What is causing these spots?

Xs121 said:

Man you're good, you can tell the shade between yellow and orange. Me, I have a hard time telling the difference between yellow and dark yellow. As far as I know ph strip at yellow that means between 4.5 and 5.5, light yellow 5.5 and 6.5. Not gonna risk hitting my ph below 5 with strips.



If your pen is not calibrating with the ph solution then obviously there's something wrong with the ph pen. Could mean your battery is getting weaker or your pen itself is messed up. Calibrating solution is there for a reason unless you're using some DIY solution.

I'm just saying, that I don't find the strip accurate enough.

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Fwiw. I had ph issues with every ph pen at some point. Haven’t had ph issues since I went to drops. I’ve never used strips. I don’t match it up against a chart and I always look at it under a 6500k florecent and then my 4000k leds. After doing it for a while you just know. I get it tho it’s not for everyone. And I’m getting tired of fickle equipment.

@Xs121



If your pen is not calibrating with the ph solution then obviously there's something wrong with the ph pen. Could mean your battery is getting weaker or your pen itself is messed up. Calibrating solution is there for a reason unless you're using some DIY solution.

I'm just saying, that I don't find the strip accurate enough.[/QUOTE]

Ive had a few. One in particular that i'd calibrated. It was 0.2 out at 7. That 0.2 made a massive difference at either end. I had used the low, neutral, and high calibration fluid. The metre checked out. I kept having obvious ph problems. Wasnt until i checked my runoff with drops, that i found my medium was way down in the low 4's. My metre was reading 6.
It was an $80 metre too.
Even the bluelabs have to be sent off, after a while. To get recalibrated, at the factory.
Sometimes metres are just straight up lemons.

Each to his own though. As you say.

Hello all again. Sorry for the delay and thanks for the tips. We were expecting this would be a challenge, so no worries there. We already lost almost all our plants via a couple stupid mistakes, so hey. It's a learning experience

So a few things:
Our sprayers are on 24/7, as are our lights.
Our ph is at 7.25.
Waiting on our ec meter still

We had heard that keeping our air temperature regulated was a good way to ensure our water temps stayed good. Is that not true? Do we really need to cool our water separately? Water coolers are sooooooooo expensive in Canada, and we've just got one plant right now, although we're expecting another 12 soonish...

How should we handle this?

7.25 is the ph with nutrients mixed in? Way high. As for the water temp some people will freeze water bottles and chunk them in the reservoir to cool it down. Also keeping the res out of the light and on the slab if you have a slab floor will help. My water containers on the floor stay a bit cooler.

redlazer said:

Hello all again. Sorry for the delay and thanks for the tips. We were expecting this would be a challenge, so no worries there. We already lost almost all our plants via a couple stupid mistakes, so hey. It's a learning experience

So a few things:
Our sprayers are on 24/7, as are our lights.
Our ph is at 7.25.
Waiting on our ec meter still

We had heard that keeping our air temperature regulated was a good way to ensure our water temps stayed good. Is that not true? Do we really need to cool our water separately? Water coolers are sooooooooo expensive in Canada, and we've just got one plant right now, although we're expecting another 12 soonish...

How should we handle this?

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Generally with water. Its gonna be room temperature.
If the room is 25'C, your water will be too.
Air heats up even faster.
You gotta sort those temps asap.
7.25 PH, is way high!!

The boys here know more about aeroponics than I.
I'll leave it to them

redlazer said:

Hello all again. Sorry for the delay and thanks for the tips. We were expecting this would be a challenge, so no worries there. We already lost almost all our plants via a couple stupid mistakes, so hey. It's a learning experience

So a few things:
Our sprayers are on 24/7, as are our lights.
Our ph is at 7.25.
Waiting on our ec meter still

We had heard that keeping our air temperature regulated was a good way to ensure our water temps stayed good. Is that not true? Do we really need to cool our water separately? Water coolers are sooooooooo expensive in Canada, and we've just got one plant right now, although we're expecting another 12 soonish...

How should we handle this?

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Canada poses a few problems, my biggest is no hydroguard . You could try running a sterile res, didn’t work out well for me . Chillers are redicules re pricing, I built mine . I think you’ll find that the root chamber is quite warm, is there a way to get a temp reading in there? If running 12 plants I would seriously consider buying a used aquarium chiller if you can find one. Or find a good beneficial to run, if you find one let me know. An older grower who ran sprayers here used pondzyme I believe. And yup ph is way high lol

Try cycling sprayer less but this may also cause temps in chamber to climb. Honestly I really did not like running sprayers .

Ph causing cal-mag lockout is the easiest thing to fix in my aero/nft systems... but I also have great tap water to begin with...6.0 ph with 110 ppm...fix your ph, and you will fix your lockout....somewhere in this forum is a chart which shows at what ph certain nutes are prone to lockout. Good luck!

Tim1987 said:

View attachment 4113950

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Pretty sure that’s a soil chart. Running s hydro setup at 7 would be a bad thing I think.

Budley Doright said:

Pretty sure that’s a soil chart. Running s hydro setup at 7 would be a bad thing I think.

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Npk, and micros are all the same.
That chart is how available nutrients are at any given ph.
Doesn't matter at all about media. Ever.
It's the ph that's different in hydro and soil.
Hydro you want it to sway between 5.5 and 6.5
Soil you keep your ph steady, and stable.
That chart is nutrients and ph. Period.

It's why so many damn hydro growers have calmag issues. They don't even realise. They just keep topping off at 5.8, and never let it rise above 6 to get the calmag.
It's the opposite with iron.
Above 6 all the time. You'll lock out of iron.
Swings are a very healthy thing in hydro.

I do let it swing but not much more than 6.2 from 5.7. So why do they have two different charts? Not arguing btw, hydro is really not my thing I’m finding out lol, just trying to figure this out. I never have calmag issues now though.

And from that chart it would look like 7 would be optimum so why wouldn’t you run at 7 in hydro? Again just asking .

Soil chart

Hydro chart

Lots of charts huh lol.

Thing is guys.
Once the nutrients are ions. They absorb, and are available all the time.
Doesn't say anywhere soil or hydro, on the one I posted.
Because it's not what using that chart is for.
It.works a charm. Hydro or soil.
I don't have a ppm meter. I just go by runoff ph.
This chart has saved me countless times.
It's the same I was given by my teacher studying horticulture, and it's the same I use today.
All npk and micros are on the chemical table.

Tim1987 said:

Thing is guys.
Once the nutrients are ions. They absorb, and are available all the time.
Doesn't say anywhere soil or hydro, on the one I posted.
Because it's not what using that chart is for.
It.works a charm. Hydro or soil.
I don't have a ppm meter. I just go by runoff ph.
This chart has saved me countless times.
It's the same I was given by my teacher studying horticulture, and it's the same I use today.
All npk and micros are on the chemical table.

Click to expand...

I’ve never used a meter in soil and that’s where I started growing 43 years ago, don’t even think they talked about it much back then lol. I just think the chart you showed could be a bit misleading to a newb, while not disputing its validity at all. If looking at the chart and I didn’t know that at 7 my plants (hydro) would be very unhappy, it would look like it was the optimum number if you didn’t realized they like a slightly acidic soil/water. But yes you did state earlier ops 7.25 was way high.