ph battle

I'm a new bubblehead. I'm having trouble with my ph. I started with hempy buckets, could not get the runoff below 7.0. My plants suffered for several weeks before my job allowed me enough time to try and fix the problem.
I have transferred the plants to a 6 gallon dwc system ph'd to 5.8. I flushed the rockwool before moving them to the dwc. ( I am only keeping the plants to help me get my system dialed in so my next seeds stand a better chance. These had no growth for 3 weeks).
I have read Rosemans growtorial and other posts. When I lower the ph by .2 and check it again 6-8 hours later it's right back up at over 7. This is keeping me from making any progress toward 5.8 -6.2. I'm starting to understand the science end of things but it's a struggle for me.

From what I understand using distilled water can cause this ph problem. I have read some good things about calmag. Would calmag help stabilize my rez? If not what are my options? I want to start out with a stable rez for my next grow.

Man thats a good question and as me being a noob i have no idea. Im just learning myself!! Good luck

There are conflicting opinions on this. Mine is that your res is already "stabilized" unfortunately at 7 and it keeps "wanting" to return there. pH gets stabilized at various levels by various substances in water. Because distilled and low ppm ro water have no stabilzer in them, people often say they cause "spiking around." In fact they are just super responsive to whatever is added since they have no natural gravitation toward any pH level.

Things that can stabilize or buffer water without your knowledge include any disolved solids such as nutrients or anything else you put in. Why someone is not marketing a 5.8 buffer for hydro is beyond me. You can, in fact, buy stabilzers in any range you want, but they are expensive and you have to buy large quantities since they are made for the chemical industry. I did find an affordable 6.0 buffer and may try it myself.

I think the best approach to pH for newcomers is to start with ro water and use nutrients that prove to do well at stabilizing pH. Of course if you call they will all say they do so it takes some experimentation. Another thing, pH shift can also be your plants trying to communicate with you. Generally, rising pH means nutes too low and falling pH means nutes too high.

Thanks IS, that I understood.
I've been doing the math and it's obvious that an ro system will pay for itself. I am going to put one in soon. My plants never got big enough to start nutes. I have the two part gh nutes for the lucas formula. I may see some stability if I were to use those. I'm going to mix in 1/4 strength check and adjust ph from there. Do you have a link for the 6.0 buffer?

Resin225 said:

Thanks IS, that I understood.
I've been doing the math and it's obvious that an ro system will pay for itself. I am going to put one in soon. My plants never got big enough to start nutes. I have the two part gh nutes for the lucas formula. I may see some stability if I were to use those. I'm going to mix in 1/4 strength check and adjust ph from there. Do you have a link for the 6.0 buffer?

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Just remember that you can't use ro if your harness is too high, you have to use a water softener first. Public water is probably fine but you might want to check on that first.