Holy Scripture of DWC

bball652 said:

I am fairly meticulous, but it is Oregon and some of the plants have gotten green coats on clay pellets.

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I get the green stuff too in Az , once the plant fills out a little more the hydroton is not exposed to the light and the green stuff goes away. I run a single bucket system and pH drifts a bit. Trying to chase is like running on a seesaw. The plants seem to manage pH drift. I just top off with adjusted pH of 5.75 a gallon at a time in a 5 gallon bucket. My PPM are off the chart due to the local tap water it can range from 7.0 to 8.0 . If the plants look good leave them alone.

JohnnyRey said:

Title pretty much explains it, my ph and ppm is rising but that doesn't make any sense because ph rising when they eat and ppm drops and ph drops when they drink water more and ppm rises? Need help I wanna know why this is happening and if it makes any sense, I am using cultured solutions.

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This is another old thread but PPM’s or the EC rises for 2 main reasons. Number one is it’s too hot and the plants are needing and up taking more water then nutrients, when it’s hot plants need a weaker nutrient solution...your dehumidifier will be working extra hard as well. The trick is to find the sweet spot in the environment (ambient temp, relative humidity, CO2 levels, air circulation, intensity of lighting, temp of reservoir nutrient solution) and balance the strength of nutrients solution so it stays relatively the same...The other reason is just because it’s too strong of a solution all together and the plants are again up taking more water..as far as ph, there’s many reasons for that to rise, it’s better to have it stable but if it rises slowly and stays between 5.5-6.4 it is actually beneficial because at each step along the way each nutrient becomes more available to the plants..if your in veg, it’s better to be around 5.8, in flower 6.2-6.4 is good