why is my ph climbing so fast? is it normal?

[jjames]

hey im runnin hydro setup of 10 gal tubs with organic nutes, 2 plants per tub x 3... under 400w MH...

i just put my plants in today and levled my ph @ 5.5... 3-4hrs later it was up to 6.7-6.8 in all 3 tubs, so i added ph 'down' again, an 3 hrs later, back up to 6.6-6.7...

is this normal? i was planning on adjusting my ph twice daily, but this just seems wrong...

 

[Caregivers]

Hello jjames,

First off lemme say that in order to give you a more accuate diagnosis, I need all the stats. What line of nutes? what kind of water? tap or R/O? room size, water tempature? all the way down the the nitty gritty details. You can't expect a good answer with such little information.

With the little information you have provided, it might be your organic nutes. Make sure they are compatible with hydro setups. Some organic nuts climb up to 6.5 which is pretty good for soil, not hydro. I feel that your water temp might be a little high as those HID do put out some heat.

CGs

 

[GodSpeed]

hi caregivers is right you need to give a bit more info then provided.

Also what medium are you using?

 

[jjames]

hey thanks for the replies... here goes the stats...

4 sour grape, 2 blue dream clones @ 2-3 inches each...

room size is 5'w x 5'6"l x 8'h
400w MH in tube style hood ( inline fan ready )
switchable digital ballast
3 15 gal tubs w/ 10 gal RO water each, water temp hangin arnd 70-72* during light
2 8" net pots in each tub, 1 plant per pot
hydroton medium ( clones are in there in their cloner cubes in hydroton, but the cubes are not touching the water themselves )
bottom of pot just in the water ( heard this is good and bad, but the roots are going to be submerged anyway right? )
made for hydro air pump running one line to one medium size air stone each tub ( may add another pump/ more stones later ), bubbles look great tho...
test run showed water wicking up pretty far in the hydroton
organic nutes; plant feed, bioroot, camg+, seaweed, an humic acid... during veg
( general hydroponics )
one 7in osc. fan for now
in spare bathroom, kinda small yes, but it has separate vents, one in (ac), and one out (exhaust) too...

using gas lantern sched- 12L, 5.5D, 1L, 5.5D...
so far its been stayin at 81-84* and 30% rh during light an dropping a good 10* at night, rh up to around 50% during dark...

i plan on adding a humidifier today cause id like to have temp around 80* or just under and 45-55% rh during light an it should balance well at night...

also will be adding inline fan, carbon filter an ducting. one fan will pull fresh air thru the ac vent, and another inline fan will pull from a carbon filter on one side of my hood thru the hood tube, then vent out existing exhaust vent... i think i have a little time to do so, but sooner than later, def before flower...

also will be adding a DIY co2 producer ( sugar, yeast, and water in a 2 liter bottle ), gonna let em get a little bigger before i add i tho...

planning on changing out water every 7-10 days...

recalibrated my ph meter today... ph @ 5.7 now...

they told me tht i could use these nutes for hydro so...

so... how does this sound to anyone who has done it??

any pointers greatly appreciated!

thanks...

 

[TorturedSoul]

Air stones and organic nutrients often do not "mix" well. I believe that General Organics has mentioned this several times, and would assume that it probably holds true for some other brands as well.

Grab an extra air stone (/pump, if your current one does not have enough capacity) and two similar containers. Mix your nutrients as usual and check/adjust the pH. Pour an equal amount into each container. Place the airstone (operating) in one container. Return 12 hours later and recheck the pH of the solution in each container. At a guess, I'd say that they'd vary. If not, continue for another 12 hours and test again.

Only other thing I could think of would be a poorly-shielded ballast that might be interfering with the pH meter, but that seems unlikely based on what you have described.

 

[jjames]

tsoul,

thanks for the sugg... i have to get another tub anyway for when i change out the water so until then i can do some testing...

i wasnt aware of the stone/organic nute clash...

other than that, do you see any other huge holes in my setup or future setup plan?

you seem pretty seasoned

thanks again...

 

[TorturedSoul]

i wasnt aware of the stone/organic nute clash...

Something about too much aeration causing or supporting the growth of microbial life in the nutrient solution. (Do you have foaming?) I got the impression that GH doesn't recommend General Organics products for DWC for that reason; nutrient solution that is stationary requires some form of aeration to provide dissolved oxygen to the roots.

In general, I have nothing against using (what falls under the currently accepted definition of) organics to grow cannabis or anything else. But the whole concept is somewhat foreign to me, lol. It'd be like asking a molecular biologist to perform brain surgery on you - he would have neither the education nor the practical experience to do a proper job of it and I'd be willing to bet that the patient would come through the experience somewhat the worse for wear. Again, nothing against them, it's just that I'm far from the most qualified person to ask. To me, "organic" means consisting of or including carbon as one of its elements.

I'm sure that the General Organics line of nutrients is as good as most and better than some (although I'd LOVE to see someone do a comparison grow between that line and BluePlanetNutrients' Farmer's Pride Organic line; I have a feeling that BPN would do at least as good as GO, and quite possibly better, especially since the man behind BPN is an active participant on this forum and would be available to give advice during the grow). But if someone gave me one of the GO kits, I'd use it in soil instead of hydroponics. It just wouldn't fit my style of hydroponic growing. In addition to the air pump & airstones that the average person uses, I like to add an aquarium powerhead as well in order to provide so much DO in the solution that you could take a mouse, add tiny little concrete shoes to it (lol), and toss it into the reservoir... go have a lengthy dinner, and return to see the poor little SoB still clomping around in the bottom trying to figure out how to escape (possible exaggeration, lol - but you get the idea). I once grew DWC in a hot climate - in August - under hot lights in an air-conditioned building. My a/c failed for a week. Midway through, the one friend who knew I was growing stopped by, said, "Sucks about your plants, man," and shared a bud with me. It was so hot in the building that we chanced sitting on the front porch (with a fan blowing on us) to toke up rather than to sit on the couch dripping sweat in the living room. Afterwards, I took him up to the attic (Note: I DON'T recommend growing cannabis in one's attic; they'll think they're in Texas during a heatwave) to look at the girls. He couldn't believe that they were alive and healthy. I had a strong fan on them and they were transpiring water by the gallon, lol, but they were hanging in there. (Buds were airy that harvest, but what can you do?) I never experienced root rot; although the level of DO that a "stagnant" solution could have held at that temperature (over 100°F) wouldn't have been enough to support them, the mad levels of aeration was constantly supersaturating the solution with DO. (Aquarium powerheads create a venturi affect that pulls a lot of air into the water and creates a lot of disturbance at the surface where most of the gaseous exchange takes place.) Not to mention that in the unlikely event that I saw a problem, I could have added a fair amount of H2O2 to the solution to kill off any "baddies." I routinely supplemented with it anyway, which probably would have killed much of the good microbial life that a proper organic setup has.

Rambling again.

other than that, do you see any other huge holes in my setup or future setup plan?

Again, I'm the wrong person to ask about your particular setup. You might do a search for other journals on this site which used or are using GO in hydroponics and ask the people for tips/advice. And it wouldn't hurt to email GH and ask about what they suggest for proper aeration of a hydroponic solution utilizing their GO line. I know there was some discussion on GH's blog about it, but I cannot remember the particulars. You don't need to mention anything about cannabis. They're probably better than average about responding to emails and should be able to give you general tips. I just didn't pay that much attention as I was not thinking of using their GO line and managed to miss the time period when they were sending out boxes of the entire set for the cost of shipping to introduce it, so never got any. Possibly you would find advantage in going with a drip setup or an ebb & flow so that getting oxygen to the roots is not so dependent on directly aerating the nutrient solution.

you seem pretty seasoned

Thanks for the compliment, but I don't know all that much and am still learning (thankfully, lol).

 

[GodSpeed]

I used a system like this for my first hydro grow but i have never used organics so like tsoul cant realy comment on this, I have hurd of airstones causing problems with rising ph and alot of people solve this problem with air tubes. prety much the tubes that connect to your air stones with a block in the end and holes ever inch or 2.

Also i had problems with ph rising in the first few weeks due to not soaking my hydroton in the correct ph for long anoth i read you have washed your hydroton before planting was this with plain water?? if so your plain water will be about 7.0 so your res is leaching the ph from there!

Hope this helps you must prep im sure there are directions on the bag.

 

[jjames]

thanks for the sugg.

im going to email GH and ask abt the airstones combined with organics...

youre right Gspeed, i did originally wash my hydroton in the shower, but as of late have been taking water (ph tested), and watering the plant cubes/ hydroton...

however, good news, ph has stabalized, i recalibrated my ph meter and have been working on the environment more, (water and air temp and rh).

i did start a grow journal so you guys are welcome to watch... sure could benefit, being my first time... ( jjames DWC 4sourgrape an 2bluedream )...

thanks again...

 

[TorturedSoul]

Also i had problems with ph rising in the first few weeks due to not soaking my hydroton in the correct ph for long anoth i read you have washed your hydroton before planting was this with plain water?? if so your plain water will be about 7.0 so your res is leaching the ph from there!

Interesting. I had not noticed any hydroton-related pH issues. Although my pre-washing was more like a quick rinse (end up still having a bit of "silt" in the bottom of the reservoir when it is changed for the first time).

I do have an issue with some used hydroton: It has a white salt buildup (whoops) that 20 minutes in boiling water doesn't seem to remove. I assume that there will be some in the pores as well.

ph has stabalized

Glad to read that.

i did start a grow journal so you guys are welcome to watch... sure could benefit, being my first time... ( jjames DWC 4sourgrape an 2bluedream )

Got a link? Are you going to place one in your .SIG? It's easy. Copy the link to the first page of your journal. Select the Edit Signature link in your User CP. Type what you want your .SIG to display. Highlight it - or the portion that you want to turn into a link to your journal, if it does not comprise the entire .SIG. Then click on the Insert Link icon in the .SIG edit box and paste in the link. Remember to save your .SIG after creating/editing.

 

[GodSpeed]

Interesting. I had not noticed any hydroton-related pH issues. Although my pre-washing was more like a quick rinse (end up still having a bit of "silt" in the bottom of the reservoir when it is changed for the first time).

I do have an issue with some used hydroton: It has a white salt buildup (whoops) that 20 minutes in boiling water doesn't seem to remove. I assume that there will be some in the pores as well.



Glad to read that.

That is a VERY good point t soul forget to mention hydration is extremely salty and needs to be drained with boiling water would the excess salt build up cause a ph rise?

 

[jjames]

will try that...

i tried to just start posting a journal in the journals in progress forum...
think thats wrong tho...

 

[GodSpeed]

No that is right bro i have had a quick look bit was late last night before retiring to bed. Will check you out later after work!

What ever you do don't pour boiling water over them precious roots lol just to be clear.

 

[TorturedSoul]

That is a VERY good point t soul forget to mention hydration is extremely salty and needs to be drained with boiling water would the excess salt build up cause a ph rise?

It's possible. The buildup is more likely to be composed of what the plants didn't use.

I would be more concerned with it causing some sort of over-nute lockout.

 

[jjames]

Cant say thanks enough for the help! Journaled signature check!

 

[jjames]

and yes... i will remember to not pour the boiling water over the roots!

 

[Caregivers]

That is a VERY good point t soul forget to mention hydration is extremely salty and needs to be drained with boiling water would the excess salt build up cause a ph rise?

I agree with TSoul. The "leftover" salts are more than likely to cause a PH lockout than mess with your PH. After I harvest all my plants, I normally run it with some white vinegar for a couple days. Vinegar works wonders on salt build up. You have to flush out your system really well before using it again as vinegar doesnt get along with the plants. I use an Ebb and Grow setup.

CGs

 

[GodSpeed]

I agree with TSoul. The "leftover" salts are more than likely to cause a PH lockout than mess with your PH. After I harvest all my plants, I normally run it with some white vinegar for a couple days. Vinegar works wonders on salt build up. You have to flush out your system really well before using it again as vinegar doesnt get along with the plants. I use an Ebb and Grow setup.

CGs

Yes I agree this will cause a lockout your plant will continue to drink water and leave the nutrients behind causing your ec to rise. So this should in theory lower your ph. Just don't know why I was getting reverse effect or my ph Rising?

 

[Caregivers]

Not all nutes will lower you PH. Some of my soup actually raises it....so one would think that all depends on one's soup and environment. Remember if you use chemical nutes...such as most of us hydro growers use....then they become unbalanced overtime. If I didnt wash my rocks before starting the next batch then those salts that are leftover in the rocks will be unblalanced. My soup rarely ever lowers overt ime...about 95% of the time it increases. When it gets to the point where I am adjusting everyday, thats when I know it is time for a changeout. Seemes to work for me.

CGs

 

[jjames]

i think i want to switch from these organic nutes to an exclusively made for hydro nutrient cycle... think i should wait a full week before i switch? the clones were officially 'started' in their solution on fri night (oct 14)...

thanks again