Runaway Ph Level Rdwc

  • Thread starter LuckyBasser
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LuckyBasser

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Hey guys, been avoiding making this post all day scouring the internet for the answers. Well I can't seem to decide what's right with the info I have read, so I'm hoping for some good advice.
I have an RO system, water is coming out at 33 PPM, ph of 6.9ish.
I have one seedling in rockwool that should be ready to transplant into the system in a day or so. This being my first time growing, I chose to add the water and an 1/8 strength of the week one nutrients and then set my ph to 5.8 and run the system to monitor ph and make sure no leaks showed up. Also I have a 5 gallon bucket with hydroton soaking in ro water, and I've adjusted the ph multiple times, but the ph keeps rising to 6.9ish, it goes up fast too, like less than an hour. So my res is doing the same thing, I'm stumped here. Entire system is 19.5 gallons, I've already used a whole bunch of (gh)ph down, and im using the fox farm dirty dozen box since I'm a newbie and they have a lot of instruction on their nutrients. I'm ready to just dump the water and try again, but I'm hoping to not have to. So my question is how can I get this water to a stable ph, it's just swinging upward in a wildly fast fashion. I've been reading for days straight, most everyone on this forum is very knowledgeable, looking forward to contributing in the future! Thanks.
PS, couple pics of what I have going in.
 
Runaway ph level rdwc
Runaway ph level rdwc 2
Runaway ph level rdwc 3
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LuckyBasser

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Correction, my RO water is coming out at 8.6ph right out of the filter.
 
4plant

4plant

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stabilizing ph in a res with ro water and a low ppm is hard. Tiny seedlings like that don’t need constant supply anyways so you can just mix what you need every day or two. Tbh as long as your tap water isn’t 500ppm try using it and see if you can keep a ph in range. It’s normal to adjust a res twice a day in my experience.as soon as your plants get bigger you’ll be able to dial in your system.
 
L

LuckyBasser

3
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stabilizing ph in a res with ro water and a low ppm is hard. Tiny seedlings like that don’t need constant supply anyways so you can just mix what you need every day or two. Tbh as long as your tap water isn’t 500ppm try using it and see if you can keep a ph in range. It’s normal to adjust a res twice a day in my experience.as soon as your plants get bigger you’ll be able to dial in your system.
I figured it out. As soon as I removed the hydroton my ph was very easy to keep down. I got it stable at 5.8ph with 156ppm. Since my plants aren't even ready to be transplanted (another day or so) I started conditioning the hydroton in a bucket with ro water and just kept adjusting ph like 4 times a day since I made this post. Got it stable at about 5.5, put it in the system and I'll check ph tomorrow to make sure it's still in my range. Thanks a lot for the reply, this forum is a godsend.
 

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