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Newbie needs help with rapid PH declines


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Hi, finally got all the gear together and am attempting to grow my first plants I thought things were fine until 4-5 days ago when the morning Ph seemed to about 3 levels lower than than the night before (5.8->5.5) I raised it back to 5.7 but 12 hours later it was back at 5.5. The problem has become more extreme with drops from 6.0 down to 5.2 over a ten hour period (8 of which were dark) and today from 6.2 down to 5.3 over the course of 11 hours (no lights partial daylight due to power outage).

 

This is getting to the point of having to substantially raise the PH by 8 or more levels morning and night. I have no idea of why its happening or what to do about it.

 

I am using a blue lab EC meter to monitor the PH/EC ect in 90 litres of water with temp raging between 24-26 and EC 1.7 probably close to 1.8 (1190-1260 ppm)

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated as being a total newb to this I haven't to faintest idea of where to start looking for the problem let alone solve it.

Edited by Eccentric
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Hi, finally got all the gear together and am attempting to grow my first plants I thought things were fine until 4-5 days ago when the morning Ph seemed to about 3 levels lower than than the night before (5.8->5.5) I raised it back to 5.7 but 12 hours later it was back at 5.5. The problem has become more extreme with drops from 6.0 down to 5.2 over a ten hour period (8 of which were dark) and today from 6.2 down to 5.3 over the course of 11 hours (no lights partial daylight due to power outage).

 

This is getting to the point of having to substantially raise the PH by 8 or more levels morning and night. I have no idea of why its happening or what to do about it.

 

I am using a blue lab EC meter to monitor the PH/EC ect in 90 litres of water with temp raging between 24-26 and EC 1.7 probably close to 1.8 (1190-1260 ppm)

 

 

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated as being a total newb to this I haven't to faintest idea of where to start looking for the problem let alone solve it.

What are you growing in?
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What are you growing in?

Sounds like a hydro grow , are you using coco or rock wool ? Most of your man made products need to be soak for about 24 hours in a ph water to flush the medium if this was not done it will mess with your ph . Your ppm seems high but I don't know what your using also some of the cheaper meter you can find are not very accurate but if this is not the case temp and agitation have a lot to do with ph levels
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The media is some kind of coconut stuff that the shop recommended. I was quite ill at the time and unable to set it up myself so a life long friend who has a mate that apparently had grown hydro in the past come and set it up. I don't know if they soaked it or not but it was set up and the drippers let run until it got wet then the whole thing was dormant for several months unused in part due to needing a series of tradies working on the property with inevitable power interruptions and also I was still quite unwell and not up to monitoring the whole thing (in a separate building).  They are now 4 weeks old but only been in the hydro for 2 weeks (due to getting work finished off).

 

The nutrients are something that I think (from memory) was called green dream + nutrizyme for the roots at about 2/3 rate + cal-mag at about 1/2 rate. I have had ongoing heat issues and have to have the tent totally unzipped to try to let enough air circulate but even so with outdoor temp of 24 the whole room is getting to 28-30c hotter days it was getting to 32 but the humidity was quite low in the 30's. Air from lights and filter is ben vented into the roof cavity. However during all of this the Ph was stable and only after temps settled to more reasonable levels  (cooler weather) did the problem start. I have no idea of where to begin to start looking for the problem.

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Well after reading some other forums where people had had the same problem the main suggestions were

1) as the cause is unknown clean out the water system and start over again with new water and new nutrients ect  

2) that algae can get into the system and cause ph problems but that like an algal bloom it may settle of it own accord unless the algae colonize the growing media in  which case it may lead to root rot and death of the plants.

 

I took out about some of the reservoir water but in reality probably only 10-15% as I couldn't carry out any more at the time and replaced it with new water. The ph continued to plummet having to adjust it 3-4 times a day from 4.9-5.1 up to 6.2-6.6 it seemed that 5.1 stabilized as the floor level and the ph would drop fairly quickly to that level. Over time the floor level seemed to adjust upward to 5.2 then 5.3 and so on and has now been sitting at 5.6 for the last 2 days without any ph adjustment. I noticed that the first change to the floor level took about 5 days then 3 days and seems to adjust up one level every 3 days. It will be interesting to see what happens in another day or two to see if its continuing to self adjust or will stay where it is.

Edited by Eccentric
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Mate sounds like your using a recirculating hydroponic system with coco medium, the problem is once the nutrient is filtered thru your coco medium your meant to discard it not recirculate it

 

your system is meant to be dialed in with a digital timer on the water pump now this is up to you either

 

*once every 3 days give it a nice long watering enough to fully soak the pot of coco with as little run off as possible

 

*water a couple times a day in small calculated quantities as not to over water but water sufficiently

 

now in saying the above if u want to stick to coco that's fine, you have options of changing the medium as coco is not for recirculating system it should be treated just like soil IMO

 

i think your mate hasset up a recirculating hydroponic system due to your ill health it will automatically water your plants but also catch the run off without spillages or floods

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The water does return to the resevoir and recirculate, thats the system that the hydro shop gave me. I relied on them to give me all the stuff I would need (except for the ec meter I saw that on the internet and its a godsend for monitoring things) 

I had no idea of what I would need or how to get anything to work, the media is also what they suggested (albeit have been collecting things for the setup for about 3 years) and the media was last on the list so just took what they recommended. I dont really know what it is other than I was told by my friend (who hasn't the faintest idea of hydro either) that it was something to do with coconuts.  I have a timer for the lights and could plug the pump into that but it would operate with the lights so would end up being on most of the day unless I just plug it in and run  with the lights every couple of days, do you thing that would work?  The Ph did rise again today so is now at 5.7 so looks like its going to periodically rise.

 

These are my exotic Siberian tomatoes about a 4 days ago they sprouted about 30 days ago but have only been in the system for 20 days spending the first ten days growing in sunny glasses in  verandah due to  tradies on the property. Yes tons of spare space but that's for me as I have to have room to try to move around.

post-50277-0-07458300-1489245156_thumb.jpg

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As mentioned you need a timer all on its own for running your water pump, i cannot calculate your watering lengths for u because there are a lot of factors to factor in, you need to do it by trial and error

 

if it were me running this system i would have one reservoir and i would have one drain bucket for excess draining

 

your hydroponic system is currently set up for "Recirculating" where as the medium your using is coconut husk it should be used in a "Run to waste" system meaning the excess water that runs out of the bottom of pots goes to waste and is not recirculated

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Thanks for that, I havent the faintest idea of what I'm doing and in getting the equipment have relied on a hydro shop but been getting bits as could afford it and then had to rely on someone else getting the media at a ifferent place, probably the person getting it just got what they used to use in the past without understanding or maybe not caring (?) and the shop didn't ask. The person who set it up is known to my friend as a trusted past colleague but charged me $250 to set it up and in my newbie opinion hasn't done a good job as I had purchased a canister for making CO2 (they knew about it) but research told me that the CO2 settles in bottom of the tem and you cant have extraction from the floor which is exactly what the "experienced" person has done (along with the media muck up) and I cant change it without finding someone else to do the work.

 

Anyway I'll just have to muddle through and try to make the best out of whatever happens and try to readjust things if the opportunity ever arises.

 

 

Would you suggest continuing with the coco stuff in the future but try to set up the water differently or would you leave the water as is and change the media (if so change to what?)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Edited by Eccentric
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