thanks a lot guys. so what does E.c. mean? i know ppm but im not sure of e.c. anyways thanks a lot for all the response!

i will take this advice into consideration thank you for your input

ec=electrical conductivity, cf=conductivity factor, tds=total dissolved solids, ppm=parts per million. Theyre all measurements of the same thing, the amount of dissolved salts or minerals in yr tap water or yr nutrient solution. Ec and cf are easy to convert, an ec of say 1.5 will be cf of 15 u just add or remove the decimal point. I cant for the life of me remember how to convert ppm or tds tho, been growing in soil for too long and forgotten. But i wouldnt even attempt hydro again without my meters, its cruicial that u know yr tap waters ec(hardness). As mentioned earlier by someone else i believe this is the root of yr problem. And personally just my opinion i wouldnt bother flushing using clearex, its just an unnecessary expense, a low ec some where around 1.2 or 1.3 will flush yr plants fine. And dump the overpriced AN nutes with 101 different additives and get a simple a+b grow and bloom at least till u got everything dialled then maybe go bak to AN. I used to use just canna vega and flores with pk13-14 and i used to get top colas bigger than my calf in my flood and drain!

also house and garden do a additive, drip clean or somthing. you just run it with a your hydro base feed and you dont have to flush. it keeps all the salts broken down. drip clean. for hydro. only use it from the start tho they say. because it'll pull it all out if used half way thru, if that makes sense.

there proper dutch aswell i think, house and garden. ive used there shooting powerd and was very happy with it. my tank temps are allways fine. you only get that, hi tank temps if you use small hydro tanks. the best is no smaller than 100 litre tanks. bigger the better mine are about 50 litres, but uset to have 100 ltire tank and it was best. cool, but not cold, and not hot, room temp

oh yeah sorry, 50 litre tanks are small. but i have 2 rvk 8 inch extractors running, and cooltubes. so the heat does realy reach the tanks, long as the rooms not cooking, tank temps should stay ok

thanks a lot guys, would places like lows and home depot have tds, e.c., and ppm. meters? i guess i didnts know how important they are.

i have no idea, i guess theyre like the u.s equivalent of b&q and homebase which dont sell them here. Here u have to go to a growshop for them. And yes they are vital! Also vital is a good ph meter, ph strips and reagent drops do work but imo u need a digital ph meter. I believe the best e.c/c.f meters are the nz and bluelab truncheons, theyre fully waterproof so it dont matter if drop it in yr res, never need calibration as they stay accurate for years and will easily outlast the budget e.c pen type meters, theyre a little more pricey but well worth it. Order one online if theres no growshops near u. When u get one add the same amount of nutes that u were using to get the ppm of 1600 according to the label on the bottle, then test with the meter, bet u any money it wont say 1600! With AN and all its many additives its all to easy to get it wrong, every additive adds more ppm and u have to balance yr base grow or bloom ferts with the additives to reach yr desired ppm, also taking into account the "dead" salts already in yr water, then u adjust yr ph last, all this is completely impossible with out an e.c/c.f/ppm meter. This is why id reccomend using a simple a+b grow & bloom fert like canna with pk13-14 or hammerhead pk9-18 and u cant go too wrong.

yea i remember my tank was 125litres situated under an 8pod flood and drain system, even with the 600w above it(had no cooltube back then) my res temps were still on the low side coz my res was sitting on a cold concrete floor, it was causing slow growth, so i put a 100w aquarium heater with thermostat set at 21'c and no more probs, but because the solution in my res was only being moved around once every three hours with the flood cycles the solution tends to become anaerobic so i got an aquarium air pump and put a 5" airstone in my res and this just made the plants take off man, turbo charged hydro stylee! But if yr in hot climates chances are yr running high res temps with low dissolved oxegen and u'l need a res chiller and air stone or H2o2(oxyplus).

ive burnt about 5 of those things out, went in the room 1 day and the nft was smoking lol the tanks are long but not very deep. and gets abit low. so i tri not to use them anymore, in the cristmas months i might if i fill brave

lol yea the first one i bought shattered in my res when the water level dropped below it one day, i hadnt checked my res for a few days and when i did the heaters element must have reacted with the nutrient and ph down or something and rusted in the tank and my nute solution looked like tomato soup! Plants were fine tho. Then i got one of the hydor heavy duty shatterproof ones from growell, they'l still work out of water completely dry!