Runoff Ph 5.1 and EC 3.1 what does this mean?

[Bangarang]

So it has been awhile since i have addressed this thread. But experienced a little root suffocation problem recently when i soaked my girls in ExictR. 4 days later my ph was 5.1 and ppm 2200-3000. I mixed cal/mg with tap water and flushed until ppm came out at 800-900. My ph remained low at 5.2. But this goes back to my original problem.
Apparently i was overfeeding which was causing an influx of salt build up within the medium. I have not gone back to Moab but have made it a regular thing to test my runoff so that i can properly flush or adjust my feed before the next watering. What i have noticed is that my ph in my medium always drops down to this range; why is that?

 

[WynterRye]

What are you using as your media , a mix pure peat ( rice hulls) ? I dont know what Exict R is but if i were you i would go with a base fert. cal/mag . I would get a water test. The tap water is what is driving down the PH. Most mixes start at around 5.5 and with 80% of the water out there only go up. Most city water in in the 7 range but can go as high as 9 depends on how old the system is and the amount of dissolved copper and mag in the water. City drive the PH up to mask these ppm to get with in Gov regs. You might be lucky and get whats called sweet water where the ph is very low. 6.3 maybe lower. so very time you fert. you push hat number lower. except on the Cal mag cycles. I would love to have that problem i have to inject nitric acid to get my water at 6.5 as a start base. I am not sure what kind of Fert you use. I use 17-4-17 and 19-7-13 and a daniels plant food when i need a push. I never feed over 200 ppm. I dont know why you would use a high phos for anything I don't like stretch in my plants. But you have to remember those ferts are almost all salt. have to bind the pos and phos to something and salt is the cheapest and the different sulfates (the salt binder) dissolve in water differently. You could Cheat and add charcoal and calcium and it would make the ph go up fast.

 

[WAkuntry]

Little fyi try using your moab as a foliar....added with a sul-po-mag.....good stuff!

 

[growchick421]

Little fyi try using your moab as a foliar....added with a sul-po-mag.....good stuff!

Sul-po-mag??o_O

 

[WAkuntry]

Its a a sulphur phosphorus and magnesium nutrient. It works as a bug repellent a flavor booster and when mixed with other foliars helps shuttle things around. It comes in pink rock form.

 

[Bangarang]

So Sea maiden adivsed me to put Dolomite Lime into my Coco coir to help increase the Ph. At first i was really stumped and well still am... So the dolomite is there to help chelate and basically slowly bring my Ph up, right? I spread a tsp across the top of the coco and then top watered with base nutes around 900 ppm.
My question is this... If my girls are displaying a phosphorus def/tox is this due to the coco being at a ph of 5.0 or due to the reduced GH feed. I used to feed 10 micro 14 bloom then reduced to 6 micro 9 bloom and well now i am at 4 micro 6 bloom. I looked on the calculator and well to me 0-4-6 is to low even with cal/mag. A formula that has worked so well for me is failing. What should i do? Could my tap water be bad? I mean i am on the edge of going to go buy some house and garden aqua flakes and just go back to the easy way of feeding.
Thanks for all of the input and thanks Sea maiden and JK for all the help. This is a new round with the same problem showing itself around 20 days. Only been feeding base nutes to try and get them where i need them to be.

 

[Seamaiden]

DL will bring pH up and allow it to stabilize. It will also supply a bit of Ca and Mg.

Low pH absolutely can and will disallow uptake and utilization of available nutrients.

Ok... shows up around 20 days into flower...? I can't recall, have we discussed root aphids here yet? The progression would fit.

 

[Bangarang]

Yes i have been battling them. I knocked them down with a complete soak of ExcitR and did not see anything for the last several weeks. But while throwing a fit last night i saw a couple of fliers. Which really bummed me out.
How would root aphids effect the Ph/ppm?

 

[Seamaiden]

They won't, they affect how well the plant can use available nutrients. You will be chasing your tail if you continue to address this as a nutrient problem and not a pest problem.

 

[Bangarang]

So definitely dealing with RA's. To get them through this round i still think that it would be valuable to increase the Ph of my runoff. It does not appear as if the dolomite lime increase the Ph. I top dressed and then watered it in the best that it would break down. Any other suggestions??

 

[Coir]

Dolomite typically takes a long time to break down and become effective. Hydrated lime is faster acting but I would be reluctant to use it since you have already added dolomite. Using potassium hydroxide which is what most companies "pH up" products are made from will allow you to get your feed water pH up BUT you need to know what your starting pH is and if it's already high then you will likely induce other issues. Any time I have seen low pH in coco, I have simply flushed with my normal feed solution until it was back in range. If you are still seeing a drop it might be a side effect of the RA which I have never had to deal with so I can't say if my previous suggestions will help with them being the issue. How far along are your plants now? How bad is the infestation?

 

[Seamaiden]

@Coir -- I've done some experiments using RO/DI water and prilled DL, and you'd be surprised how quickly it raises alkalinity as well as pH. Minutes, and fairly high on the test kit I used (a home aquarium test kit, colorimetric & titration, Tetra Laborette). I believe the DL will have some effect, but not as quickly as using it directly in the water column.

@Bangarang -- I'm really sorry to read this. As you know I'm battling something, not sure yet because I haven't been able to achieve pix of sufficient magnification or resolution to determine really what I'm looking at, but I am having problems. As we discussed, my only previous experience with RAs I used several things, including a neonicotinoid (imidacloprid, Bayer product, then Merit75) and found relief using Spectracide with Triazicide. That presents a HUGE problem for anyone who's staying strictly organic, so for now I'm working with Capulator's beneficials as best I can but I personally need to figure out how to get the soil to dry out a bit more so that I can use the beneficials more often, whether it's fungus gnats or root aphids I personally am experiencing.

I'm still on the hunt for a better, but not terribly expensive microscope that would hook up to my phone or computer so I can more easily see what's being magnified. I have a student scope but I have lots of floaties and have problems viewing, it's a lot easier looking at a big computer screen. I need something specifically for Linux, so as always there's the rub.

 

[Coir]

Talking with my bug guy and they are seeing some promising results with these guys for RA:
These generalist predators are typically used for fungus gnat larva and thrip larva but have been found to eat most anything that lives in the root zone. They are pretty cheap and certainly worth a shot. I have not had RA so can't say for sure just how effective they are and my only concern would be that they typically inhabit the upper part of the growing medium/root zone although I have found them in my runoff after watering pots of coir so there is a good chance they will migrate down the sides of the pots since there is lots of air for them there and if there is food, they will most definitely hunt for it.

 

[Seamaiden]

Thank you. I'm getting some of those ordered, even if I haven't determined whether it's 'just' fungus gnats or actually RAs. Everything on my sticky cards are FGs.

 

[Bangarang]

So i mixed 1tbsp to 5 gal of Dolomite Lime in my Res to tray and break it down and top feed it through my drip lines. It has been 10 days since i topped dressed with DL without any change in Ph. I read that you could add 1-2 tbsp per 5 gallons somewhere. Does this seem accurate?

 

[Bangarang]

I killed off all the RA's in veg and my moms by soaking them in ExcitR. There is nothing living... and my moms are just hanging on. In the future if i were to do a soak with an oil based product how and when would i flush the medium to get the oil out before it suffocates the roots? This is a slightly different problem than what i am having in flower.

 

[Bangarang]

Also i am trying to calculate my nutrient profile to see if i am missing something in my feed. Where do i find the break down of Cal-Mg Plus?

 

[Coir]

Also i am trying to calculate my nutrient profile to see if i am missing something in my feed. Where do i find the break down of Cal-Mg Plus?

The percentages of each should be on the label. Post them here with how much you use per gallon and I can tell you what you are getting right now.

 

[Bangarang]

I use 0-6-9 with 5 cal/mg as my base. I am using Fatmans bloom numbers as a general reference. I have not had my water tested yet. That is my game plan for this week. Tap water comes out at 360-380 ppm with approxiamtly 7.8ph.

 

[Coir]

Are the numbers along the bottom line in ppm?
Also, your water looks to be pretty hard which can cause some issues.