Ec2003
- 10
- 3
Hey everyone. Not necessarily new on here but have always found the answers needed without asking so kudos to all of you out there! Much appreciated over the years and many issues solved.
So my situation...
I have been growing for years on and off and have always done hydro. Not sure why but I like it. Up until recently I haven't had any issues but my wife and I purchased our first home and now the problems start.
The setup: I'm using a 5 by 5 tent with 2 750watt kind led lights. They stay at the top of the tent all of the time to manage temps and all of the plants never stretch out staying low and bushy. I do top and use lst as necessary with 2 suspended nets. Temps at the top of the tent reach about 80 but the plants never get that big and stay at about 76 degrees. I have 6 6 gallon buckets tied into one 40 gallon res outside the tent. I use rockwool and clay pellets for medium. Each bucket has its own air stone as well as a large air stone in the main res. Everything is light sealed and I use landscaping fabric to cover the clay pellets once the plants get tall enough. I have a blue lab meter for ph and ppms and clean and calibrate once a month.
Up until recently I have always been able to just use tap water and nutes. I use gh 10 part but keep ppms much lower than recommended even for light feeding. I know it's crazy to waste the money on those extras but I think the plants like it. The problem came after we got setup in the new house. I managed one halfway decent grow but know I can do better and struggled every step of the way. We have a well and unfortunately we have to treat for radon and hardness. The first grow as you can imagine was tough...400 ppm water out of the softener and couldn't use well water due to radon. No matter what I did the plants either couldn't get enough nutes especially cal MG or they would burn from too high ppm even with minimal nutrients.
So...I invested in a ro system. I've done my due diligence in research on using ro water mixing nutes with cal MG first allowing time to mix and buffer before other nutes. The problem is that the ph will sit pretty at 6.3ish even for a much as 24 hours in a separate 50 gal res with a circulation pump and dedicated air stone but once I do the water swap the ph plummets for about 2 days before finally settling out. I'm blowing through ph up faster than my nutes! JK not quite that bad. There is no root rot as I've dealt with that in the past with an old 1000watt hid system and the plants are fine while I sit there and watch for hours on end lol but if I want to go to sleep they start showing signs of issues within 12 hours due to crazy ph drop. I do have a water chiller inbound just because 73 is a tad high although I'm not having issues at the moment I tend to think preventative. And it's headed into winter so it's only going to get cooler in the basement.
I wanted to try here as the local hydro stores I use are all stumped. I posted a couple pics of the setup for reference.
Sorry for the long read but I wanted to be thorough. Thanks for reading and the help!
So my situation...
I have been growing for years on and off and have always done hydro. Not sure why but I like it. Up until recently I haven't had any issues but my wife and I purchased our first home and now the problems start.
The setup: I'm using a 5 by 5 tent with 2 750watt kind led lights. They stay at the top of the tent all of the time to manage temps and all of the plants never stretch out staying low and bushy. I do top and use lst as necessary with 2 suspended nets. Temps at the top of the tent reach about 80 but the plants never get that big and stay at about 76 degrees. I have 6 6 gallon buckets tied into one 40 gallon res outside the tent. I use rockwool and clay pellets for medium. Each bucket has its own air stone as well as a large air stone in the main res. Everything is light sealed and I use landscaping fabric to cover the clay pellets once the plants get tall enough. I have a blue lab meter for ph and ppms and clean and calibrate once a month.
Up until recently I have always been able to just use tap water and nutes. I use gh 10 part but keep ppms much lower than recommended even for light feeding. I know it's crazy to waste the money on those extras but I think the plants like it. The problem came after we got setup in the new house. I managed one halfway decent grow but know I can do better and struggled every step of the way. We have a well and unfortunately we have to treat for radon and hardness. The first grow as you can imagine was tough...400 ppm water out of the softener and couldn't use well water due to radon. No matter what I did the plants either couldn't get enough nutes especially cal MG or they would burn from too high ppm even with minimal nutrients.
So...I invested in a ro system. I've done my due diligence in research on using ro water mixing nutes with cal MG first allowing time to mix and buffer before other nutes. The problem is that the ph will sit pretty at 6.3ish even for a much as 24 hours in a separate 50 gal res with a circulation pump and dedicated air stone but once I do the water swap the ph plummets for about 2 days before finally settling out. I'm blowing through ph up faster than my nutes! JK not quite that bad. There is no root rot as I've dealt with that in the past with an old 1000watt hid system and the plants are fine while I sit there and watch for hours on end lol but if I want to go to sleep they start showing signs of issues within 12 hours due to crazy ph drop. I do have a water chiller inbound just because 73 is a tad high although I'm not having issues at the moment I tend to think preventative. And it's headed into winter so it's only going to get cooler in the basement.
I wanted to try here as the local hydro stores I use are all stumped. I posted a couple pics of the setup for reference.
Sorry for the long read but I wanted to be thorough. Thanks for reading and the help!