How to find that sweet spot for my ph in my dwc

Hi I started a deck grow last week I have 2 clone that I transplanted from soil and some seedlings going
The first clone is in flowering and the ph goes up everyday to about 7.5 I then bring it back down . I'm using dyna grow with tap water anybody know any good tips to keep it stable

i suggest at least, 5 gallons per plant when considering rez size. a larger rez, will help keep ph more stable.

Silky Shagsalot said:

i suggest at least, 5 gallons per plant when considering rez size. a larger rez, will help keep ph more stable.

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I'm using 5 gallon buckets with air stone and hydroton

I just checked mine this morning and all of mine are getting ready to flower PH was 6.8 the needle almost did not move thought it might be broke but checked my seedlings and their are 6.4.

First off, you should start filling your external res with plain tap and bubbling it for no less than 24 hours. This evaporates the chlorine from your city water supply (plants will grow fine with a little chlorine, but it does affect quality in the end)


After the plain water has bubbled for a day, mix your nutes and run a pump to circulate the water while bubbling for another 24-48 hours in an external reservoir.

You can check your ph as soon as you mix, lower to appropriate level, then check again in 24 hours. Change ph back to adequate if it climbed out of range again and you should be good to go. Basically just let the nutrients get past the majority of its fluxuation before even dropping it on your girls.

My nutrients climb in ph for 3 days .6 every day. I just let it rise for 48 hours in my external res, then drop it down to .6 below optimum and feed. So when it balances out the third day it stays right at optimum level for the whole week and only had about 6 hours of fluxuation. (A little fluxuation is good imo because it lets the plant access different nutrients easier for that first quarter day.

I find optimum ec level by using a recirculating dwc system. If your EC is rising everyday, the plant is taking up more water than nutrients. Drop your ec .1 a day until you see it even out and stay stable.

When you have it dialed in, your leaves should be perking up toward your light the day after a nute change. Once you figure out what levels will keep things balanced, you can add a fresh water top off with a float valve, and leave tje ec .1-.3 higher than it was withouth the top off. This allows excess nutrients to be available for heavy feeding times if the plant wants it, but the top off will keep the EC from rising past optimum range.

If you recirculate, you need a larger res, even with lower wattage range like 250's each plant in a dwc gets a minimum of 5 gallons to start with. Even a smaller grow like that is challenging to maintain stable PH/PPM in late flower. Since you are growing outside, I'll say your container size would be even bigger.

My only concern is how high your PH gets, 7.5 is literally tap water. What strength mix are your nutes.. ?. And whats your water quality like?.

Troubleshooting suggestions
1) Try a larger container, Its harder for the plant to change the water chemistry if there is more solution..
2) Check tap water quality, IF it sucks try using RO water, its a bit acidic, and helps keep PH down if thats your goal.
3) Higher concentration of nutrients, You did not provide any PPM data, Nutrient PH buffers work better in higher concentrations.
4) PH down, vs using nutrients to keep it down. Mix to proper strength, add PH down.

More or less generalized info because I have no experience with Dynagrow.

Hope this helps.

sorry for the miss understandings its a dwc bubble bucket indoor i have 2 rooms 1 veg 1 flower i had a strain that i got from my friend who is a expert grower whos got atleast 15 harvest under his belt the strain he gave me is supposed to be ecsd ive been working with it in soil for about 3 months and cloned the shit out of it now ive started a dwc i took 1 clone that had nute burns and threw it in a bucket with hydroton i took a fresh clone right out of the cloner and i took a clone that was vegging for about 1.5 weeks and a seedling and put them in dwc buckets now the 1.5 half week clone is ok with ph bcuz of nutes the rest of em are outta wack i had another question can i use my veg nutes for my plant in flowering so ph will stay stable to i get bloom nutrients ?

GrowerGoneWild said:

If you recirculate, you need a larger res, even with lower wattage range like 250's each plant in a dwc gets a minimum of 5 gallons to start with. Even a smaller grow like that is challenging to maintain stable PH/PPM in late flower. Since you are growing outside, I'll say your container size would be even bigger.

My only concern is how high your PH gets, 7.5 is literally tap water. What strength mix are your nutes.. ?. And whats your water quality like?.

Troubleshooting suggestions
1) Try a larger container, Its harder for the plant to change the water chemistry if there is more solution..
2) Check tap water quality, IF it sucks try using RO water, its a bit acidic, and helps keep PH down if thats your goal.
3) Higher concentration of nutrients, You did not provide any PPM data, Nutrient PH buffers work better in higher concentrations.
4) PH down, vs using nutrients to keep it down. Mix to proper strength, add PH down.

More or less generalized info because I have no experience with Dynagrow.

Hope this helps.

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^^^^^^^

a lot of cities are using chloramine, instead of chlorine. from what i understand, you can't remove it...

Silky Shagsalot said:

a lot of cities are using chloramine, instead of chlorine. from what i understand, you can't remove it...

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Not to threadjack but.....

I used to be concerned about chloramines, chlorine.. etc.. and I used sodium thiosulfate. From reading the interwebs, chloramine is a combo of chlorine and ammonia. Anyways, you can neutralize the chlorine with thiosulfate and have some ammonia left over.. not really too bad considering plants use the nitrogen.

I deal with a dead hydro res, so I dont worry about chloramines, I think it helps keep the bad stuff out. Its added cost to some of the large tanks I run, so I just dont bother.

I only worry chloramines, H2o2 etc in organic soil.. I filter my water, I had my water tested post filter and it was clean.

Macmac124 said:

sorry for the miss understandings its a dwc bubble bucket indoor i have 2 rooms 1 veg 1 flower i had a strain that i got from my friend who is a expert grower whos got atleast 15 harvest under his belt the strain he gave me is supposed to be ecsd ive been working with it in soil for about 3 months and cloned the shit out of it now ive started a dwc i took 1 clone that had nute burns and threw it in a bucket with hydroton i took a fresh clone right out of the cloner and i took a clone that was vegging for about 1.5 weeks and a seedling and put them in dwc buckets now the 1.5 half week clone is ok with ph bcuz of nutes the rest of em are outta wack i had another question can i use my veg nutes for my plant in flowering so ph will stay stable to i get bloom nutrients ?

Click to expand...

Why dont you just ask your friend. .. ? Hes the master gardener.

Yes you could use veg nutes in bloom for the first week.., I noticed my plants get a bit N starved during the stretch. And it saves me a few bucks on nutrients, bloom nutrients is where I spend my nutrient budget. I dont suggest using past that. Seems to delay flowering a bit..

probably slime / algae in the water. dunno what you are putting in there, but try great white... aquashield... pond-zyme or something with dechlorinated tap water.

GrowerGoneWild is correct that a lot of people's tap water has chloramine and it does not gas off. You can break it down with API tap water conditioner from the pet store, but if you aren't going to use bennies then probably don't need to fuck with it.