LB's Wildly Mediocre DWC/ScROG Grow

Logan Burke said:

Ok, so yes the PH drop is still an issue for one of the baby's. Res temps are at a solid 62F in their morning time and no higher than 69F by lights out, and no particularly weird smells or slimey looks on the roots. So I'm just not sure whether or not it's bad bacteria with my res temps being just right. But I do know that the PH didn't begin to drop until I had syphoned out about 1 gal of it's nute solution, and added back some pure RO water as to lower the PPM's as the res was too full to just add more. When I did this, I did not add any beneficial microbes back to account for nearly 1/3rd of the entire res's water (and hence beneficials) removed. Maybe it allowed bad bacteria to grow, as I'm sure some dead leaf or dead roots have made it into the res which happens all the time and usually is no problem my bennies break it down. In any event, tomorrow I am doing a (another) res change on it. The PPM's aren't going up but maybe by 20-30 or I would attribute it to simple overfeeding.

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Stltoed said:

Sounds like you're doing good forensics on the matter. I have never heard of Great White as a root inoculant, you said you've used it for a while?

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Stltoed said:

I have used Great White to grow my roots, get the fuzziness going, first pic. And here is that chart

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Hydro4life said:

Am I reading it wrong? Or is that a soil ph chart there stltoed!? Lol.

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Stltoed said:

Sounds like you're doing good forensics on the matter. I have never heard of Great White as a root inoculant, you said you've used it for a while?

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Logan Burke said:

Hydroponics require a slightly lower PH than soil, pretty much the same as coco requires. Which is why you'll see charts labelled 'Coco' or soil or what have you.

Haha I try to approach things like a detective here! And yes I tried out Hydroguard and the stuff is great, but the GW just has a larger array of microbes, like Rhizo's, and it has a much longer shelf life which I like for when I take small 2 or 3 month breaks from growing.
So, I'm doubting it's a root rot issue...I just checked a second plant, and it's PH has also dropped. Not as badly, only from 5.8 to 5.5 in 24hrs, but I feel that it's worth noting. The ppm's went up about 30-50, not quite sure what to make of it. I'm going to adjust PH to 6.4 or 6.5 and observe it. In the past, I've had the PH drop and ppm's rise when I let the ppm's go down too low...but I doubt that the internal EC of my roots is 1200+. So, experiment time! I'm going to lower one's ppms by about 100 and just very slightly raise the other's back up to 1400 where it seemed content and observe here in about 4-6hrs. Do you guys think this is a good idea, or should I just lower both of them?

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Stltoed said:

But the Ph in a shot glass, a mud puddle or a DWC will react to a given element, and given Ph exactly the same. All that chart is showing is how, and where, these elements are bioavailable according to Ph.
How long ago did you have it at 1400?

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Logan Burke said:

Just a couple days ago, right before I did the res change. I'd lowered them all to about 1400-1450 before the res changes, and once I did the res change I did the nutes up to about 1300. For the first 24hrs everything was perfectly stable for each of the buckets, no drift of PH and just a 20-30ppm rise (evaporation maybe? 40% RH here). So I left everything be since it seemed to be in equilibrium. And then on day 2 after the res change, the PH drop began. Outside of rising maybe 30-50ppms, the ppm is staying static it's just the PH dropping. Can't ever have anything too easy huh haha, on the up side though, the two plant's in the back look like they're ramping up their bud sizes! Even with one of'em having PH issues, it's buds are still swelling.

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Logan Burke said:

Hydroponics require a slightly lower PH than soil, pretty much the same as coco requires. Which is why you'll see charts labelled 'Coco' or soil or what have you.

Haha I try to approach things like a detective here! And yes I tried out Hydroguard and the stuff is great, but the GW just has a larger array of microbes, like Rhizo's, and it has a much longer shelf life which I like for when I take small 2 or 3 month breaks from growing.
So, I'm doubting it's a root rot issue...I just checked a second plant, and it's PH has also dropped. Not as badly, only from 5.8 to 5.5 in 24hrs, but I feel that it's worth noting. The ppm's went up about 30-50, not quite sure what to make of it. I'm going to adjust PH to 6.4 or 6.5 and observe it. In the past, I've had the PH drop and ppm's rise when I let the ppm's go down too low...but I doubt that the internal EC of my roots is 1200+. So, experiment time! I'm going to lower one's ppms by about 100 and just very slightly raise the other's back up to 1400 where it seemed content and observe here in about 4-6hrs. Do you guys think this is a good idea, or should I just lower both of them?

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Hydro4life said:

Off memory Logan, the ph changes depending on how much nutes they uptake when they drink!? Maybe I was getting worried for you haha, when I had a bad dose of root rot, my ph would drop rather drastically and my ppm would stay the same after topping back up with fresh water (not uptaking nutes and barely drinking)
When you say your “ppm went up” I figure your talking about testing ppm before topping up bucket?
If that’s the case, as long as it’s not too much stronger in ppm then that’s pretty normal I think. For example if I let my bucket get down to 1 inch of water then that water would be rather high in ppm.
Not a bad thing to check ppm before and after top up. I personally keep a close eye on what the ppm is after topping back up with fresh water to see the difference to when you had it at 1300ppm then the plant drank half the water/nute solution and if it was say 8 or 900ppm then I know it drank 400ppm, if that makes sense?
Experimenting is good Logan. That’s the best way to learn what does and doesn’t work imo. I very rarely run over 1200ppm if not dosing co2. But each strain is different too. I personally think your better off dropping the ppms down a bit and see how they look in a 2 or 3 days?

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Logan Burke said:

Just a couple days ago, right before I did the res change. I'd lowered them all to about 1400-1450 before the res changes, and once I did the res change I did the nutes up to about 1300. For the first 24hrs everything was perfectly stable for each of the buckets, no drift of PH and just a 20-30ppm rise (evaporation maybe? 40% RH here). So I left everything be since it seemed to be in equilibrium. And then on day 2 after the res change, the PH drop began. Outside of rising maybe 30-50ppms, the ppm is staying static it's just the PH dropping. Can't ever have anything too easy huh haha, on the up side though, the two plant's in the back look like they're ramping up their bud sizes! Even with one of'em having PH issues, it's buds are still swelling.

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Axion42 said:

I use this chart as a reference sometimes, not sure how accurate it is but it might give you an idea what's going on.
View attachment 4373262

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Axion42 said:

I use this chart as a reference sometimes, not sure how accurate it is but it might give you an idea what's going on.
View attachment 4373262

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Hydro4life said:

There’s a bit of a clue right there Logan. Not that 40% humidity is low, low but being a bit more dry the plants will drink more. Usually you have to adjust your feed strength to how much they drink. For example if you have higher temps and lower humidity then you want to drop your ppm slightly as the plant will drink more and naturally uptake more nutes. This can lead to an excess of nutrient uptake.
What sort of lights on temps are you running Logan?

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Logan Burke said:

Oh man I hadn't seen that chart since years ago and had totally forgot about it, thanks for posting it Axion!



And that makes perfect sense Hydro, with my ac unit it's nearly always between 35-45%, except for lights out. I'm about to go measure the two buckets I did higher/lower ppms in, and I'll probably just go ahead and lower the other one down to 1200-1300ppm. My temps run, when all 3 lights are on, anywhere between 76-80F. Here lately, it's been hitting 80F significantly more, just from outside temps being high here lately.

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