desertsquirrel said:

BTW i swing between 5.4-6.3 in veg and 5.1-6.1 in flower.

If you vote swing please post the swing numbers and your media.

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StonerB said:

I see your point and yes its hard but clearly not impossible. If you know where it landed after adding the nutes its because you are familier with your nutes. If you keep in the back of your mind the concept of alkalinity and how much you start with and how much you add with the nutes it isnt hard to know how much up and or down to add to acheive an acceptable level of PH. You must sacrafice a few bucks and some time to figure these things out, it will help save money and more importantly time later on. A good way to see alkalinity in action is to start with RO water and add a DROP of PH down to it and see what it does. Then raise your ppms by 100 with your nute mix including additives then see how much PH it takes to acheive the same affect as the drop did. It is generally more because as you add nutes you add alkalinity. Keep track of how much more. Then go to 200 ppm and repeat, then 300 and so on. When you reach a high enough ppm you will will see as you stated eventually the nutes themselves will ballance it out. I would suggest to test this all the way untill you are slightly above your desired PPM or EC charting the increase of acid needed to get your desired change each time. If you then repeat this whole process with a PH up at the end of all that pain in the ass testing and charting you will have a great understanding of how nutes affect alkalinity and therefore PH. Once this is masterd as long as you dont change brands of nutes or adjusters you should be able to mix on instinct. If anything new becomes part of your regimine then yes you must figure it all out again however after all the test mixes you should be able to test the PPM or EC right out of the bottle and get a good idea of what it will do to your mix. In essence its all about understanding alkalinty, not PH.

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Quantum9 said:

Are you a phenomenologist as well? lewis is better for the broader community, but it almost seemed like you were leaning more towards merlot-ponty or even hiedegger.

DS

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Papa said:

Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger.







:)

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Quantum9 said:

God damn papa is the man!

We gotta connect one of these days soon brother.

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desertsquirrel said:

I have often heard of this mythical "perfect" or even "stable" pH. However this approach has failed me both practically as well as theoretically.

Practically i documented running a static pH at the start of the thread "UC actual available nutrient profiles" and it was a nightmare. Link:


Deficiencies right and left as well as constant attention to and lowering of the pH to hold it stable. In general i see a correlation between pH rise and ec reduction to a tune of .5-.6 pH rise/.25-.3 reduction in EC over each 24 hour period.

Which brings me to theory. Initially i rely upon the pH rise to do 2 things. First the rise tells me that the plants are both removing acids (nutes) as well expelling hydroxyls, both of which raise pH. Also, working with the natural swing, allows the solution to cycle through the entire spectrum of essential elements optimal uptake point; as illustrated in the chart below:

So, my question is, if it exists, what does "perfect pH" mean to you?

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