dwc PH help

Humboldt DWC

Well-Known Member
I also use H&G aquaflakes and mad farmer get down.

Whats the ph and ppm of the water you are using??
Which H&G products are you using? Are you using the suggested fert rate from the nut calculator?
When you say seedling, how old exactly are they?
What method are you using to test ec/ppm and pH?
 

Spliffer1

Well-Known Member
Hey, they're all a work in progress. It appears healthy and well, pretty color and nice, fat leaves. My indoor plants are clones from some of my outdoors, or else I'd be using bag seeds, being my first indoor/hydro.
I'm running bubblers in 5 gal buckets, my net pots are 5", and may be a little big but I don't think by a whole lot. My northen light's stem is already about half inch thick. Her monster mother outdoors has a trunk on her big as my fist.
Yeah, it does sound like your water is causing your ph fluactions, and can definitely cause nute lockout if it's too far out of whack. And the plants don't like it too much when it fluctuates a lot, even if it's not enough to creat lockout. Our tap water here has a buffer in it that keeps the ph pretty close to 7. I don't know what it is they use, but it works pretty well. Within an hour, my ph would "rebound" from 5.8 back to 7+-. I had read about this, and figured out right away that I would have to use different water, so I went with distilled. It adjusts easily (ph) and the ppm's are only 2-3, which just makes it easier to figure up the ppm's of my solution. Your ppm's will actually be your reading minus your water's ppm's. Say your ppm reading is 200 ppm and your distilled water has 3 ppm, your solution's actual strength is 197. I tested different types of water- my tap water was around 165 ppm's, and Ozarka was around 45ppm, which is okay, you just have to deduct that from your readings each time.
I know little to nothing about a central resevoir, but can see where it would be simpler to work with. I have a couple different varieties at different stages, and each needs a little bit different nute schedule. I don't think I can accomplish what I'm after with a central res, so haven't put any thought into it.
Do you have the "grower's bible"? It's titled "Marijuana Horticulture the Indoor/Outdoor Medical Growers Bible" by Jorge Cervantes. It is the definitive grower's handbook and it's AWESOME. It covers pretty much everything you want to know, with some 500+ color pgs and 1100+ color pics. I got a lightly used copy off ebay for around $20, best investment I've made, yet. It pretty much makes all my other books obsolete.
Got to run, but I'll check back in a bit with a little more info that I've learned along the way. We'll stumble thru and figure it out!
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Tripped circuits

Well-Known Member
just got back from the hydro shop, picked up all the supplements in the line of nutes I am using. I was talking to the owener and he said be careful with distilled water, not so much for the health of your plants but for the health of your instrumentation. He spoke of the ph pen breaking because of the reverse polarity in distilled water. Idk if there is any truth to the matter, but I will take his word on it for now. He suggested using either spring or r o water. which is available at the store down the street from me.. looks like I will be buying water for this time around
 

Humboldt DWC

Well-Known Member
Most meters say dont use distilled water. It can mess up the pH probe. I dont know if you ever took chemistry but distilled water has no ions in it, other than a balance of H3O+ and OH- but never mind that. So when you put a meter in it it will leach the ions out of the probe and destroy it.

IMO jorge cervantes book does have a lot of good info BUT, he plagiarizes from Ed Rosenthal and other like crazy. He must pay them to do it because it is so flagrant he couldn't get away with it otherwise.
Its a good book to have but it also suffers from the influence of commercial interest.
I really like Ed Rosenthals Marijuana growers handbook, http://mjgrowers.com/book.htm, also organic marijuana soma style is one of my favorite books. Not a complete tome like the others but for soil growers its a must read. I just bought and read all the books I could find as they came out. I started in 1998.

On the topic of how often to change your water, if you are planning on using the supplements from H&G you will have a much easier time if you do weekly water changes. The products are intended to be used only during certain weeks of the plants life. for example Top Booster is meant to be used only for 1 week during the plants life. Check out the nut calculator, http://www.house-garden.us/nutrient-calculator/

One of my more experienced Areoponics friends spent several years before finding that it was more labor intensive and difficult to try using the nutes for multiple weeks because of all the reading and adjusting you have to do. You certainly can do it but IMO its more work and worry and it takes a bit of experience to be able to use a line like H&G, which is meant to be changed out weekly, that way. My dad has found the same to be true in his bubble buckets.
 

Humboldt DWC

Well-Known Member
Oh yeah if you understood the distilled water/ions thing you may have realized that you can add a little salt (potassium chloride kind) to dis water to make it safe to store your pH probe in. You dont want to add salt to your nutes though. :) Once you add ferts to the dis water it is safe because fertilizers are chemically salts which are ionic compounds. Just never put a pH probe in PURE distilled water.
 
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