PH levels keep falling flowering stage (Areoponics)

I am using the aeroflo 60 with the extention. I have bout 78 plants growing.

I noticed since last week the the ph levels would fall over night. I try to keep the ph at 5.8 but when I check it the next fay sometimes the ph is as low as 4.8.

I am not sure what is really going on. I know I read some other sites and they were saying this could be bacteria in the water or possible root rot. I have been keeping a small amount of chlorox in the water. I usually give about 2tbs. of chlorox - upon res change and add a tsp a day or every other day. I do a res change every week.

So I am not sure what it is.

I am not sure if its the nutrients??

I am using GH ( Mico and Bloom). Also have some cha ching in there. With some Diamond nectar and Floralicious grow, aqua shield.

I did a res change today after 4 straight days of dropping. Before I added nutes I filled up the res and added h202 and then let that run most of the day by itself. Then I dumped it and re-fill adding the nutes I noticed today after I placed all the nutes in there the ph was low to begin with like 5.10 so I had to up some ph up which seemed odd normally I start out being perfect.

Please any thoughts??

hydrated lime might be your best bet alot of nuit comaneys put in there pruducts to balance the ph

Check you roots! What color are they? Any of em Black?

I knew a guy once that had the same problem, it turned out 1 of his plants had root root really bad. He removed it eniterly and then flushed and used hygrozyme, within a (he said) a week, ph issues were solved.

Good luck man

also be sure to keep your res water cold. That should also help 65 degrees is what he suggests.

Howdy,

In a recirc system PH drops are just telling you the plant is feeding. This is a good thing. I run an aeroflo 36. I have to add PH up twice a day in late flowering. The plants are consuming potassium. And drinking a great deal. I use GH dry PH up - which is made up of - potassium. I've had the PH drop from 5.7 one evening to 4.5 the next morning. I used to freak out, now I smile. I just maintain the PH and the water, and change the res every 5 or 6 days. Plants do very well.

PH changes just tell you the plant is feeding. It's when it stops changing you need to dump the res and refill with fresh nutes.

The plants consume mostly nitrogen during veg, which is why you may see the PH climb. For that I use Technaflora PH down - it is derived from nitric acid - so I'm adding some nitrogen to make up what the plant consumed. In flower it drops - so I add PH up to make up the potassium. The plants are, of course, consuming other nutrients as well, which is why frequent res changes wil produce the best results.

I never check PH right after a res change. It always shows way low. Just let it sit a few hours, then check it. You'll probably find it's come up a fair bit on it's own, and needs little or no adjustment.

I've mucked around with an aeroflo for about 16 months. I've ditched the hydroton, replacing it with neoprene inserts and netpots. Plants love it; it's more of an aero system now. I also keep the drain tubes all the way down all the time. I put 3 week old rooted clones in there, planted every other site. Veg mix for the first 3 weeks, then bloom mix.

I do run a chiller, and keep nute temps at 72. I ran it cooler, no difference. Never had any root disease issues ever.

Hope this helps some.

Thanks for the heads up.

Hard to check the roots as you cannot easily pull up the plant especially at this stage in the system as the roots are huge and intertwine with the other plants in the system.

I do have a chiller but then again we are in a summer season at times in the heat of the day its gotten up to 75. Not a lot but a few times. I am trying to be as careful as possible.

Mr. Bucket I am hoping you are right I makes sense and sounds good to me. Thanks for all your input so far I like the system a lot cleaner than dirt but it is taking time to really master this system. I seem to be in a constant mode of learning something new. It doesnt help that since my last grow I am in a differnet season so there has been some growing pains with the heat and some spider mite issues.

I checked the ph 2x today seems to be stable 5.9. I have been worried about this crop been through a lot with it saved it a few times.

Thanks for all your advice.

Check out some of my threads, been doing aeroponics for 4-5 years with mixed result but I think i just figured out a solution for my problem which was root rot. First and most important is the reservoir tempature issue. No more than 68degrees f, bacteria starts building above that. I have noticed the more bacteria the more the Ph drops. And why is there bacteria? Your nutrients most likely contain some kind of hormones which turn into bacteria really quick. I recently got a secret recipe from a grower for the late Jack herer, he wanted to get the point across that adding hormones is A bad idea in a hydroponics/Aero system. he gave me a recipe with AN connoisseurs a&b, purple Max, gravity, big bud powder and liquid karma and grow big for veg. This is about a 1/3 of the products i usually use so I am curious if I can finally yield more than 3 lbs per 1000watt light. I also moved my nutrient reservoir to my air conditioned bathroom so water will stay cool now. Good luck, i have pictures up on my threads of my aerponics setup, I also cut the basket and just used neoprene inserts a couple years back but now im going to use a little hydroton in the small 2 inch baskets as it does help buffer the Ph a little bit. Also the diamond nectar and mad farmers nutz are also designed to help buffer the ph so adding more will stabilize the Ph, but this is not the problem its your reservoir temps.

UrbanAero thanks man. Here is the latest and I was going to start another thread but maybe you can help me. I noticed some of the plants turning yellow and seem to be on death row. I had 2 of these like this - I thought they could maybe come around. Time passed and I couldnt really tell.

The I got 2 more - so I pulled one this morning just to see what was going on with the roots. Roots seem fine however at the bottom of the stem where the roots were the more bulky type I smelled it and it smelt funky like stale h20. I pulled it apart and in the crevaces there were some sort of fungus or something attacking the plant. I will take some pics and post.

I pulled all 5 plants.

I plan on later today emplying the res again. Spaying the plants root system with h202. Letting the roots dry up some and maybe not filling the res up so much. I think its a possible combination of too much water - moisture that is not drying with possible humidity. There are times like I said when the water temp got over 70 sometimes 75. I am trying to do my best to keep the temp down. It has been 66-69.

My fear is that other plants are going to go this route.

What can I do to save my crop?

per my last post, here are the pics of the plants I pulled today from the system. I cut the roots off to show what it was doing more near the stem.

Also here are some of the pics that the plant itself looked like, yellow and dead leaves.

I analyzed more plants. There is definalty rot at the base of the stem on a few others. The rot looks like white mold, some black. You can tell because the stem itself begins to die at the bottom - turning a brown collor that begins to extened upwards. I sprayed water mixed with h202 on some of the plants stem base and roots that exhibited early signs. I hope this stops the problem on these plants.

One thing that I read up on which I may have done wrong is the neophrene collars, I am using the same ones which have been cleaned from the last grow. I should have used some new ones.

I am thinking that light got through (beacuse these were used last time). With heat, wet, the stem began to rot. The roots are good, no issues with the roots themselves.

Anyone have a different conclusion??

dont have a different conclusion but maybe something to help prevent it. try adding 1ml per gal of h2o2 everyday i use the strong madfarmer stuff 29% i believe

Been flushing the res more frequently and using chlorox in the h2o. Also put H202 in a squirt bottle along with h20 and been spraying the roots directly with this almost daily. On some of the infected areas you and see it sizzle on the roots that have been affected. I call this root therapy. At the stage I am at its really all I can do I may have 2 weeks left.

Hey lion.. I am running the aeroflo60 and i had a similar problem.. I had root rot in all of my roots during veg and couldnt figure out the problem.. It turns out that it was all about the temp in the tubes.. I too use GH nutes.. check my grow out. Is your pump on a timer or does it run 24 hours.. Keep in mind that the water is what chills those lines.. If your nute temp is at 72 and your pump isnt on all the time, the tubes could have a temp of 80 which will cause rot in a hurry. Not sure about the other nutes you have in there but I am in week 5 of flower and I am using 3 part GH flora series, floralicious plus and Koolbloom liquid. I change the res every 8-11 days and i change the water bottles used to cool twice a day because I cant afford a chiller yet. My res temp stays under 70 and my pump is on for 15 min and off for 5. This way my lines stay cool too and that fixed everything. Now Im in flower and everything is going great and all my plants grew new healthy white roots.. Sorry if this is all jumbled.. I just medicated and I wanted to help!! Let me know if you have any other q's buddy!! sub'd

And I havn't had any pH troubles yet.. I check it twice a day.. My ladies are drinking like crazy so I have to add more RO and thats what makes it go up or down but I only have to add pH up or down once every 4 or 5 days!

I am curious what happens if you take the same water you use for reservours and make a large bucket up and let that sit. Checking it. What does the ph do? I have had some ph probs and I had to really look at water and nutes to find a combo that worked. Fine tune everything. Start from the beginning. I just lost a two month old herijauna because or a clogged airstone and have boiled the water before by putting the airpump in the grow room! The little things can creep in somehow. In fact my co2 just malfunctioned as it was closed whenever the timer went off! For a week. I digress. but it is the little things creeping in there for me always.