Always the same issue

[DapperDon]

I am going to be inclined to agree that your water is the culprit. RO is not the fastest thing in the world, but it will give you more room to adjust your PH. I have the Guardian as well and think it is a solid performer. Do you PH adjust your water while it is in the holding tank? I do pretty much the same thing as you only I keep my RO water tank PH adjusted, aerated, chilled to 65 degrees with a waterfall and floom while pumping through a UV sterilizer. I know that may seem like a little overkill but if you think how much soil growers obsess over their soil mixtures and purity of the medium, I consider it no less of an obligation to treat the water I use for hydro just the same. I am a huge advocate of eliminating any problems before they even have a chance to begin and setting my garden up for success no matter what. Is water treatment a sexy topic on cannabis forums? No. But I studied that shit for a long before I decided to go hydro after reading every single problem growers were having for years was related to their water be it temps, TDS, organisms, disease, etc. I consider it one of the easiest and most dismissed topics about hydro.

 

[odirt]

I am going to be inclined to agree that your water is the culprit. RO is not the fastest thing in the world, but it will give you more room to adjust your PH. I have the Guardian as well and think it is a solid performer. Do you PH adjust your water while it is in the holding tank? I do pretty much the same thing as you only I keep my RO water tank PH adjusted, aerated, chilled to 65 degrees with a waterfall and floom while pumping through a UV sterilizer. I know that may seem like a little overkill but if you think how much soil growers obsess over their soil mixtures and purity of the medium, I consider it no less of an obligation to treat the water I use for hydro just the same. I am a huge advocate of eliminating any problems before they even have a chance to begin and setting my garden up for success no matter what. Is water treatment a sexy topic on cannabis forums? No. But I studied that shit for a long before I decided to go hydro after reading every single problem growers were having for years was related to their water be it temps, TDS, organisms, disease, etc. I consider it one of the easiest and most dismissed topics about hydro.

I'm no exspert but in my exsperiences the salts your adding are the culprit. I've used numerous nutrients in the uc. Every time I tried using powdered kool bloom my ph drop like crazy. Idk if it isn't breaking down properly or not. Liquid kool bloom no problem. Think it's the salts not being broken down correctly

 

[odirt]

I'm no exspert but in my exsperiences the salts your adding are the culprit. I've used numerous nutrients in the uc. Every time I tried using powdered kool bloom my ph drop like crazy. Idk if it isn't breaking down properly or not. Liquid kool bloom no problem. Think it's the salts not being broken down correctly

I've used ionic , house garden , current culture nutes. for the money and simple 1 part ionic for the win. Why use grow a grow b etc when I'm getting same results with a 1 part. All marketing bs. I get through a whole run with ionic adding kool bloom liquid instead there boost and it saves me hundreds over cc nutes. Just my opinion .. Only negative with ionic is try keep ph down! These girls eat eat eat

 

[Dizzy Weasel]

Okay after pouring through all of this again, here is the unasked questions to those that are having PH issues. What are you all using for measuring devices, where are they located in relation to your grow, and when was the last time they were calibrated correctly?

check in epi..... new blue lab with new probe bought a 2nd meter cause was convinced it was meter a month ago after I went from 6.0 to 4.2 in 8hrs, all sterilized RO water..... my other systems with different variety stay stable only this one picky girl I cant please got lab results on water before and after and added back what it seemed they were using up and that made no difference at all..... wondering if cherry cookies just don't like RDWC... think ill just stick with my OG and GSC that give daddy loving back

 

[Dizzy Weasel]

week 5 flower cherry cookies
Ive noticed the N but have no leaf yellowing and added N and Ca/Mg with no correction of fast big PH drop
TEST RESULTS in PPM from UC sys after one week
Soluble Salts ms/cm EC 0.81
pH 6.21
ALK ppm CaC03 47.06
Calcium ppm Ca 10.76*
Magnesium ppm Mg 7.01*
Sodium ppm Na 19.97
Chloride ppm Cl 40.42
Boron ppm B 0.09
Iron ppm Fe 2.76*
Manganese ppm Mn 0
Sulfur ppm S 58.14
Copper ppm Cu 0.61*
Zinc ppm Zn 0.19
Molybdenum ppm Mo 0.17
Aluminum ppm Al 0.19
Nitrate ppm NO3-N 0
Ammonium ppm NH4-N 0.94
N ppm Urea 0.01
Total Nitrogen ppm TN 0.95
Phosphorus ppm P 46.38*
Potassium ppm K 196.11*

TEST RESULTS Feed tank with CS nutes with CalMg
Soluble Salts ms/cm EC 0.99
pH 5.87
ALK ppm CaC03 15.19
Calcium ppm Ca 67.59
Magnesium ppm Mg 23.19
Sodium ppm Na 6.64
Chloride ppm Cl 33.74
Boron ppm B 0.23
Iron ppm Fe 1.63
Manganese ppm Mn 0.33
Sulfur ppm S 27.69
Copper ppm Cu 0.08
Zinc ppm Zn 0.18
Molybdenum ppm Mo 0
Aluminum ppm Al 0.19
Nitrate ppm NO3-N 76.87
Ammonium ppm NH4-N 2.8
N ppm Urea 0.1
Total Nitrogen ppm TN 79.77
Phosphorus ppm P 42.89
Potassium ppm K 132.69

 

[Wavegem]

I can tell you right now it's your nutrient mix. I have had swings up and swings down because nutrient ratios are off. Either way ph swings your plants are either hungry or its to much if your ph drops they aren't drinking and If your ph rises they are drinking more but are hungry, it will get worse if not corrected. The BEST is when ph and tds don't move your water level drops. That is a perfect mix

 

[Dizzy Weasel]

I can tell you right now it's your nutrient mix. I have had swings up and swings down because nutrient ratios are off. Either way ph swings your plants are either hungry or its to much if your ph drops they aren't drinking and If your ph rises they are drinking more but are hungry, it will get worse if not corrected. The BEST is when ph and tds don't move your water level drops. That is a perfect mix

I definatly agree... I just don't see the
problem with the mix.. do you have any input? exept manganese being completely pulled out? p and definatly k are high on test results but since I got test I have not added any pk boost to my base, unfortunately I did not send samples of systems that roll smooth to compare too as I just did a changeout, sending in more samples and pretty much done with this one but would like to figure this out and try this one again to see if I can treat her right!

 

[FooDoo]

I can tell you right now it's your nutrient mix. I have had swings up and swings down because nutrient ratios are off. Either way ph swings your plants are either hungry or its to much if your ph drops they aren't drinking and If your ph rises they are drinking more but are hungry, it will get worse if not corrected. The BEST is when ph and tds don't move your water level drops. That is a perfect mix

I would have phrased this slightly differently, but non the less, its gold.

 

[Wavegem]

I would have phrased this slightly differently, but non the less, its gold.[/QUOTE

lol it sounded good in my head

I definatly agree... I just don't see the
problem with the mix.. do you have any input? exept manganese being completely pulled out? p and definatly k are high on test results but since I got test I have not added any pk boost to my base, unfortunately I did not send samples of systems that roll smooth to compare too as I just did a changeout, sending in more samples and pretty much done with this one but would like to figure this out and try this one again to see if I can treat her right!

The best advice i can give you is to not mix and match nutrients, brands ect... Find a very complete line and follow their charts to a T.. The only thing I would do is Dilute it and find the sweet spot. Plants in water are so sensitive, to everything!! Temp, Humidity, Light, Co2 all affect how they eat drastically. If any factor is off they will not perform maximum and you will have to compensate.
It is impossible to dial multiple strains tied to one res
I have found that cal mag is sometimes not needed.
Your mix is to strong my guess.

 

[Dizzy Weasel]

Than

lol it sounded good in my head



The best advice i can give you is to not mix and match nutrients, brands ect... Find a very complete line and follow their charts to a T.. The only thing I would do is Dilute it and find the sweet spot. Plants in water are so sensitive, to everything!! Temp, Humidity, Light, Co2 all affect how they eat drastically. If any factor is off they will not perform maximum and you will have to compensate.
It is impossible to dial multiple strains tied to one res
I have found that cal mag is sometimes not needed.
Your mix is to strong my guess.

thanks a lot for the input! I've made a lot of circles here and are lost..... I understand the swing and what causes it and that it is likely a nute issue as I have no root zone issue.. I do not mix and match, I do not feed several strains on one rez, I've been tweeking everything with no solution that has stopped this issue I've tryed lower ec and it makes the swing down worse, as they seem to eat swing up and then somthing with solution goes out of balance and then it swings down, lower ec they go this cycle in a day or two rather than 3-4days with slightly higher ec.... I've got three sys all same strain and been playing with ec across them with 250ppm to 420 and same thing no matter what.... Across all three tried cutting out cal/mg cutting pk boost... only easy resolution is change out half sys everyother day and let tank Top back off this has stopped it but is a pain, sending in test results for water in systems of good girls which are always fine and I can compare to see if there is somthing off there.... if not cherry cookies is not for dwc as I have 4 other variety all perfectly happy 24/7 and a few others ran without the ph slice

 

[GhostfacePuffah]

I go through the same thing, but not until week five of flower. When I see it happen, I use a shop vac to take twelve gallons of solution out of my custom uc6 system, top off the reservoir with plain unadjusted water, and let things correct themselves. If one time doesn't work, I repeat the process.

Next harvest, I'm thinking about just using unadjusted tap water in my reservoir for weeks 5, 6, 7 of flower when the problem occurs. My theory is that the plants are so damn burly and thirsty at that point, they're drinking water a hell of a lot quicker than they're uptaking nutes.

 

[slimjimham]

Do plants drink at any ph with no ill effect from root shock? Like when you flush your plants does it matter of the water is ph adjusted (mine comes out at 7.2) Because you aren't concerned with the uptake of salts, just that the plant drinks?

I ask this because I'm wondering if the plants are going through much shock when the ph swings down, or if the ph is corrected up and nutrients aren't locked out for long periods of time if it's no biggie? As long as you stay on top of it....

I'm using cs and thinking about trying another line, I'm doing well but can't seem to dial it in, plants look great up to like week 6 of flower then show deficiencies.

I'm gonna run it a bit longer and see if i can dial it in, the uc roots works great but is pricey.... I'm considering trying the pool shock method.... just not sure if it's really the same, and to the guy using ionic, do you run with the low ppm's that cc recommends?

 

[JoeyBoomBots]

A little 10% potassium hydroxide solution can do wonders to keep the pH from free falling.

 

[slimjimham]

I use gh ph up, i keep hearing about people prefering advanced ph up, is this because its all potassium hydroxide, and no carbonate like in the gh formulation?

 

[Wavegem]

you guys overfeeding, causes the plants to lock up and not drink. If pH is swinging down, the plants are NOT drinking putting more pH up does not solve the problem. Go easy on the boosters

 

[JoeyBoomBots]

That may be the cause. No argument there :). Although it is worth mentioning that when one truly does need some pH up, potassium hydroxide solution is superior to potassium carbonate because it dissolves immediately whereas anything that is a carbonate will not dissolve so fast. So the first order of troubleshooting would definitely be to "Go easy on the boosters" but if that doesn't help, even after waiting some time for the plants to recover from any abuse they might have gone through, then you just need a little potassium hydroxide solution.
I went through this problem many years ago and if it weren't for the 10% potassium hydroxide, I would have needed a water change every 2 days no matter what ec I was running.

 

[slimjimham]

Ill look into it, and while I'm open to suggestions it doesn't seem like overfeeding if I'm at 450ppm when it happens... but maybe! Ill have to look into it

 

[DR.GT]

u guys are crazy.. that whole one simple answer is not the end all be all solution.. there are soooo many variables to each grow that can alter the ph and other system operations. let me say this.. i have been on this site for years and learned a lot but no one can tell u what is best for your room and plants. I use to have that ph crash problem and it was a pain in the ass. Boosters can cause it but its usually related to base to booster ratios.. people running lower ppms in the undercurrent might have a bunch of other factors different to yours like for example higher D.O levels in water or hot top off barrel etc.. personally i have been crushing the UC for years and thats with different trials of nutes but I love CS nutes.Its clean and well formulated..I run it to the charts and add 120-150ppm calmag to start so technically im always higher then the charts.Since i have been running higher nutes and 3mls of UC roots i havent ever looked back.. The people who run lower nute levels might have a strain that doesnt need as much or they might use highly oxygenated water for better uptake.. Best advice i can give is trial and error.. Try going higher with nutes and see if that stabilizes your ph better.. good luck and feel free to ask any questions. Side note u can go back a few pages on the uc forum and find a ton of valuable info a year or 2 agoe there was a lot of great grows posted by some great gardeners on here..

 

[FooDoo]

Problem: adding booster sends pH outta whack

Solution: stop using booster

I really don't understand some people. Its like a heroin addict who's lost their arm due to use, and now they're looking to shoot up between the toes instead.

I tried using tap water to save time and money instead of RO. 3 grows in the same system with no issues before trying tap. Once i filled the system with tap, within 3 days I had sludge, foam and root rot. I didn't try to band aid the problem with h2o2 , or bennies, or UV lights, or chlorine, or doing native american prayer dances around my uc system to try and get the gods to remove my sludge.

No. I dumped the system. Refilled with RO. Problem solved. Never looked back.

 

[FooDoo]

Side note u can go back a few pages on the uc forum and find a ton of valuable info a year or 2 agoe there was a lot of great grows posted by some great gardeners on here..

Orly. Is that why all those guys ditched the UC and switched to coco?