Air & nutes in reserve reservoir?

Hello!

My plant (below) is in a 5 gallon pot and this is my first grow! I had a little bit of trouble with some root rot (set me back about 3-4 weeks) but that's all gone now .



She's starting to drink a ton of water. I've been tying her down too and, I don't know if it's a coincidence but, after the last time I tied her down, she drank nearly a gallon in 24 hours. Here's all the new growth, but all of the little side shoots are shooting up too.


In order to change the reservoir, I fill a side bucket with tap water, nutrients, and pH down, and then I keep an airstone running in it for 24 hours before switching the plant and all the other airstones over.

So, that works but now I'll need to top her off in between reservoir changes. Today, I just filled a bucket with tap water, pH'd it, and topped her off with that.

Should I be keeping an aerated bucket, pH'd and with nutrients for topping off? Or what?

Thanks a bunch for the help!

I top off with tap water and mix nutrients into my RDWC after. You can't bubble out chloramine regardless. I have stable PH in my RDWC so I'm not so concerned with it.

Hey thanks! I guess just one more question. I'm using aquashield ever since I had early root problems and that's the main reason I leave the water out. My concern is that the tap water's chlorine may kill my beneficials! Is there any validity to my concern?

I run Hydroguard (new aquashield I believe) which is the liquid bacillus and the plants respond very well to it. (even with tap water) So I wouldn't be overly worried about it.

I've worried about this too.

Idon't think tap water does any harm to the aquashield judging from my pearly white roots that I attribute to hydroguard and 65F res temps, which is perfect temp.

PLants look like they could use some phosphorus, what you feeding them and at what rate? Whats PH like?

I bet his nutrient line is high N and low P-K judging by the leaf tips being "burnt" or appear to be. So its a decent feed Id guess... needy strain or bad nutrient ratios is my guess. Maybe aftermath of the root rot he said he got?

A lot of nutrients line seem to be low in P. I get the purple petioles on mostly all of my plants. Got temps in check now so I know its P.

Think the food I was using was 3-1-5

Heavy 16 is 5-2-6 so maybe i'll fair better with the slightly higher P ratio.

Hey sorry for brief reply I'm at work. I'm using the Advanced nutrients trio and last dose was 1.5 tsp each in about 3.5 to 4 gallons of water. The lowest leaves went super yellow while the root issues were getting worked out but all the growth since has been nice and green that I've seen. Burned a leaf here and there with it touching the lights. I do have some red/purple stems though - is that what you all are seeing? Let me know guys appreciate the help first grow here!

Oh an my pH after res change it gets set at 5.5-6.0 and usually drafts up the it at 24 hours before adjusting and staying right at 5.6-6.4 (depends what I set it at, it pretty much doesn't move after that)

Phosphorous would make sense because the pH is frequently <5.8 than >5.8. I'll try to keep it a little higher over the next few days and see how it goes.