Could someone please provide some general guidelines for ppm levels at different stages of plant life? Also, the theory on what to do/ what the plants want when ppm or ph increase or decrease?

I'm new to DWC, & just moves some mothers into 3 buckets with air lines.

In one bucket, I set ppm to ~ 450, and ph 5.8. In one day ppm dropped to ~380 and ph 4.4.

In another bucket, I set ppm to ~380 and ph 5.8. In one day ppm dropped to ~330 and ph 4.6.

Water level has dropped only slightly in both. Plants are AK48 & jack herer, all of them look as solid as when they will went in the buckets.


I found the following 'rules' on forum & have kinda tried to follow:
---PPM goes up, Ph goes down=plants require less nutes.
---PPM goes down, Ph goes up=Plants require more nutes
---PPM stable, Ph goes up=Equilibrium=Good thing.

No 'rule' for ppm & ph BOTH dropping

plants 4 weeks old & using botanicare nutes

Thanks for any input!

cbreeze

seems that my hanna meter is jacked up - the ph will not even complete calibration now.

based off the 'liquid dropper' ph tester, my ph was still low & needed to be adjusted up.

so any discussion on the original questions are still appreciated

Had a similar problem. PH meter would calibrate to 7.0 but not at all to 4.0.
Turns out, the separate wired probe had a breach in the seal and got wet inside. Replaced the probe and worked wonders.