PH problem CANT FIGURE IT OUT

I have a 8 bucket under current DWC DIY,and this issue with the ph is killing me i changed the water several time already and it happens again,it takes me about 2 days to lower the ph from the 7.5 of the tap water to 5.8-5.9 and after about 3-4days it drops to 4.4-4.2 in 12 hours,then i add some ph up /POTASSIUM HYDROXIDE/and get it back to 5.8 and after 12-24 hours it again drops,then i try to add the tap water and get it back,but again after the same 1day period it drops.I USE FLORANOVA GROW and i tryed HESSI HYDRO GROW,so its not the nutes.

But how do your plants look?

Ph fluctuation could be an inidcation of feeding rythms... Not necessarily a problem, especially if you're seeing the same pattern of drift consistently from week to week.

But if you're starting with 7.5ph water, that's too high.

7.5 out of the tap is hard water!

7.5 is the ph from the tap but then i add phdown and get it corrected to 5.8,what could be lowering the ph so fast from 5.8 to 4.2 in 12-24 hours

panta said:

7.5 is the ph from the tap but then i add phdown and get it corrected to 5.8,what could be lowering the ph so fast from 5.8 to 4.2 in 12-24 hours

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Hello panta...

I just went thru a similar PH crash like what you are going thru now...and It was the begining of root rot for me...I did a h202 flush and added benny's and fresh nutes...and things are back to normal...

What do your roots look like...??...

My roots looked brown with no new growth...they weren't slimmy... but they were brown and whimpy.....now they are white and healthy...

I've hard similar ph problems in the past. What I think can be the cause sometimes is too much rock ( more rock = more dust in the res) in the pots, small res, or bad nutes. I use general Hydro 3 part series, as little rock as possible, and larger res. --no problems

meltdown213 said:

I've hard similar ph problems in the past. What I think can be the cause sometimes is too much rock ( more rock = more dust in the res) in the pots, small res, or bad nutes. I use general Hydro 3 part series, as little rock as possible, and larger res. --no problems

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YOu're supposed to wash your hydroton. Look into that.

BeaverHuntr said:

YOu're supposed to wash your hydroton. Look into that.

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I agree. However, my experience is the more rock you use the more maintenance/problems you have.

this sounds quite puzzling. Im just starting out and bought a very potent ph down and ph up. I can drop my ph in 2 lites of solution from 6 to 5 with about a drop of this stuff. Its phosphoric acid according to the label

Im wondering if this would be a buffered ph down or not, all it tells me is that its 85% phosphoric acid and it says Ph down on it. I did by it from a hydroponics store so I would think they would sell me a buffered acid not just straight acid.
How will I find out if its buffered or not? and is there a way I can buffer it myself?

could it be that your Ph down isnt buffered and this is causing it to keep dropping your Ph?

another theory for your problem while im at it... If you have an extremely small res tank, I think it could be possible that your plants are sucking out most of the nutrients very quickly and leaving only the water+Ph down left in the res water so there are no nutrients to buffer that acid and your Ph drops dramatically. 12 hours seems pretty fast though. Id guess it has something to do with unbuffered acid but that truly is just a guess

7.5 pH tap water is normal, its not hard water. 8.5 and greater indicates hard water.

well thats good to hear I thought my Ph meter was screwy. always thought it was supposed to be 7

meltdown213 said:

I agree. However, my experience is the more rock you use the more maintenance/problems you have.

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You shouldnt have any problems using hydroton if you washed it properly and you soaked it in PH 5.5. water overnight.. I have used bags and bags and bags of hydroton one thing I learned is that you need to wash hydroton like you would wash your balls.. Wash it until there is no red murky run off water..

BeaverHuntr said:

...like you would wash your balls.. Wash it until there is no red murky run off water..

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hahahah I dont usually have red murky water running off my balls lmao

BeaverHuntr said:

You shouldnt have any problems using hydroton if you washed it properly and you soaked it in PH 5.5. water overnight.. I have used bags and bags and bags of hydroton one thing I learned is that you need to wash hydroton like you would wash your balls.. Wash it until there is no red murky run off water..

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You must really love to scrub your balls. Does smaller balls mean you can scrub more rock?

pH is not an indicator of the hardness of water. Even the ppm level is a poor indicator of hardness. Total alkalinity is the best indicator of the waters hardness and how it will affect pH.


edit:sorry I was multi tasking when doing original post and screwed it up. The even ppm level is a poor indicator of hardness should have read: 'Even the ppm/hardness level cannot be related to which way it will shift pH.' and 'total alkalinity is the best indicator of how it will affect pH'.

Sorry again for the confusion.....

Thedillestpickle said:

this sounds quite puzzling. Im just starting out and bought a very potent ph down and ph up. I can drop my ph in 2 lites of solution from 6 to 5 with about a drop of this stuff. Its phosphoric acid according to the label

Im wondering if this would be a buffered ph down or not, all it tells me is that its 85% phosphoric acid and it says Ph down on it. I did by it from a hydroponics store so I would think they would sell me a buffered acid not just straight acid.
How will I find out if its buffered or not? and is there a way I can buffer it myself?

could it be that your Ph down isnt buffered and this is causing it to keep dropping your Ph?

another theory for your problem while im at it... If you have an extremely small res tank, I think it could be possible that your plants are sucking out most of the nutrients very quickly and leaving only the water+Ph down left in the res water so there are no nutrients to buffer that acid and your Ph drops dramatically. 12 hours seems pretty fast though. Id guess it has something to do with unbuffered acid but that truly is just a guess

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Im using straight acid couse i dont have a hydro store in my country,so that could be the issue,but the strange thing about it is that on my last setup about a year ago i used the same acid and didnt have problems,i thought of root rot but the roots look fine nice white and clean,so now i changed the nutes from GHE VEG TO NESSI BLOOM and the ph down is ortho- phosphoric acid now for the flowering stage and the ph is stable for now its been 3 days,i hope it stays like that couse then i would at leats know that its the sulfuric acid probably.

damn I should have paid more attention in high school so i would actually know what "buffered" acid is... gunna have to do some research online. I guess I better find out what my acid is strait or unbuffered before I go ruining my plants with it.

anyone know of a good article about buffered ph ups and down and why they need to be buffered? never really read about this in all my cultivation books, They just say use Ph down and leave it at that.

From my understanding of what you have posted, it sounds to me like you are adjusting your water to 5.8 PH BEFORE you are adding your nutrients! That would be your 1st mistake as the nutrients will lower the PH of the water!

^Slanty said:

From my understanding of what you have posted, it sounds to me like you are adjusting your water to 5.8 PH BEFORE you are adding your nutrients! That would be your 1st mistake as the nutrients will lower the PH of the water!

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are you refering to the original post? Im adding my nutes than checking and adjusting Ph and also checking ppm
...my ppm meter just stopped working, hopefully its just the batteries

First off if you want to do hydroponics right stop fukin around trying to make whatever shit you can round up localy work & buy proper ph up & down from an online hydroponic supply.

I read where you said you dont have a hydro shop in your country but you dont need one anyway,just order the stuff & in 5 days its at your house,then you have eleminated any issue with weather or not the chemicals you are using are the proper stuff to use.

Next when you loaded your net pots with hydroton did you clean & soak the hyroton ?

You mentioned you did a grow last year,is the hydroton your currently using left over from last years grow where it was used in the previous grow now used in this grow a year later ?

If so much of your ph swings are comming from the hydroton,used hydroton holds nutrients so if the hydroton your using now was used previously,then put away without proper cleaning,then reused without proper washing,rinsing,soaking & ph'ing than that is the bulk of whats causing drastic ph swings.

Most of all guy you have to get the proper chemicals for ph,just trying to make other stuff work isnt advised,all the time you spend messing around trying to get stuff to work is just more time the plants are not in a healthy enviroment,the longer the plants are unhappy or sick the less bud they will produce come harvest.