TDS, PPM Testers

[Hanky]

Hanky how did a truncheon help you find out you were underfeeding plants?  Also can you tell us how you use it to get the full potential as you put it.  If this is just your third grow it could be you're just growing better because you've got some experience not because you've been playing with a truncheon.

 

I see a lot of posts saying to use a truncheon but none explaining exactly how it is used to grow better than you would without one...

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Well, using canna vega and flores at full bottle strength gives me an EC of around 1.8/1.9 canna says on the bottle that you can run it up to 2.7 That's one way.

 

PK 13/14 says on the bottle to use 1 or 2 ml per litre and adjust with flores nutes. Without a meter you'd have no idea that 2ml per liter of PK will only give an EC of around .7 or .8 Using a meter I'm able to add another 15ml of flores per 5 liters to the mix, that's three quater strength.

 

My last grow I'd been told that PK is very strong so I used only 1ml per liter and added no flores nutes. I was short changing my plants by over half of their nutes.

 

Meters just take the guess work out. You can feed at optimum levels without fear of nute burn.

 

I hope that helps.

[Hanky]

What I getting at is the OAKTON is MY preference, get it Hanky?

 

Do u work for Truncheon or something Hanky??????????!!?????

 

Also i disagree that truncheon doesn't need calibration, i have owned 1 and mine did. Actually i have had 2.

 

Sorry for this but the dude asked a question and in the spirit of 'good research' i thought i would give an different opinion. Easy...

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So you've owned two and didn't know they were water proof and cant be calibrated?

 

I smell bullshit.

[animal]

Well, using canna vega and flores at full bottle strength gives me an EC of around 1.8/1.9 canna says on the bottle that you can run it up to 2.7  That's one way.

 

PK 13/14 says on the bottle to use 1 or 2 ml per litre and adjust with flores nutes.  Without a meter you'd have no idea that 2ml per liter of PK will only give an EC of around .7 or .8    Using a meter I'm able to add another 15ml of flores per 5 liters to the mix, that's three quater strength.

 

My last grow I'd been told that PK is very strong so I used only 1ml per liter and added no flores nutes.  I was short changing my plants by over half of their nutes.

 

Meters just take the guess work out.  You can feed at optimum levels without fear of nute burn.

 

I hope that helps.

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That is a good point with the PK. With the underfeeding I disagree though. The max nutrient uptake of different strains varies under different conditions. The only way you can determine how much your plants can take is by gradually increasing the strength until your plants show sign of burn and this can be done without a nute meter.

 

The other way nute meters can be used is to compare the runoff with the feed mix to detect nute lockout or in a recirculating system the ec will rise if there is a lockout. I think their importance is overstated though, and comments like I've seen in this thread like "you can't grow DWC without a meter" just aren't true.

[Hanky]

It's true they are not essential, they just simplify things and take out the guess work. You can definatley get by with out one.

[bongonaussie]

hey ozmade

 

if your interested in buying a good as new second hand one locally, i can give you the phone number of a guy that sells shit loads of hydro gear from his house.

 

Its about 30-45 minutes south from where you live.

 

PM me if you want details..

[Ozzy420]

Sounds good bongon, i have droped u a PM...

[Luke Skywalker]

I can absolutely confirm that any truncheon is self calibrating and all that other stuff. It does not require these, all it needs is a clean every couple of months with some unscented Jif and a finger, and they read true all the time. In my experience, they are the best on the market, but others have preffered the oakton/eutech models (a good company with darn good pH equipent) and will use them till they never use one again. It is mostly about preference, true, and my preference is certainly with a Truncheon by Bluelab to be honest.

 

Another good thing about them is that they very, very rarerly get sent back for fixing in the event of a problem. If something does go wrong, they'll fix it promp quick with a 5 year warranty, which I don't see on other meters.

 

Using ec/tds/ppm meters allow you to understand more about the state of the medium, the nature of your plants uptake of nutrients as a whole solution at a particular time, custom nutrient preparation with additives not being over-done/under done, and devising specific targets for particular strains.

 

Admittedly, with a bit of whizz bang mathematics and some time and effort, careful recordings of nutrient levels in mL/L and extrapolating nutrient uptake by how temperature has affected the plants, rate of growth, tip burn and no tip burn sections of growth, etc, you could do well without a EC/TDS meter of some sort and grow damn good buds. Many do. But almost all people are recommended to get one if you use hydroponic systems. Because it's another piece of information that makes a difference in culture, particularly preventative measures, although also reactive measures. Better culture = better plants.

 

Another good ability of a salts meter is that you can determine when you have fully flushed a media back to the base state, or a weak strength as some do, with little to no extra nutrients adhering to the medium. Using an EC meter can allow you to discover a problem, like high or very low nutrient readings, before your plants have reacted adversely. Going by "eye" has it's benefits, but can't really compensate for nutrient changes and changes to chemistry of the root zone over short periods.

 

And I would certainly dispute the statement by Tom about RTW not requiring nutrient readings. If you're using pure water and you trust what's written on the back of the bottle, sure, but if you live in an area with even moderate levels of salts, you could inadvertently overdose your plants to less than their best result. Knowing how the media and root-zone is going is particularly useful information in any kind of hydroponics media or hydroponic system.

 

Knowing the temperature of a growroom is important too, but we don't argue very often about needing a thermometer do we?

 

In short, (yeah, right! ) you don't need an EC/TDS meter to grow, but it sure helps a lot.