P.H readings and Dissolved Oxygen

[rkymtnman]

35-40 ml per 25 gallons

wow! that IS a shitload.

 

[rkymtnman]

I fell in love with the idea of rdwc for my first foray into hydro...BUT it takes SOOOOOOO much nutrients. Each bucket takes a few gallons...plus the res takes even more gallons. Even though you can keep the ppms down....the sheer volume of nutrient solution is insane.....plus you need crazy water movement OR air stones which as we know causes problems of their own.

not sure what your finances are but high pressure aero sounds like it would be rightup your alley. very low water usage. and unbelievable growth

 

[Hawzzy]

Im leaning towrds that style for sure. Im going to start gathering parts and diy it together over the next couple months.
Love building stuff.

 

[rkymtnman]

Im leaning towrds that style for sure. Im going to start gathering parts and diy it together over the next couple months.
Love building stuff.

yeah, me too. love the DIY stuff. have you done any research on how much a HP aero setup costs roughly? i'm guessing the pump is the high dollar item and the sprayers are relatively cheap.

 

[since1991]

35-40 ml per 25 gallons

Wow....thats a shit load of pH down bro. How hard is your start water?

 

[Budley Doright]

It's around .24 but does change seasonally and yes it took a bit to dial it in at first, with people saying I should only need to add drops to adjust lol. Once I got it dialed in it was pretty stable.

 

[Budley Doright]

yeah, me too. love the DIY stuff. have you done any research on how much a HP aero setup costs roughly? i'm guessing the pump is the high dollar item and the sprayers are relatively cheap.

The pumps are $100, look at RO booster pumps, then a small pressure tank with a bladder to stop short cycling. And a pressure switch to keep pressure above 80.

 

[since1991]

I got to look into high pressure pumps myself for my drip systems. I got 4 submersible 1000 gph regular hudro pumps and they just suck. Uneven at sites...just a pain. I got quarter inch flow valves on the ends of my feed lines to combat the uneven flow rates (the front ones closest to the pump and tank get all the goodness) and with the right hp pump i would be all set. Regular hobby pumps are only good for ebb and flow and low count drip manifolds. They suck.

 

[Budley Doright]

I got to look into high pressure pumps myself for my drip systems. I got 4 submersible 1000 gph regular hudro pumps and they just suck. Uneven at sites...just a pain. I got quarter inch flow valves on the ends of my feed lines to combat the uneven flow rates (the front ones closest to the pump and tank get all the goodness) and with the right hp pump i would be all set. Regular hobby pumps are only good for ebb and flow and low count drip manifolds. They suck.

I was running eco396 pumps for my systems and I had 16 heads on a 3/4 manifold and I was getting pretty even spray but just shut it all down and went back to flood and drain lol. I seem to get the best performance from these pumps and their not to pricey. I have all the shit for HP aero but just figure why lol. To much to fuck up and I already am plagued with fuck ups lol.

 

[Skunk Baxter]

how much is a shitload? i use about 3 to 4 mL pH down for a 15 gal res. how much you use?

35-40 ml per 25 gallons

Sheeeit, niggas - I'm using as much as 30 to high-30s ML for a 15 gallon reservoir, just to get it down to around 6.0. I fucking hate it in bloom because my rez is loaded with phosphorous before I even add the PK boost, and it seriously fucks with my nute slections. I have to dial back on calmag, run the rez temp higher than I am comfortable with, and there are certain blomboosters I can't use at all because they'll bond with the calcium and precipitate into calcium phosphate and fuck up the whole res, especially at 62 degrees. I had to change the damned rez out two days early again today; this is getting costly.

I run the Ph lower in early bloom and veg, but in the weeks where I really hammer the PK, I have to raise both the Ph and the water temp. I don't like doing either. I'll probably have to go RO for the next run, but I don't like to. Never had to do it before, but may have no choice now. With coco, I can't eliminate the calmag altogether, and it's just too many dissolved solids with all the Ph down.

 

[since1991]

Damn n shit. That sucks. Whats yer tap water all about?

 

[Budley Doright]

Sheeeit, niggas - I'm using as much as 30 to high-30s ML for a 15 gallon reservoir, just to get it down to around 6.0. I fucking hate it in bloom because my rez is loaded with phosphorous before I even add the PK boost, and it seriously fucks with my nute slections. I have to dial back on calmag, run the rez temp higher than I am comfortable with, and there are certain blomboosters I can't use at all because they'll bond with the calcium and precipitate into calcium phosphate and fuck up the whole res, especially at 62 degrees. I had to change the damned rez out two days early again today; this is getting costly.

I run the Ph lower in early bloom and veg, but in the weeks where I really hammer the PK, I have to raise both the Ph and the water temp. I don't like doing either. I'll probably have to go RO for the next run, but I don't like to. Never had to do it before, but may have no choice now. With coco, I can't eliminate the calmag altogether, and it's just too many dissolved solids with all the Ph down.

What happens to the Res that you have to change it out? I know once I get mine to 5.6-7 it stays there pretty much constant, and it will actually start to drop if its time to do a refill. The thing I think an RO does is let you start at a known and perhaps it's easier to maintain that??? I do know that when starting out I was chasing PH all the time.

 

[Skunk Baxter]

What happens to the Res that you have to change it out? I know once I get mine to 5.6-7 it stays there pretty much constant, and it will actually start to drop if its time to do a refill. The thing I think an RO does is let you start at a known and perhaps it's easier to maintain that??? I do know that when starting out I was chasing PH all the time.

I have a lot of calcium in my tap, and when I add calmag, I'm putting even more calcium in. Then when I add the phosphorous in the Ph Down plus the phosphorous in the bloom nutes, and chill the rez down to the low 60s, the calcium and phosphorous bind together as calcium phosphate - the water turns milky and slimy, the PPM drops by several hundred as the dissolved solids precipitate out into an insoluble form, and the mix is useless because some of the most important nutes are essentially taken out of the water.

I can get around that by either cutting back on the PK, skipping the calmag, or letting the reservoir get up in the low to mid-70s, but I don't like any of those options. I like the results I get by hammering the buds hard with PK in certain weeks, I don't want to deprive my plants of magnesium during bloom (especially since I'm growing in coco), and I don't want bathwater temperatures in the reservoir.

If I switch to RO, that may take enough of the calcium out that adding calmag won't take the mix past the tipping point. Using a different acid to lower the Ph may work too, but I haven't tried that yet. Or, using a standalone magnesium supplement that doesn't come bundled with calcium that I don't need. Tried going that route by using Epsom salts instead of calmag, and didn't care for that either. With summer coming up, though, I'm going to have to find some solution that doesn't keep me from running a cool rez. I want to be able to keep it in the lower half of the 60s without having to constantly dump a half tub of nutes every time the calcium and phosphorous make goggle eyes at each other and join together until death do them part.

 

[Skunk Baxter]

Damn n shit. That sucks. Whats yer tap water all about?

7.5 to sometimes 8 for a ph, and about 200 PPM - almost all of which appears to be calcium. RO won't do anything to help the ph, so I'll still need to use some form of ph down, but at least it gives me some extra what I call "PPM headroom" - I always try to keep any unnecessary dissolved solids out of the water if at all possible, so there's plenty of "headroom" available to add whatever nutes are actually needed.

 

[Budley Doright]

I have a lot of calcium in my tap, and when I add calmag, I'm putting even more calcium in. Then when I add the phosphorous in the Ph Down plus the phosphorous in the bloom nutes, and chill the rez down to the low 60s, the calcium and phosphorous bind together as calcium phosphate - the water turns milky and slimy, the PPM drops by several hundred as the dissolved solids precipitate out into an insoluble form, and the mix is useless because some of the most important nutes are essentially taken out of the water.

I can get around that by either cutting back on the PK, skipping the calmag, or letting the reservoir get up in the low to mid-70s, but I don't like any of those options. I like the results I get by hammering the buds hard with PK in certain weeks, I don't want to deprive my plants of magnesium during bloom (especially since I'm growing in coco), and I don't want bathwater temperatures in the reservoir.

If I switch to RO, that may take enough of the calcium out that adding calmag won't take the mix past the tipping point. Using a different acid to lower the Ph may work too, but I haven't tried that yet. Or, using a standalone magnesium supplement that doesn't come bundled with calcium that I don't need. Tried going that route by using Epsom salts instead of calmag, and didn't care for that either. With summer coming up, though, I'm going to have to find some solution that doesn't keep me from running a cool rez. I want to be able to keep it in the lower half of the 60s without having to constantly dump a half tub of nutes every time the calcium and phosphorous make goggle eyes at each other and join together until death do them part.

Thanks for the info!!! I have water that is very high in calcium as well I think. I used to get really pronounced blotching of the leaves and when flowering it would get real bad. I started to add Vitanimo (fucking pricey lol) and it seems to have cured that issue. I no longer get blotching and leaves stay green and healthy till the end. I have never tried PK but it seems to be a very popular additive in flower. I run a flood and drain type setup so a bit different from yours but I use both veg and flower nutes till the end.

 

[Budley Doright]

Also just a note but I did use sulphuric acid as down for a bit and it seemed to work well. Getting it was kind of tough lol. Told the battery store it was for my auto ph control on my saltwater tank lol.

 

[Abucks]

I got to look into high pressure pumps myself for my drip systems. I got 4 submersible 1000 gph regular hudro pumps and they just suck. Uneven at sites...just a pain. I got quarter inch flow valves on the ends of my feed lines to combat the uneven flow rates (the front ones closest to the pump and tank get all the goodness) and with the right hp pump i would be all set. Regular hobby pumps are only good for ebb and flow and low count drip manifolds. They suck.

Look at Mondi pumps. Great pumps, maybe a little to big for a smaller res.

 

[Budley Doright]

Look at Mondi pumps. Great pumps, maybe a little to big for a smaller res.

They won't produce the pressure required for HP Aero.

 

[since1991]

7.5 to sometimes 8 for a ph, and about 200 PPM - almost all of which appears to be calcium. RO won't do anything to help the ph, so I'll still need to use some form of ph down, but at least it gives me some extra what I call "PPM headroom" - I always try to keep any unnecessary dissolved solids out of the water if at all possible, so there's plenty of "headroom" available to add whatever nutes are actually needed.

Wow. Thats what i try to get my tap at with some strains. By start tap water is 110 ppm (500 scale) and 7.5 pH. For some of my stuff that likes calcium and or magnesium i try to bump this up to about 175 - 200 ppm in the tanks before i add base nutrient. Then i add a couple few caps of gh ph down to get it in the 5.6 - 5.7 range. By about 5 to 7 days when the tanks are almost empty the pH has risen to about 6.1 - 6.2. All my plants like it like this.

 

[since1991]

Thanks for the info!!! I have water that is very high in calcium as well I think. I used to get really pronounced blotching of the leaves and when flowering it would get real bad. I started to add Vitanimo (fucking pricey lol) and it seems to have cured that issue. I no longer get blotching and leaves stay green and healthy till the end. I have never tried PK but it seems to be a very popular additive in flower. I run a flood and drain type setup so a bit different from yours but I use both veg and flower nutes till the end.

L Aminos like glycine and humic fulvic acids (vitamino) will make hard to move around calcium much more available.