PH not dropping.

[caliogk]

Preflushed and charged coco (gold label, chunky perlite and 10% amendments), came out 6.2 ph @ 250 PPMS.

Trasplanted babies into 3 gallon smart pots with this coco a week ago. 3 days later, ph was @ 6.8 and ppms @ 220. I flushed with about 5 gallons (calmag, benies, roots xclr and base nutes) @ ph 4.5/250 PPM, barely got it down to 6.5.

Now today, I go back to check up on her and the ph is back up to 6.8. I flush again with about 3 gallons of 4.0 ph and it barely brings it down to 6.7.

I am confused at this point, any pointers in the right direction would be awesome.

Thank you farmers!

 

[Rasta Man]

will feeding at a ph of 4 not do more harm then good ?

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

how are the plants looking and what are the amendments? what are you using for ph down? maybe soemthing is wrong with your pen?

 

[Seamaiden]

That, or it sounds like the source water is alkaline to me.

 

[Alekiboy]

Sounds like you are using water with a high amount of Chlorine (Cl2) and it is bonding with your Ca++ or K+ and forming alkaline salts that are driving your pH UP!

 

[motherlode]

I never bother checking runnoff of coco ph and I barely run off

I just water at 5.8

 

[IronLung D9]

Sounds like you are using water with a high amount of Chlorine (Cl2) and it is bonding with your Ca++ or K+ and forming alkaline salts that are driving your pH UP!

exactly what i was thinking... its the water

 

[Rasta Man]

how do you fix the problem, does leaving the water to rest for a few days before using really work..

 

[Jsän]

just some info

how do you fix the problem, does leaving the water to rest for a few days before using really work..

for Chlorine? Yes.
for Chloramine? No.

Contact you Water provider for your "water quality report." it will tell you which is used, as well as turbidity and make-up of the water Leaving the Facility.

you may be able to just google "your city" + water quality report for the quick answer.

both are removed with "low flow" activated carbon filters... chloramine is a bitch to remove. . http://www.chloramine.org/chloraminefacts.htm
if you are lucky it will just be chlorine, which can be gassed off rather quickly and then Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) 'd to be sure. also works as ph- and is very good for plants.


good luck and greens

 

[Rasta Man]

so if the water was ok and you wanted to lower the ph of the run off you just lower the ph of the water going in?

 

[Jsän]

how are the plants looking and what are the amendments? what are you using for ph down? maybe soemthing is wrong with your pen?

needs to be answered before a proper information can be given.


ideally, in a proper balanced medium, you will get out what you put in.

so either your water is to alkaline as Sea said..
precipitation, as Alekiboy mentioned (fn props for the chem lesson btw.)

or meter/amendments as the Mr. Twist asked.

w/o further information.?.. i am going with,
Amendment: Dolomite Lime.
to be the cause,.

but i am guessing on incomplete information...
and yes, please someone school me where i am wrong,.
ty :)

 

[caliogk]

What up farmers, updates...

Long story short, it's the coco itself that is causing the issue.

2 other rooms with the same coco (from the same pallet as the coco I used) from 2 different people are having similar issues. The funny thing is, 1 is stuck @ 6.3, the other @ 6.6. Very bizarre, I switched from gold label to b'cuzz coco and will report updates.

Anyone else seeing these types of issues if using gold label coco coir?

 

[Rasta Man]

im using canna coco and i cant get my ph below 6.5 either.. took a sample today of coco i had left in the bag.. ill let it rest in water tonight and test it tommoro

 

[ECOutlaw]

Hate to bump an old thread but I'm having the same problem with gold label 80/20 at the moment. Watering with half RO and half tap (70ppms) with a PH of 5 the gold label run off is still coming out close to ph 7.

City water quality report claims calcium hardness range to be 64-107mg/liter, total alkalinity at 61-97mg/liter and magnesium at 8.3mg/liter. Total dissolved solids at 150ppms. They also list chlorine (not mono chloramine) from .2 to 1.88mg/liter but I do let my water sit over night to de-chlorinate.

This is my ever experience with coco. I used the pour thru method (cornell) on the gold label prior to planting and the ph came out high (7) and the ppms were around 800. Being an ignorant soil grower I figured this was excess fert salts never bothering to read the bag stating that it was precharged. So I went ahead and flushed the medium with PH5 half ro half tap water bringing total ppms in the run off to 400.

I figured I would just buffer the coco myself with GH Calimagic and a decent boost of heavy 16 like one would do if there were reusing there coco. The problem is the PH is still close to 7.

At this point my plan is to just mix up some cal mag and heavy 16 in plain RO water and just water it at a ph of 5.6, plant the bed and just hope shit handles itself.

If anyone has any input advice or would just like to tell me where I went wrong and how bad I screwed up (come on someone wants to flame me ;) haha) it would be greatly appreciated.

BTW My background is in SS#4 with canna nutes in beds. I'm just trying to get into a more sustainable medium.

 

[ECOutlaw]

Ended up watering with ph 5.8 RO water with calimagic and heavy 16.

The run off continued to come out high but the ph of the media at the root zone was right where I wanted it after further testing. Seems I was over complicating things. Plants are growing nicely now right along side my SS#4 beds.

 

[cctt]

Don't measure the pH of the runoff when using coco. It doesn't represent the pH available at the roots and is not relevant to your plants. Take a sample from the root zone, mix well with distilled water, then measure that.
Are the plants experiencing symptoms of high-pH lockout? As far as I see in this thread it seems you're just unhappy with the measurement rather than the results. Your response (adding lots of acid) could itself be causing issues as well. In my experience coco never has pH problems as long as what's going in is reasonable (I use 6.0).

 

[ECOutlaw]

Thanks for the response cctt. No high ph lock out as of right now. I should have done my homework a little better on this project as I've learned alot more about coco since I first planted that bed 2 days ago. I did not have to add much acid to get my stock water to ph 5 so I'm hoping that I did not cause any issues doing that. Time will tell.

Root zone PH was solid 6 when I finally did the distilled water 1/5 ratio test. I am still getting high tds runoff but I think that is whatever is leftover from what they precharge the gold label with. ATM my plants look hungry. They are keeping up with the plants I put in ss#4 the day before but are a lighter shade of green. I only watered them with 3mls heavy16 a/b and 2ml GHcalimagic.

Since it has been a couple days since planting I'm going to go ahead and give them some stronger nutes to see how they respond. I assume since this mix is so porous I should be able to do a small irrigation every other day in veg to introduce more dissolved oxygen. Once again, thanks for your help cctt. I will try to get some pictures up in a bit so I can document there progress.