I have a new waterfarm just out of the box 7/7, rinsed the hydroton in water, inserted my feminized germinated seed and it popped open 7/9. Have a 96X3 LED 30" above the seeding. PH is high at 8.1 and the PPM from my tap are 140-142. Res temp is 72 deg and RH is 68. I have ONLY water in the waterfarm so didn't see a need to monitor anything. Wasn't concerned about the PH because no nutes in the res. Did a full systems check last night (7/20) just for giggles and PH is consistent 8.1 but my PPM was 850! Again nothing added to res and I started with tap water at PPM 142. I had to flush 3-times to get the PPM down to 140. Any ideas why it increased on it's own? I have tin foil over my hydroton and it does get splashed, I'm wondering if any metals leach into the water. Should I have sterilized the hydroton? Thanks guys.