need advice for ebb&flow please.

[dancer]

Hi

I have a 7 site e&f thing. 9,5 liter buckets with rocks. I had plants in them already but the PH kept rising, causing defs. and lockouts so I removed the plants. Now I have run it empty for couple of days with very low ph water and it's finally settling around 5.8 or so. I'm scared to put my plants in them again, i cant lose more plants bacause I got no more after these ones and I'm actually thinking not to put back there. But as I've heard that e&f is very efficient way of growing when done properly I do want to give it a go. And also it's finally not leaking anymore so I do want to use it.
Do anyone of you think that ph will stay down for now on and I could start using it again.
Also how to run it? I've heard that big totes are best to flood 1h on and 2 off but I'm not excatly sure is 9,5 lites concidered as a big tote or not? In small ones it think small plants would drown if flooded that much and these still are small plants. How would you run it. They fill up in about 20min when pump turned on.

Was I unclear enough? Thanks guys.
Help is needed and apreciated

 

[dtfsux]

it shouldnt take 20 minutes to fill. That may cause problems down the road. I would flood till the buckets fill then drain. get a bigger pump/increase line size. Flood every 3-4 hours, longer intervals if flooding and draining is taking a long time

What kind of rocks, hydroton? Did you wash real well? New hydroton has a tendency to mess with PH. It will stabilize though

I would run the system again, and keep an eye on things. keep some ph up/down handy, its pretty cheap.

what did you do with the plants you took out?

 

[dancer]

Hi dtfsux and thanks for your advice, I tought that nobody will chime in and help.

Not hydroton, some gardening rocks. Very airy and by the looks suitable for hydro. Unfortunately I cant get pics right now. I washed them plenty with ph 6,3 water and then run the system for aweek or so adjusting ph till I got fedup adding ph down all the time and messing with the EC because of that. After I removed the plants I dropped the water to around 4.5ph and kept it running. Unreal that I still had to add more ph down for it still came up to 6,3 or so. I dont know how it's settled now, I go and look soon.
I might drop couple of last buckets off at the end of the line so they fill a bit faster.

The plants are temporarily in a too small DWC.

 

[Indonesia]

not giving us enough info to help you properly. need pictures of plants and info on water and nutrients you are using. foaf will take a guess...ph rising rapidly sounds like you either don't have a high enough ec to buffer the pH at a lower value, or you are using highly buffered alkaline tapwater, or your plants are growing faster than you can maintain the rez.

foaf would fill up the ebb/flow rez with RO water starting ppm less than 100 at .5 scale, and add nutes until ec reaches 2.0.then put your plants back in the system and flood them only 2 or 3 times a day to start. if the plants start to wilt from underwatering, then bump up the irrigation frequency.

peace

 

[dancer]

Thanks Indonesia

All right, I'm using GH 3 part nutes in one res and cyco nutes in other. With the res with GH nutes EC was around 600µS with nutes only and then after I Ph:ing it to 5,7 or so with this lame ph down what I had and it rised the EC to around 1100µS, pretty bad huh? Later PH always came up and I put more ph down untill I decidet that I that EC went too high and I should not add any more. In this point I bumped the res few times and started over untill I decidet not to waiste more nutes and took them plants out. With the other res with cyco nutes the story was pretty much same. This system is smaller, only 3 plants. Now It's been runnin only with water and ph down for couple of days and I think it's finally getting stable but I have had to add plenty of good quality ph down this time, dropped it several times under 5 and it always came up too high. My tap water is 6,3-6,4 and approx 100µS. For the first couple of days they grew but then this Ph situation apparently was too much for them to handle and signs of mg def entered and growth stopped completely. I studied what could be the case with these symptons of mg def. and came to conclusion that it must be the unstable and rising Ph and then when growth stopped I was/am pretty sure it's the case.
Unfortunately I cant post pics at the moment and it's a shame for I do understand that they help a lot.

I dont excatly understand this on your post: "you either don't have a high enough ec to buffer the pH at a lower value" and also when/if I get it to stay down now only with water and Ph down should I add nutes untill ec reaches 2.0 like you mentioned and put the plants back on or will this be too high for small plants?

When I put GH nutes, veg stage, maybe half portion as directed in the bottle EC comes up to around 1.1-1.3 and with cyco it stays around 700µS.

Thanks a lot for your help in advance.

 

[Indonesia]

foaf means if you were using full strength nutes your pH wouldn't be drifting upwards so quickly. nutes are acidic and buffer ph down.the same Phosphorous in pH down is in the nutes. dump your rez and start over. add tap, then add nutes until 2.0ec. 1100uS is 1.1 ec, thats half-strength, obviously not enough nutrition for your plants. once you use full strength nutes, your ph will probably stay stable, or even swing downwards. foaf likes to add nutes till the point where leaf tip start to show the beginnings of slight overfeeding,then slightly back off from that ec value. then foaf knows his plants are taking in as much nutes as they can handle. ec rises and ph down means you need to add more water to rez. if ec goes down and ph raises, it means you need to add more nutes to your rez. always take readings from a hydrated rez(top off before taking readings).when you fill your rez, put a peice of tape to the top off point, and always fill with plain water to that point before adding nutes to 2.0 ec. then take readings and change ph as necessary to keep within range of 5.2-6.2.

peace

 

[Andyo]

age old problem

age old problem

the first time i used hydroton 15 years ago the ph went up n up in the pot
I nearly lost the crop .
1st thing ph the hydroton or grow rocks with nitric acid not phosphoric.
take them to ph 5.0 before u use them 48 hrs in a big plastic bin soaking agitate them check ph and add acid until they stay at PH 5.0

The next problem is the nutes ,as the plants absorb nitrate ions the ph rises this doesnt happen if the nutes have used ammonium nitrate and mono ammonium phosphate in there formulation along side calcium nitrate.

I make hydro nutes,for myself and a few customers.
I use "multi cal" its calcium nitrate and has 8% ammonium nitrate in it specificly to stop this ph swing,

The other way is for you to ph your tank very low Ph 4.0 to ballance the climb in the pot it will go in at ph 4.0 and the pots will be imediatley ph 5.0 then at 1 hr 5.5 to 6,0 at 2 hrs 6.0 to 6.5.
test ph in the pot .tilt at 45 deg last few drops .
Size of reservoir for 1kw i use a minimum of 225 ltrs .

Grow shops use phosphoric acid because its easy handling and can post safely,.
They tend to steer clear of 20ltr drums of 62% nitric acid ."smoking"
commercial hydrponic growers use nitric and some sulphuric mostly.

Flood timings n rate of flood n drain! use a larger than needed pump use a digital timer 7 day type .
1st put a bypass tap in the pipe so some of the water can recirculate in you res
, use this tap to control how fast you trays fill.
i would say 5 to 7 miniutes for flood and about the same for drain is about right.
nute temp should be 18-21 deg c the lower temp will harden your plants more.
the digi 7 day timer helps that you can have different cycles on different days if you want to harden them up or soften them less or more floods or even 24 hrs without a flood if needed

Last and most important dont give up
perfection is easily possible and automatic once you get the hang of it .A

 

[dancer]

Great, Thank You very much Indonesia and Andyo, very good and new info for me. Advices taken and I shall remember this and not to do it again.

After running the the small system for couple of days without plants and only water and Ph down it did finally stay down below 6. I changed the water and added nutes from GH, part 3 and and Ph;ed it to 5.6 and EC to 1.5. Now few hours later, only two flooding later I went to check and yeehaaaa! Ph was not above 6, it was finally where it should have been. EC had dropped a bit to 1.35. In few hours I shall check again and adjust Ph if needed and correct the EC a bit higher aswell. And start running that 7 bucket system with water and Ph down. I will drop couple of buckets at the end of the line to make them fill faster till I get a change to get a bigger pump or something.

The bad quality Ph down what I had before was from petshop, meant for aquarium and was clearly not at all suitable for this, but that was the only thing what I could get my hands on at that moment, with vinegar and lemonjuice ofcourse. I kind a know that lemojuice and vinegar is not suitable for hydro (right?) so I went for the aquarium one. My bad, I was not prepared properly.Wont be doing that anymore.

Them plants wich I removed and placed in a DWC shows signs from getting better, leaves pointing again in right direction,upwards more than down.

My exact words Mr. Andyo, what I've been telling myself aswell, dont give up! Thanks again guys!

Dancer