Need second opinion before I raise the ppms

Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
havent ran Rockwool and Hydroton in a couple of years but was gifted these plants already in Hydroton pots from a homie that had to travel for work and wasn’t gonna be back to finish them.so I took over but have been doing promix for years as well as soil.

They are in rooted in Rockwool, places in 5-6 inch net cups with Hydroton on a table with a plastic cover. The table is empty no medium.

I got a 40 gal Rez but it only has around 35 gal in it, as the return line hole is at the top. I usually run my starting ppms at 200 and work my way up depending on how much they eat. They’ve been solidly eating about 10ppms a day and I’ve been topping it off with water or/and 1/8th-1/4tsp foliage a day to keep the ppms in the 200-225 range until I see a major drop. I use ro water with a average of 005-007 ppms, and run Protekt and foliage pro for nutes. I’ve added 1/2tsp super thrive all together and about 3 scoops of great white. I set ph around 5.7 and it drifts up to about 6.0-6.1 next day/ day an a half. And set it back to 5.75-5.85. Gonna be taking them off the table and blasting the table with water and draining it because I’ve noticed dirt particles in the bottom as well as on my table from the extra Hydroton he gave me. Originally there was 23, now there’s 19. Flooding 24 times a day as they start drying out if not because I pulled the cubes as far up into the pot as can and filled Hydroton thru the holes to stop the light from getting to the roots and rock wool. The 4 plants I lost were due to root rot which prompted me to do this to the rest of the plants I got from him.

This is about 4days into veg after transplant from his setup. Most of the plants are doing good, ppms and run off is dropping slowly but consistently but some have symptoms of like when you take clones and they start canibalizing the lower leafs because of lack of nitrogen. Was thinking about raising the ppm to 450ish or around .9-1.0 ec? I wanted some second opinions tho as I have no clue how this strain likes to uptake her shit, and don’t wanna risk Nute burning them. Again been outta the hydro game for a couple years so I’m just running the same ppms as I do in promix but I feel it might be too low. Thank you!
 
Last edited:
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
ph is too low,your ppms are in line with what I would use.Maybe try 6 for ph.
Feeding 24 times a day?
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
myke said:
ph is too low,your ppms are in line with what I would use.Maybe try 6 for ph.
Feeding 24 times a day?
Click to expand...

I adjusted to 225 this morning an the ph was around 6.0-6.1 so I adjusted it down to 5.75 because they like rising to 6.2 after a day or two. The ph rising is why I’m planning to shoot down/ clean the table today by removing each row and peeling the plastic back(thank god I used close pins and not silicone glue like I planned) dyna gro is usually really stable so I’m thinking my boy didn’t clean his Hydroton as well as I would. So solid 6.0 is what I’m aiming for?

Yup it floods once an hour for 15 mins, floodline is to 3/4 of the net pot. with the 5 inch I got one rectangle out of 4 above water.
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
Ya the hydroton will raise the ph,your not having big ph swings so i would leave it.Ive had swings up to 7 in one day.Once u up the food it will calm down.
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Just tested water and it was at 5.75, with ppms at 223. added 3/8 tsp of Protekt, a drop or 2 of ph down and I’m at 6.03-6.05 @228ppm
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Yikes yeah 7 is crazy at this point the most it went up was to 6.4 but when I finally got it stable at 5.85 it kept rising to 6.0-6.1. Although Might be the great white tryna help the plants I’m just here holding um back idk

When do you start raising your ppms? Like should I just do +50 every Rez change (of course depending on how much they drink from this point) like I’m running promix or is there a more exact formula/method in terms of tds runoff for Hydroton to get them up there? Planing for maybe 2 more weeks veg max
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
covered in plastic like that makes me think there always really wet.I had 1g pots top feed no plastic,good 8" between ea pot.So no exp with the plastic,ppm is on low side do you have roots out the pots yet?
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Actually had to top water the top left one yesterday by the air intake because it was drying out, my tents a bit hot in the low 90s and(but get it to 85-87 with the ac on) hovering between 35-45 rh, which is making me stoked because last grow was cut short because we couldn’t get the humidity lower than 50(with a dehumidifier) without running the temp into the high 90s.

Just checked for roots; none visible out of the pots yet. Also shows the 6inch flood line as I just took it out while it was flooding, top of rw was airy and moist
 
Last edited:
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
hmm check the humidty chart cant remember what its called vpd?? @90F you should be at 70%rh
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
Growerandashower said:
Is this for hydro or soil? I thought availability was based on medium, if I’m not mistaken?
I’ve been running the ph at 6.0-6.1 and adjusting it down if it raises but your chart say 6.4 is optimal? I’m just a lil confused
Click to expand...
looks like its for dirt.I grow in rdwc and have had better results with a little higher ph.Use to always drop it below 6, now i dont bother.6~6.3 is were i leave it.
 
Last edited:
D

DeepWaterDean

Active Member
Growerandashower said:
Is this for hydro or soil? I thought availability was based on medium, if I’m not mistaken?
I’ve been running the ph at 6.0-6.1 and adjusting it down if it raises but your chart say 6.4 is optimal? I’m just a lil confused
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell this isn’t about medium. Its from BlueLab and I think it’s specifying hydro or dirt.
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
and get some type of beneficial bacteria in your water since your room temp is so high.
 
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
Yeah took the advice an pumped my humidity up to 70-74 with a swamp cooler ( towel, fan , and air stones on timers for mid day, and I’ve been able to stabilize @70-74 and 90-93f which is right around the vpd I was missing and the lil girls seem to be loving it too. I’m running great white @ 3 scoops to my 35 gal Rez, pure aloe Vera juice(made by taking raw leafs gutting then running um thru da magic bullet, then strain)for carbs cuz fuck molasses in Hydroton. Last time i had a heard of fire ants comin thru. And other problems with bugs. Not to mention ph sways and other shit. So yup won’t add that to my hydro grows.

I also am running o2 grow instead of air stones, which keep my water temp at 66-72 ish with a DO around 9-13, so the microbes have plenty of oxygen, also planning to switch my timer time around when I flip to 12/12 cause at nighttime I can run @ 1000w and maintain 87-88 and to keep humidity up to 65+ Is a breeze vs in the day when it’s 80-90 outside and fucking difficult to run 1000w without dat swamp cooler bringing the humidity up to 72+@93. Was running my air intakefrom the ac room but switched to pulling outside air into the tent because the ac was only dropping the humidity and not the temp so I was getting maybe 90 @40-45 rh!. I’ve always ran my grow really dry just because we gotta lot of humidity by me but damn if vpd doesn’t shine some light on why all my parameters have been solid but the plants still weren’t growing as fast as they shouldhave
 
Last edited:
Growerandashower

Growerandashower

Member
I got em1 that I use for soil plants but haven’t ever added it to hydro grows, anyone got any experience with that? Idk for sure but I thought that em1 uses some sort of molasses or brown sugar to preserve the microbes?
I always hate the thought of adding molasses to a hydro grow but also I’m jaded from getting tore up by fire ants while trying to trellis and prune last hydro run tho.

I run it in my Aquaponics systems but also don’t fucks with Hydroton there either. I have gravel beds, dwc beds for lettuce which grow in plugs not net pots, and flood tables with soil and gravel mix so no Hydroton there either.

I was thinking about maken some aact but like a “clean” version for hydro, using aloe juice as the primary carbs, rice wash for secondary carbs, i have pineapple and strawberry guava FFJ(fermented fruit juice real good shit to make if you grow in soil/outdoors and have access to fruit that’s overripe on your trees, it’s a Korean natural farming technique), then adding in some great white, em1, an mammoth P. So pretty much all liquids lol my soil aact got all kinds of weird shit from the health food store like millet and buckwheat and other complex carbs as well as random ass frass and dried herbs, I add a lil bit of spearmint and peppermint too so it doubles as a root drench for bugs, and the base of that is koi/tilapia pond water instead of RO to get as close to a natural microbe profile as possible
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top