Concerns About Runoff Ppm/ph

  • Thread starter Gherb
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Gherb

43
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Let me start by saying that I have spent about a day looking for specific info on my situation. There is a lot out there about runoff but I'm still confused so I figured I just ask.

The background:
I am running multiple strains (from seed) in 7 gallon smart pots in Roots Organics Formula 707. My plants are on their 6 week of veg and have been doing great up until now. I am using a Kind LED L600. I didn't feed until the 3rd week and I water every 5 days. I haven't had any overwatering problems because I let them dry out real good in between.

At week 3, I gave them tap water that had sat for 48 hours. I do not have an RO system yet. My tap water has a 115 ppm and a pH of 7.5. I added 1 tsp of GH CaliMagic and a 1/2 tsp of GH FloraNova. All plants responded great.
5 days later (2nd feeding) I gave them the same thing but I upped the FloraNova to 3/4 of tsp. They responded great.
5 days later (3rd feeding) I gave them some compost tea from my local hydro store. They responded great.
5 days later (4th feeding - week 5) I gave them RO from the hydro store with 1 tsp of CalMag and 2 tsp of FloraNova. Some droplets got on the leafs. This time I got burnt spots on several leafs. The spots are in near the center of the leaf and look like acid burns. I thought that maybe the droplets magnified the light and caused burns.

I just did a flush using de-chlorinated tap water and 1 tsp CalMag with a 1/2 tsp of Subculture M and a 1/2 tsp of Subculture B. Both of those are root inoculants. ppm was 400 and pH was 6.5.

I decided to test my runoff on all plants. With 20% runoff, the pH was 5.5 and the ppm was between 1800 and 2000. I'm a little freaked out by the high runoff.

I mixed up a gallon of nutes to see what the ppm of my last feed was and it was around 1900.

So my questions are:
1. If my water going in has a pH of 6.5 but the runoff is 5.5, is that normal? Should I adjust up closer to 7.0 so my runoff is closer to 6.0? Everything I have read says that the incoming and outgoing should be close to the same pH. Any suggestions?

2. Is my runoff ppm so high because I haven't been flushing in between? I know my last feeding was quite a bit too high. Not all plants have the burns.
Should I flush them more until they get down to 500 ppm? Or should I wait 5 days and flush again to see if the runoff is lower?

I feel like if I flush next time and the runoff is reasonable, then I can switch to my bloom nutes and flush more regularly. It's time for my to go into flower mode with these ladies.

I can post pictures if anyone wants to see the burn spots.

Thanks in advance for any sage advice.

Gherb
 
G

Gherb

43
18
Here is a leaf with the burn spots. Like I said, it's not all plants and only some of the leafs. Some old big leafs and some new leafs.
14800510727961080192482
 
G

Gherb

43
18
Here is an quick update: I waited until the next watering date and used de-chlorinated tap water and mild nutes (400 ppm). I flushed all plants real good and checked the runoff. It was still high (around 1800 ppm). Since then there had been an explosion of new growth and no new burn spots. I believe they are pretty happy for now.

I will keep an eye on them closely until next watering day then I will use around 300 ppm of bloom nutes and flush them real good again.

Once my runoff gets down below 900 ppm I will up the bloom nutes and then water then flush, water then flush.

I think this will balance out my ppm over time.

Any thoughts anyone?

I will post better pics later.
20161201 175955
 
hermit186

hermit186

335
63
In my opinion you need to get some enzymes into your roots.
When you have a super high run off even after flushing the dead and roots that expire are left in the ball the enzymes will convert to usable nutrients for the plant but you have to much perlite in your mix. If you flush again use an enzyme to the Water that your using. It will help you get downward movement in your out reading It will also help get your ph consistence.
Read Sea's posts on why not to use cal/mag
 
G

Gherb

43
18
In my opinion you need to get some enzymes into your roots.
When you have a super high run off even after flushing the dead and roots that expire are left in the ball the enzymes will convert to usable nutrients for the plant but you have to much perlite in your mix. If you flush again use an enzyme to the Water that your using. It will help you get downward movement in your out reading It will also help get your ph consistence.
Read Sea's posts on why not to use cal/mag


I will try the enzyme next flush and I will leave out the CalMag until I get some signs to use it.
 
G

Gherb

43
18
If your runoff is that close to what you fed you should be alright.

Unfortunately it is way off. I'm adding 500 ppm and getting close to 2000 ppm runoff.

The good news is, my plants are all looking super healthy and are putting out a ton of growth.
 
Savage Henry

Savage Henry

960
143
Unfortunately it is way off. I'm adding 500 ppm and getting close to 2000 ppm runoff.

The good news is, my plants are all looking super healthy and are putting out a ton of growth.

Glad to hear your girls are doing better! I was referring to your initial post, but no worries. Coco loves a good flush.
 
EarthyTerps

EarthyTerps

2
1
Let me start by saying that I have spent about a day looking for specific info on my situation. There is a lot out there about runoff but I'm still confused so I figured I just ask.

The background:
I am running multiple strains (from seed) in 7 gallon smart pots in Roots Organics Formula 707. My plants are on their 6 week of veg and have been doing great up until now. I am using a Kind LED L600. I didn't feed until the 3rd week and I water every 5 days. I haven't had any overwatering problems because I let them dry out real good in between.

At week 3, I gave them tap water that had sat for 48 hours. I do not have an RO system yet. My tap water has a 115 ppm and a pH of 7.5. I added 1 tsp of GH CaliMagic and a 1/2 tsp of GH FloraNova. All plants responded great.
5 days later (2nd feeding) I gave them the same thing but I upped the FloraNova to 3/4 of tsp. They responded great.
5 days later (3rd feeding) I gave them some compost tea from my local hydro store. They responded great.
5 days later (4th feeding - week 5) I gave them RO from the hydro store with 1 tsp of CalMag and 2 tsp of FloraNova. Some droplets got on the leafs. This time I got burnt spots on several leafs. The spots are in near the center of the leaf and look like acid burns. I thought that maybe the droplets magnified the light and caused burns.

I just did a flush using de-chlorinated tap water and 1 tsp CalMag with a 1/2 tsp of Subculture M and a 1/2 tsp of Subculture B. Both of those are root inoculants. ppm was 400 and pH was 6.5.

I decided to test my runoff on all plants. With 20% runoff, the pH was 5.5 and the ppm was between 1800 and 2000. I'm a little freaked out by the high runoff.

I mixed up a gallon of nutes to see what the ppm of my last feed was and it was around 1900.

So my questions are:
1. If my water going in has a pH of 6.5 but the runoff is 5.5, is that normal? Should I adjust up closer to 7.0 so my runoff is closer to 6.0? Everything I have read says that the incoming and outgoing should be close to the same pH. Any suggestions?

2. Is my runoff ppm so high because I haven't been flushing in between? I know my last feeding was quite a bit too high. Not all plants have the burns.
Should I flush them more until they get down to 500 ppm? Or should I wait 5 days and flush again to see if the runoff is lower?

I feel like if I flush next time and the runoff is reasonable, then I can switch to my bloom nutes and flush more regularly. It's time for my to go into flower mode with these ladies.

I can post pictures if anyone wants to see the burn spots.

Thanks in advance for any sage advice.

Gherb
I know this is an old post but I beleive that your fine , lol , because your with in 100ppm of what is going in , tho the 5.5 seems low ,the high ppm going in would make it that way ,the ph will climb slowly overtime as the plants takes them all in or drains out bottom during flush , that's how you know when to feed is when the ph climbs and EC is lower than your usual input , anyways cheers haha
 
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