DWC, ph of my water is going up daily. Set to 5.8 and it will be at 7.0+ next day

DWC, ph of my water is going up daily. Set to 5.8 and it will be at 7.0+ next day

I'm using well water, and actually just grew a bagseed plant with just this water never using a PH meter and going by General Hydroponics Flora Series feeding schedule. And it looked surprisingly well the whole time.

Is well water OK? I do have airstones going in them 24/7.

The one reservoir is an 18 Gallon tote Clone Machine I made. So that's just water. The other is the said plant above and its in like week 6 of flower in a 3.5 bucket. Both keep jumping up (Now that I have the meter and know this that is )
Once the seeds pop I'll be using 5 gal dwc buckets with 6 in netpots in them.

Wondering if I just need to keep PH downing them every day or what??

Try using a nitric acid based pH down. It's a lot more stable than phosphoric.

churchhaze said:

Try using a nitric acid based pH down. It's a lot more stable than phosphoric.

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What brand might you recommend? I take it NOT the General Hydroponics PH Down?

Bump.
Any thoughts on the above comment? Or should I jsut get used to PH downing every day after work?

Thanks a lot!!!

I've used the gh ph adjusters for years with no problems but i have also seen lots of posts where people use well water and have problems no matter what

What's the Ppm on the Well water out of the tap? I know you'll have more minerals in Well Water so check it and feed accordingly.

A friend in Mn has a well that shoots out 1100 ppm and he has to cut that with r/o to knock it down. Once he did that he was fine on the ph swings.

Is anything touching the water like a net pot with Hydrotron in it? Net Pot should have four fingers of clearance to the water level. What medium are you using? Rockwool?

If so, Ya need to soak those cubes in 5.8 for a few days before plugging them into DWC.

If it's Hydrotron and it was not rinsed out properly that could be the cause.

BlackTuna said:

What's the Ppm on the Well water out of the tap? I know you'll have more minerals in Well Water so check it and feed accordingly.

A friend in Mn has a well that shoots out 1100 ppm and he has to cut that with r/o to knock it down. Once he did that he was fine on the ph swings.

Is anything touching the water like a net pot with Hydrotron in it? Net Pot should have four fingers of clearance to the water level. What medium are you using? Rockwool?

If so, Ya need to soak those cubes in 5.8 for a few days before plugging them into DWC.

If it's Hydrotron and it was not rinsed out properly that could be the cause.

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Im waiting for the right damn TDS calibration solution to get to me. The dude at the grow shop gave me the wrong stuff. So once i get that I'll know the PPM of the well water. My boy whose place its at just for shits and giggles grew a bagseed in a GH topfeed/dwc bucket (whatever it is) and JUST used that well water NO PH'ing it with the GH Flora Series nutes according to schedule and it looks pretty nice actually. The buds could be fatter and it could be all around better if it had exactly the things it needed, but just wanted to add that.

We in MN too And I have an RO system if we need it. We shall see. The one Res is a 18 Gal Tote Clone Machine, so nothing is touching the water. I just have it set to spray for 15 mins every 6 hours (off topic but do you think thats too much or less?) that is ph'd to like 5.9 and was up to like 7 something the day after. The clone machine i made http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16NMGMRPazw

Now the other "res" which would be that plant I was talking about, has about two weeks left on it i think and that one has nutes, hydroton, roots, all that stuff in it, and to be honest my boy didnt really do what was needed on that. Hydroton I KNOW didnt get boiled clean, and so on. But that one i really dont care about. IT DID, HOWEVER also go up the same amount as in the clone machine.

And as far as I know, the rockwool (oh ya, usring rockwool lol) we put the seeds in, whcih is whats in the clone machine, got soaked for probly like half hour to an hour... I thought I read that was ok... hope we didnt F*ck that up

Well water has a lot of micro organisms on it which could be causing your ph to rise hence why they say not to drink well water. Try and get a better source of water from either the utility company otherwise your gonna need to sterilize and treat with a RO and UV system although even the UVs I have heard don't do to we'll with well water. Good luck

in my experience with hydro, the ph swings up a bit each day as the plants take up more of the acid salts. if you have a small res it can swing alot. when i got root probs the ph would drop. using a ph down with nitric acid sounds like a good idea to me. the nute plants are eating thats causing the ph to climb is probably n so more would prob help more than p.

Id just use the ro water man. Should fix the problem right up. I use AN sensi and never have to ph but my ph starts at 6 with city water. Itll hit 7 in two weeks. Ive seen monsters grow outta water that starts at 8 and hits 9ish! Just a question...how were the plants doing before you started phing the water? I bet they were doing fine. Ph impo (take it or leave it lol) isnt that important unless its getting wild like 9ish. I think that the ro water will solve the prob anyway. Good luck

Well the one Res i was more worried about was my clone machine i built. 18 gal tote. It has not plants growing in it yet. Just seedlings in rockwool. I just had one sprout this morning. Hoping when i get home the rest will be.

I think we will end up using the RO system, I just want to get my TDS calibrated so I can actually know the ppm of the well water. I DO want to add cal mag to RO correct?

So, I just wanted to update you all the were cool enought to try and help me out!!

I tested the PPM of the well water and it comes out to only 240-245 That seems low and good yes? or no? lol

Think I should still add any cal mag? I can get the water tested by the city too... if i need to

There is absolutely no need to adjust ph in just water. Ph affects nute uptake not water uptake.

I use CES stays steady at 5.8 with RO water.

do you use hydroton? thats what made the ph go up for me

dudeman222 said:

do you use hydroton? thats what made the ph go up for me

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Well for this thread about the clone machine, no there is no hydroton. And I now know that ph'ing is only for nute uptake so I'll just be using plain water next time.

I have them in DWC buckets now and the PH goes from 5.6-5.8 to 6.7 in a day. Using well water at the moment. Got my RO machine over there that we need to hook up. its missing a piece. im hoping the filters are still good.

Anyone know about those filters and when they should be changed? are they spendy? havent looked too hard into it yet..

I get PH swings when I got funk in my roots. How they looking? White?? Well your using GH 3 part, so it will be hard to tell as nutes turn your roots brown. Any algae etc? I use bleach and it keeps my roots looking pristine. That much of a swing in one day is pretty big!

I had the same pH issue when I first started my DWC. I use RO water and it came from using organic calmag, the molasses based stuff from general hydro. I was using left over stuff from my organic grow and the molasses based nute was feeding bacteria in the reservoir and their waste products were causing the pH to rise. As soon as I stopped using the organic calmag and cleaned the res out everything stabilized and I can walk away from my RDWC system for a week and the ph will rise from 5.5-6 at the most.

John Nie Canna Guy said:

I had the same pH issue when I first started my DWC. I use RO water and it came from using organic calmag, the molasses based stuff from general hydro. I was using left over stuff from my organic grow and the molasses based nute was feeding bacteria in the reservoir and their waste products were causing the pH to rise. As soon as I stopped using the organic calmag and cleaned the res out everything stabilized and I can walk away from my RDWC system for a week and the ph will rise from 5.5-6 at the most.

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Thats awesome dude! That is exactly what I want. The well water we using comes out at 8.4 and 245ppm. That seems pretty high. I have an RO system Im gonna hook back up but it hasnt been used for over two years so im wondering how bad that water will be.. Gotta do some looking up and probly get new filters..

You have any instructions or you tube vids or something I could look at for a RDWC system setup and how to use? Isnt that when you have a 55gal tub for your nute solution, a control bucket that sends the solution out and sucks it back in? Is that RDWC?

In DWC the pH goes up and down according to the plants uptake--
when it uptakes more water & less nutrients, the pH takes a dive--
when she's eating more and drinking less- the pH goes up...

DWC has a daily routine:
Check the water level & top it off, check the ec/ppm and adjust if needed (usually only 1-2x week tops), then adjust the pH... pH is every day... it's the way the DWC works with the plants uptake.

Keep LOTS of pH adjuster on hand..
I like the Earth-juice organic pH up and down... goes a long way and works with even non-organic nutes... but I feel better it not being a chemical addative.. but it is the ONLY thing "organic" I would use in DWC...
organics are not really meant for use in DWC .... if you do use organics, it has to be dumped weekly- sometimes more, or the solution ferments and becomes unstable.