ppm keeps rising, ph keeps dropping

[Str8Dank]

running a ebb and grow and lucas formula with GH Flora. using RO water and i set my ppm's to roughly 800 and i'm in week 1 of flower. my ppm's are rising, plants barely drinking and PH KEEPS DROPPING NOT RISING. i've used this line and setup before and never had this issue. i did stress the shit out of half the plants in my room before they even made it into my system it was total neglect as i moved. we're talking straight up purp stems. things recovered nice green foliage and stems on the new growth before i flipped to flower though. running some H202 as well (2 ts every day or 2).

any idea what could cause the ppms to rise and the ph to drop? i've read about issues causing this before but i cant find anything on it now.

 

[altitudefarmer]

What is your evaporation/transpiration rate? Is your rez staying full? Not familiar with Lucas, but Floranova is acidic...

 

[Str8Dank]

lucas is just 1 part micro to 2 parts bloom. I've successfully had many runs with this formula with no additives and in fact i had better results with this then the full H&G aqua flakes lineup following the schedule.

not getting much evaporation my dehumidifier stays off and it's set to kick on at 50% and it's not kicked on once. the level of the res has not moved in roughly 5 days and i have 30 plants between 1-2 ft.

 

[Str8Dank]

running 3 watering cycles per day 45 minutes each 4 hours apart during lights on. all of this ive done many times with no issues. i'm wondering if i could have some sort of root rot or other plant related dieses that could cause this type of ph drop daily by .2. plants are looking better daily but i'm just not sure why the ph drops instead of rises and the ppms are not moving. i did kick them up some. also i did add about 1/4 recommended dose of cal/mag since one strain in my system really needs this.

 

[altitudefarmer]

I was thinking maybe evap was in overdrive... Are your gals wilted-looked, or nice and vigorous? Pics might help. Root disease will show quickly, both on the plant and in the root zone. Are the roots nice and white? The H2O2 should help with root problems, but you may want to add beneficials instead. Never had this problem unless my temps were high and humidity low- a high evap rate can wreak havoc on your nute solution.

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

if the ppms are rising and ph dropping you are feeding to much. as the plants drink the water there is more nutes in it and the ph buffers are then lowering your ph as the water lvl drops. how big is your reservoir?

 

[Str8Dank]

that make complete sense twist. my plants are half the size of my past runs (new local lower ceiling). dropping ppms a few hundred today, i have no burn so i figured all is well.

 

[Str8Dank]

oh 55 gal res

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

it will be the exact opposite if you feed to low. your ppms will lower and your ph will rise. I know you probably heard this before but just adding it in case. if your are running multiple strains in a hydro set up you could feed them all a base nute program and foliar feed the ones that may need more. Like the Chemdog D cut you got will need more cal-mag then some the other strains. To be honest tho in the past say year and a half that i started using cal-mag i have not seen any issues adding it to any plants feeding program. and all the little problems that used to happen are gone, no more burnt leaves or spotting and it keeps them nice and green even the stems.

the 55 gal res is the one that comes with the set up and there's the same amount of sites there should be? and the water is flowing evenly or at least close to even? are the plants under differnt size lights then before? is the temps staying consistent? you running CO2 now and weren't before or vise versa? just some things also to look at, i always try to find what i did differnt if i run into any issues.

 

[Seamaiden]

if the ppms are rising and ph dropping you are feeding to much. as the plants drink the water there is more nutes in it and the ph buffers are then lowering your ph as the water lvl drops. how big is your reservoir?

Kid, could this, from InvisibleM regarding pH bounce in an aerocloning situation, play a role in what's happening? I'm thinking along the lines of... whack CEC.

Evaporation could have some affect on ph but probably not that much. When a plant uses ammonium the ph will always go down, so any fertilizer with a lot of ammonium in it will do this. Now once all the ammonium is used up the ph will stabilize. It could be something else though....

I know I've read that pH stability and shift is directly related to form of nitrogen, I just keep getting switched which does what, NO3-based N versus NH3/4+-based N, one will shift pH up, the other down (cation/anion schtuffs). Pero, lo olvido.

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

Kid, could this, from InvisibleM regarding pH bounce in an aerocloning situation, play a role in what's happening? I'm thinking along the lines of... whack CEC.



I know I've read that pH stability and shift is directly related to form of nitrogen, I just keep getting switched which does what, NO3-based N versus NH3/4+-based N, one will shift pH up, the other down (cation/anion schtuffs). Pero, lo olvido.

that thread is a little differnt situation. in a cloner the water only evaporates as the cuttings don't drink much, but full grown plants will actually drink the water. also R/O water will have bigger ph swings, theres nothi9ng in it to keep it stable. take a bowl of low ppm water and add a drop or 2 of tiger bloom the ph will drop from 7.0 to 4.0. you cant keep adding PH up and PH down cause eventually one will win and your ph will spike in either direction. I would clean it out real good wash the pucks as well, run the pumps with a 5% bleach to water soulution. rinse it add your water then the power clone let it run, then check your ph and adjust. as the water sits in the cloner the temps will rise, check your ph at room temp then adjust.

one last thing ,dont put plants in pots ontop the Ez cloners in open spots if you water them the runoff will drip into the resivior, not saying he did this but it happened to me.

edit: what you are asking me about is way above my knowlage as far as what from of N will drop or higher PH

 

[Seamaiden]

I have a slightly different type of aerocloner, homemade by a friend elsewhere, uses short pieces of PVC as collars. I have an extensive aquarium/aquatic background, understand water and keeping it *clean*, not nutrient-laden, this is where it's messing me up.

Thank you for the insight, helps me wrap my skull around such things.

 

[Str8Dank]

the system has 30 pots and all of them are getting properly watered. i'm running cal/mag which i never have before and i figured it would not hurt the other plants. i'm also bumping the cal/mag for the soiless Chemdog D plants as well.

temps are in high 70's/low80's
no co2 this time but was running it past runs
all plants are under 1k lights the same as always
half of my plants (afgoos) had some neglect issues i took them way to early and they didnt look to great. the rest of the system has good plants in it with no issues. the issues were resolved and the stems were back green and new growth looked excellent before the flip. these plants are much smaller then i'm use to running so i figure i just feed like i normally do during transition but that may be a little much since they are about 1/2 the height. i'm guessing this is the issue i'll knock back nutes this week and see what happens.

 

[halitzor]

Evap can cause the issues your seeing but you have such a large res that evap is not possibly the issue.

The only time I have seen ppm / ph behave this way is if you have an algae/bacterial infection in your system. Do you have any rubber parts in the res or containers? Touch them to see if slimy. If they are slimy you need to drain, run florakleen or something similar, refill. And find out what is causing the bacteria. Its either too much heat in your water or light leaking into res/plant containers.

 

[Str8Dank]

you're onto something halitzor i'm going to be doing that for sure. i have many rubber parts and my res is warmer then my prior runs i noticed that just today. i've got some florakleen laying around so i'm going to do this in just a few days. i would have thought that the h2o2 would assist in fighting this issue though. i have noticed a decent amount of slimy buildup that is more then normal but in veg before i started running h2o2 because i thought i might have a issue i was running roots organic Oregonism XL mycorrhizae and that stuff looked like it would cause some major slime.