unidentified problem in hydroponic - possible ph problem?

Hi guys,

Here are some photos that i would be really greatfull if you culd look at them and help me with this proble.
it's a dropbox gallery, so here's a link :

http://www.getdropbox.com/gallery/45...issue?h=a1f18f


I've had a problem with my plants for few days. I planted seeds in AeroGarden and recently they overgrowed that tiny system. So i bought a new one.
Atami Wilma. i think it's called.
The plants have been healthy since the begining. but only 1 or 2 days after i
changed systems they started to show some signs of illness and seems just be
getting worse.

I give them alot of care and spend some time with them each day, I mesure the pH and EC every day and that have been just fine... the pH level have been around 5 - 6, it might have been 6.5 several times but not often.
The thing about the ph is that it seems to rise quite fast and if i see a mesure
that is 5.2 i can expect that 24 hours later it's about 6.0 and i have to add a
little pHdown almost every day. That sound really wrong to me and was not an issue when i was using Aerogarden, than i added phdown maybe once a week and the pH rised slowly to that level that i had to adjust it.

what is different between the aerogarden and the atami wilma. I don't know much about hydroponic but i am a fast learner and read alot about this.

Wilma has 4 pots with brown little stones in it (I just can't remember the english word for it, sorry) and the plants root are in these stones and with a tiny bit of rockwool since growing in aerogarden. Do you think this is an issue? are the stones spreading the water and nutrition enough?

this is a dripping system and i make the water pump go of every 30min for a 30min. is that ok ?
In aerogarden i had the tomato settings wich had the pumps on for 16hours and off for 8hours if i remember right.


I have a 250W fluorscent light and they are on 18/6 cycle in a veg grow.

I use GHE flora (3pack) nutriton and i put it in the water in this order : first the brown one, green and finally red.
I also use ph adjustments from GHE - phdown powder.

the EC levels are stable in 1.3.
i use following formula in the water as described in manual that i got with the nutrition. 7/7/7ml in 10L of water. thats 7 ml from each nutrition bottle. recently changed to 10/15/5 (changed yesterday after i changed the whole water and nutrition in the system)

i've been looking in the forums and in photos for something to help me identifying the problem but im not experienced enough to trust my judgement. but after reading alot i think this problem might be caused by hard water, with high ph level. the levels in the water is about 7 - 7.5 before i add nutrition and adjust the ph with pHdown.

Can you please guide me in the right direction and help my little babies.

and yeah, the seeds are from a friend and he had no idea wich type it is... he had forgotten it :P

After brainstorming and browsing the www for too many hours, and put together some facts, i think this is problem with the water in my area, is it possible that it have some ingredient that is some kind of buffer that keeps the ph rising ? I know that the water in my countr is different than in other places on earth. everyone here drinks it from the sink and i haven't seen water sold in stores here because everyone have full access of it at their home. So if this is the case, is there anythink i can add to the water to fix it ?

I checked the ph last night before midnight and it had already raised to ph 7 wich i think is quite dramatic since i fixed it to 5.2 when mixing the nutrients at 3pm (14:00)

thanks.. im really counting on you folks, im in a bad desperation here....

Looks like nute burns to me. try cutting it in half.