the temp in the res and in the room without exhaust so any input towards that would be great.
Thanks for the reply's I appreciate the help

 

[canadarolls]

No doubt ac will help, cooler room cooler rez.
You can change out the water more frequently and do the bottle thing as well as wrap the rez and cover it.
There are inline water chillers out there toom depends on how serious you want to get.
Im very happy to hear the ladies are good.

 

[LazyToker]

No doubt ac will help, cooler room cooler rez.
You can change out the water more frequently and do the bottle thing as well as wrap the rez and cover it.
There are inline water chillers out there toom depends on how serious you want to get.
Im very happy to hear the ladies are good.

Thanks I will check out the inline chillers and see what they're worth.. And what should I wrap the res in?

 

[Hiker]

In general, the plants will use more water than the nutrients. This is going to raise PPMs. If you add 100 whateverunits to 1 gallon water and then let 1/2 the water evaporate. You still have 100 units though, so your concentration doubled form 100part per gallon to 100parts per half gallon or 200 ppg. Make sense?

Ice bottles work, but be careful not to let the roots touch the frozen bottles. Roots do not like being that cold. Roots below the mid 50's are problematic in my experience. Most folks that use frozen bottles have a reservoir that is seperated from teh roots.

 

[LazyToker]

In general, the plants will use more water than the nutrients. This is going to raise PPMs. If you add 100 whateverunits to 1 gallon water and then let 1/2 the water evaporate. You still have 100 units though, so your concentration doubled form 100part per gallon to 100parts per half gallon or 200 ppg. Make sense?

Ice bottles work, but be careful not to let the roots touch the frozen bottles. Roots do not like being that cold. Roots below the mid 50's are problematic in my experience. Most folks that use frozen bottles have a reservoir that is seperated from teh roots.

Okay yeah makes sense.. So the ppm isn't really as important as I thought because the plant will just drink the water needed and take whatever nutes it needs along the way or will it ? Or is it still bad to have such a high ppm in the early stage of a plant because when it does need to take nutes it will eat to much? or will it just take what it needs? I am starting to understand the ppm more but still kind of confused about this..

And thanks I never really thought about that I will be sure to keep the bottle away from the roots.. maybe I will fix something to the inside to keep the bottle away.. I looked up on inline coolers and realized that's not an option as most ranged from 200-600 bucks, I could invest in a far better setup for that much so I will stick with the bottle method..

Thanks

 

[Hiker]

Those res coolers work though. Lots of growers use them.

I always try to err on the side of low ppm's. You can burn the roots with too strong a solution, but a weak solution will just slow growth. And actually, it's not that it "slows", it's more a relative thing. If you had everything perfect, you get X amount of growth. If you have lower than optimal ppm's, you will get less than X amount of growth. Make sense?

You can't say the plant will always just take what it needs. For the most part, that's true, but if the solution gets too concentrated, you will have problems. You can get lockouts, the roots could burn, ph will likely be less stable, increased salt buildup, all sorts of stuff can happen.

Start low and work your way up. You can add more nutes, but it's much harder to take some out.

 

[canadarolls]

You could make a box out of sm insulation or the wrap kind they have for hot water tanks.
A lid is probably most important .

 

[LazyToker]

Okay.. Thanks for all the replys first off.. Sorry I haven't replied in a while.. What I ended up doing was covering up the remaining 3 holes with tinfoil.. I assumed that the light would reflect off and help promote good stem growth which indeed was the case whether or not the tinfoil helped I can't say.. But since I covered the holes I haven't had any slime or whatever you call it in the res.. I also think the brown in my roots was just nutrients and am no longer worried about it as the roots look great and the plant looks healthy.. I'm starting 12/12 starting at midnight tonight.. What I ended up doing for the hot temps I started putting a frozen bottle behind/infront of my fan and it helped a lot I go threw 2-3 a day and sometimes none it depends on the temp.. (When I put the bottles in the room I put them in a mug so the water that sweats offthe bottle wont go anywhere near my power bar or extension cords which lay on the floor) I stopped putting the frozen bottles in the bucket because as somebody stated on here it isn't good to have ice cold water touching the roots.. As for the PPM I haven't really had any problems.. My newest problem is PH lowering all the time.. Only solution I have found to that is to add PH up every couple days and test it more often.. Thanks everyone I will be posting new questions involving DWC-CFLs-Bushy Plant today if your interested check out my next post.. Thanks for all the help.. To be the best you have to learn from the best.. Right?

 

[canadarolls]

Glad your sailing is smooth.
Awesome awesome! !

 

[91qboy]

i use under the bed storage totes and fill them with frozen bottles in H20... without my water temps were 72 or more, now at 65 to 68.... during the day heat i use gallon jugs, but at night with lower temps i can get away with hthe small bottles or none at all... helped me a ton at first.

 

[91qboy]

and a bit of browning may be nutes.... but slime is slime...... i have a few brown areas on my roots but can tell its from nutes, no slime

 

[Hiker]

Sounds like things are fine. You do want to keep light off the res water.

If the roots start to turn translucent, ie you can sorta see through them, that's bad. Some nutes will stain the roots a little, and that kind of rock makes a red/brown powder that can also make the roots look a little red/brown.

The plants look great.