Getting PH stable ?

opio

Member
Hi there,

im running a nft table, with a reservoir. currently there are only 10 litres in there....
my tab water comes with 0.2 ec and a ph of around 7,7.
i add Sensi Grow A&B, B52, Sensizym, piranha and tarantula, 1ml/l effective microorganism and Phosphor acid to get the solution to EC 1,0 and 5,6 PH.
i got also a air stone 24/7 150l/h to get oxy in there.
so this is the 5 day and the PH is still so instable , i just cant understand it.

My plants are 3weeks in veg

Can it be the Phosphor acid that makes it rise all the time ?, i know nitric acid would be more suitable for Veg. , but i aint got one..
Or can it be the airstone, but i thought oxygen make the PH more stable..

hm , someone out there got an idea ?

Thx, and regards !

opio
 

Serapis

Well-Known Member
It almost sounds as though a bacteria is present in your reservoir or you used the tap water right out of the sink without allowing it to sit out.
 

Fenderman

Member
It is well known fact that the smaller the litre capacity of your Res will result in the difficulty in getting your PH stable.So with you only having 10 litres of solution the PH will always fluctuate.
 

opio

Member
It is well known fact that the smaller the litre capacity of your Res will result in the difficulty in getting your PH stable.So with you only having 10 litres of solution the PH will always fluctuate.
yeah thats what i thought too. but dont want to make more solution right now, cause the plants are still little , and dont drink that much;
i dont like the have the solution in there more than 10 days..
i just turned off the airstone, and now the ph looks much more stable now, perhaps its the combination of those facts...

but can it be that too much oxygen makes the PH rise faster ?
i have always been convinced of the opposite ...
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
If you think "what organic processes are happening to change my PH" You essentially have 1. nutrient uptake and salt formation from the roots and 2. microbial processes. Well, temperature effects PH as well but lets just assume you are keeping that constant.

If you added microbials and o2 concentrations in the water effected the stability of the PH, you have your answer right there. (hint, microbial activity is dependent on oxygen).

So take the microbes out of the equation (h2o2 fllush on next change) and see if that helps stability. I would suggest a larger rez as well as when the plants get large and start uptaking lots of water and nutrients (gallon/day per plant) your readings are going to be all over the place.
 

opio

Member
[LEFT said:
legallyflying[/LEFT];4715835]If you think "what organic processes are happening to change my PH" You essentially have 1. nutrient uptake and salt formation from the roots and 2. microbial processes. Well, temperature effects PH as well but lets just assume you are keeping that constant.

If you added
microbials and o2 concentrations in the water effected the stability of the PH, you have your answer right there. (hint, microbial activity is dependent on oxygen).

So take the microbes out of the equation (h2o2
fllush
on next change) and see if that helps stability. I would suggest a larger
res
as well as when the plants get large and start
uptaking
lots of water and nutrients (gallon/day per plant) your readings are going to be all over the place.
ok, i will leave away the effective microorganisms, only use them to flush the whole system, i think i overdosed my solution with microorganisms, in fact sensizym has got 80 enzymes different microorganisms in it, EM got 40 in it, piranha got 24 beneficial fungi and taratula 57 microorganisms,

maybe this is some kind of micro overkill...

i got two small tables (60x120cm), each feed from a 14gallon res. on one table there are 10 xPowerKush on the other 5 xMobyDick#2
in one week the plants are big enough so i can take a clone of each and after 4 days of reg they get 12/12.
i hope they wont get too big ;) , but the res should be enough..

so tomorrow i flush it with peroxide , and then i only add sensiGrow and piranha , just to see whats happening to the PH...

so, thx a lot so far

opio
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
could be too many biotics, that would explain the fluctuations but I would try a week or two with NO biotics. Your not growing in soil and your providing all the nutrient the plants need in a usable format so you don't NEED biotics. The main role (but NOT the only role) of biotics is to process raw nutirents into an uptakeable form.

They are always nice to have around, but they do seem to be causing you issues. Those issues will get even larger if you start feeding sugar solutions during flowering as sugar is pretty much crack for micros.

Just something to think about.
 

Fman

Well-Known Member
Get a bigger reservoir. Keep things as simple as u can. h2o2 helps with "crud" in the nutes. Make sure ur nutes are NOT organic.
 

opio

Member
Hey there!

hope someone can help me again ;)

last days i tried to run the solution without any micros, and ph was much more stable.
Only SensiGrowA&B, ph- and H2O2.

But i realized some Root rot that must have developed some days before..
the solution temp is between 68- 72F, the room is about 80,6F..
i used to water the NFT table every 3 houres, which is not too often , cause were not too many roots out, now they are ... the table is pretty steep so no stagnant moisture..

can it be that the anti alga foil and the spead mat beneath gets too hot, cause the foil is black and the plants are still too small to give enough shadow to the foil ?

i now put some slices of white foil over black foil between the pots , just to reflect the light , hopefully it helps ..

iam very disappointed cause i used piranha and sensizym just to prevent the root rot, but seems as it doesnt work for me here :wall:

PH of 5,6 too less ?


cheers opio
 

Attachments

danm i jus tested my water and found my ph lvl to be around the high 8.8 or higher and my amonia is very toxic as well i think i used to many of the hydro rocks i was jus realising there was alot of brown mixture in my water...i changed my water complety after finding out these results and im not using rockwell cubes i jus put them in with the hydro rocks is that a problem??? i also used regular tap water and jus put them in...
 
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