scott1M
Member
ive been kind of going with the AN calculator and it says ph 6.3 in soil, so ive stuck with that really, but ive noticed the colour of the run off is like dark piss but still with in limits (ec 1.8/2.0 being the highest)
checking run off when groing in soil
- Thread starter scott1M
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scott1M
Member
im gonna flush them tomorow, the colour of the water coming out the bottom is far to dark (ec1.1) ph6.2. just read about the nutrient takeup in relation to the ph value, and it seems i am low.. ill get my ph around 6.7/6.8, the ec will probs go to 0.3 which is my water value as ive not over done it wiv the ferts and seems to drop quite easliy when i put water through them, my last run off was ec 1.8, but i did mix up at ec 1.4..
Kingrow1
Well-Known Member
You are messing about with the pH and ferts too much. Wetfrog said to repot so thats where im at too.
The effects of your runoff being very dark brown is from too much built up ferts most likely. Putting yourself in a position where you need to flush is not good either. Im still with Wetfrog because bigger pots would allow your plants to assimilate and uptake more nutrients, in small pots your suffocating your roots and they cant absorb enough nutes for normal growth or what we would call rootbound.
A small peice about pH- PH is the measure of hydrogen and Hydroxide. In an aqueous solution, or water to you and me, Hydrogen exists in the form H3O as it combines with the H2O. This new compound is called Hydronium and H3O is its simplest form. From this H+H20=H30 we also get a OH or hydroxide. Hydronium is not really toxic to plants in normal concentrations but the effects it has at lowering pH (as dose Hydroxide in raising pH) mean many other particular nutrients and metal ions become available to the plant in such large damaging concentrations as well as locking out other nutrients.
I dont pH water or ferts prefering instead to add extra lime to my soil, lime will counteract the effects of acid compounds buffering your soil to near pH7, it is not instantanious but by the time i need it it has started to become available in large enough quantities.
I would not worry about the pH of your water and ferts because the true pH of ferts has a lot to do with the conversion of ammoniacal nitrogen to nitrate nitrogen plus the uptake of ammoniacal nitrogen by the plant which both produces pH affecting hydrogen. Peace
The effects of your runoff being very dark brown is from too much built up ferts most likely. Putting yourself in a position where you need to flush is not good either. Im still with Wetfrog because bigger pots would allow your plants to assimilate and uptake more nutrients, in small pots your suffocating your roots and they cant absorb enough nutes for normal growth or what we would call rootbound.
A small peice about pH- PH is the measure of hydrogen and Hydroxide. In an aqueous solution, or water to you and me, Hydrogen exists in the form H3O as it combines with the H2O. This new compound is called Hydronium and H3O is its simplest form. From this H+H20=H30 we also get a OH or hydroxide. Hydronium is not really toxic to plants in normal concentrations but the effects it has at lowering pH (as dose Hydroxide in raising pH) mean many other particular nutrients and metal ions become available to the plant in such large damaging concentrations as well as locking out other nutrients.
I dont pH water or ferts prefering instead to add extra lime to my soil, lime will counteract the effects of acid compounds buffering your soil to near pH7, it is not instantanious but by the time i need it it has started to become available in large enough quantities.
I would not worry about the pH of your water and ferts because the true pH of ferts has a lot to do with the conversion of ammoniacal nitrogen to nitrate nitrogen plus the uptake of ammoniacal nitrogen by the plant which both produces pH affecting hydrogen. Peace
scott1M
Member
ive just flushed pots out with a ph of 6.8, the ec wasnt that bad at 1.6 but still quite dark.. the ec is now 0.5/0.6 and the ph rose up quite easaily from 6.3 to 6.8. i cant repot them now, im to far in now, ill ave to put it down to gaining experiance. ill feed them tomorow to replace nutes back into soil with a ec of 1.4/1.5.. the roots at the bottom of the pots that i can see out the holes seem to be a bit brown? is that a sign of being rootbound
Kingrow1
Well-Known Member
So you are seeing the effects of running plain water through your soil, notice pH goes up and ec goes down. Now if you add ferts whats gona happen?? Thats right pH goes down and ec goes up.
I would have just added the ferts back in after the flush, soil being wet for too long is gona cause overwatering. Id probably shoot for 1.0/1.1 ec and go from there, this will add ferts back to the soil but not in too large a dose, still looking problematic then you can build the levels next watering.
Not really, more likely to be overwatering and high fert levels from what your describing.
You need to allow the plant to eat some of the ferts/salts and bring the ec down by itself, i.e. soil ppm is 1000, in a week that drops to 700ppm so i add in more ferts to bring back up to 1000ppm. If i didnt add ferts in another week that 700ppm might futher drop to 300ppm and low and behold deficiency.
Understand this bro, adding ferts to soil will bring pH down over time, as long as it dosent drop past say 5.5 then were all cool. Should you flush of course pH is gona jump from 6.3 to 6.8 (more like 5.8 if you started the flush with 6.8 water) but then whats the plant gona eat when the ferts are flushed out. Learn to add ferts little by little over the space of the grow to keep a good pH and good ec!!!
If soil pH is 6 and ec is about 1.4 and my plant looks healthy for veg then this would be a good place to be. A higher volume of lime added to the soil mix would have given better pH as it buffered the acidity.
I hope if not straight away that you take somthing from all this, pH and ferts are a balancing act, you can see where your at in the runoff but dont forget that runoff will also go up and down as the plant eats and you add more food. Seriously good luck, took me a long time to get the hang of this and other things but you get where you wana go in the end. Peace
Hey guys, about a week ago I checked my EC run off and it was at 2EC, which was weird because I fed them 3 days before that with 1.3EC nutes and that was the first time I fed them. This got me confused so I started to do a little research and found a post on here somewhere that says if your running a soiless medium you don't have to worry about EC run off until you flush your plants. EC run off is for hydro guys. The biggest thing is to ensure your ph run off is around 6.
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/177309-runoff-ph-ppm-help-please.html
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/177309-runoff-ph-ppm-help-please.html
Kingrow1
Well-Known Member
Yep bro this is easy to work out!lol! You added 1.3ec to soil/grow medium and 2ec came out, please ask where the extra 0.7ec came from???
No crap guess, it came from the soil, your fert mix dissolved extra salts from the soil and voila the readings you got.
Who said pH runoff at 6??? It will go up and down depending on what you add or take away from the soil. Personally with lime in my soil my runoff is always 6.5, i got bored checking it ages ago. Dont over complicate things people. Peace
Kingrow1
Well-Known Member
Theres some truth in what that guy says peat moss etc etc but to be honest hes overcomplicating things for you when it comes to pH, my soil is sphagnum moss, black and blond peast moss, degraded wood bark and chippings plus some other forestry products so i think what hes trying to hit on is the difference between the cation exchange capacity betweem sphagnum moss and peat moss (or somthing like that)!
I just kept it easy for you, go away and learn the higher advanced stuff later when you get the level of ferts right(which will correlate to a good pH too). The guy makes no mention of the difference between Ammoniacal Nitrogen and Nitrate Nitrogen so basically i like my way better and also a lot simpler.
Truth be told i dont bother checking pH or pH'ing ferts for reason such as the different Nitrogens, we have no way to truly control and work out pH without a lot of maths equations and they dont go down well with stoned people.
Keep it simple guys, forget pH worries just use it as a way to directly monitor the level of ferts in your soil, add more lime to the next soil mix if you need better pH, simples. Always remember that screwing with pH means screwing with nutrients, i really hope in time you get to where i am, freaking water at pH8.1 and add ferts at pH6 and you never see me worry about pH.
Hydo growers seem to have created a lot of myths about pH with soil growers. Peace
scott1M
Member
oh trust me ive learned alot from this and uve all helped alot.. cheers kingrow1
Kingrow1
Well-Known Member
Always a pleasure, wether im right or wrong at least we can dispell some of the myths we get here on pH and like me it will probably take a little while to get your head round these new ideas and work them into your grow. A lot of people think a flush moves the pH back up but it is really the action of removing fertilizers from the soil. Peace
scott1M
Member
ill try get some better pics.. these ones are abit rushed, but ill get some in daylight tomorow.. cheers
scott1M
Member
cheers guys for all the replys, its helped out alot and ive learned alot from this.. the plants are 4x big buddas blue cheese, 1x badseed (which is smelling fruity as hell) & 2x white widow clones which was only vegged for just over a week but has some nice size buds on it.. ive cloned the blue cheese and will work with it to see which will yield better for me, might try scrog soon.. got some greenhouse super lemon haze which will b going soon.. cant wait for them but im a bit wrapped up in the cheese at the min..lol..
just one question..
when adding AN overdrive and bud candy or bigbud and bud candy i never seem to get all the base nutes in my mix?? is is wise to just give base nutes now and again or put addatives in all the time?? many thanks
mickybhoygreen
Member
can any one help,,,,,i'm a first time grower n am tryin tae grow blue cheese........everything was goin well untill this morning when my babies looked like this(picture)
got told to put my hps light on them 250w 32,000 lumens.....had it about 12" away......they were coming along brill with just a desk light on them.....ph level in water is fine
not adding any nutes as there only 1 and a half weeks old......can any one help .....plz...lights 18/6...is that too much for the young ones
got told to put my hps light on them 250w 32,000 lumens.....had it about 12" away......they were coming along brill with just a desk light on them.....ph level in water is fine
not adding any nutes as there only 1 and a half weeks old......can any one help .....plz...lights 18/6...is that too much for the young ones