8 bucket waterfarm PH problems

[41hope]

I have a 8 unit waterfarm in flower. I've had rising ph problems in the past figured it was hydroton. At the end of 6 weeks of vegging my ph problems stablized but after a month of flowering I have rising ph problems. I disconnected the drip systems only using airstones in each bucket for air. When I check the res every moring I have high ph. last night I lowered ph to 5.5 check it 2 hours later, it was back at 6 again. lowered it again and checked 2 hours later to find back at 6 again. Check it the next moring it was above 6.5.
What is causing this? How can it be the hydroton when it sits above the water level?
Is there something in my GH nutes that causes ph to rise?

 

[Snype]

1. What color are your roots?
2. What temperature is your water?
3. How many PPM's is your solution?
4. Did you rinse out your hydroton real good before you used it?
5. Does the inside of the REZ's or Controller smell funny?
6. How often do you flood or water for and for how long?

 

[danks]

switch ur media use drip clean from house and garden for res build up and line build up, u could have bacteria in ur res thats growing thus making it hot the more they eat the more the ph can change. or keep the res at 5.5 and check in the morning and at night and adjust accordingly until finished and then switch media and do a complete clean of res and lines with h2o2 and water. try and keep the bacteria away from ur res or else u can have ph problems.

 

[danks]

make sure u use non organic fertilizers in ur system if you want organic then u have to deal with bacteria.

 

[41hope]

Switch media to what?

 

[speedyrpg]

are you useing slate for any thing? if you are useing a peace of slate in your res to hold any thing down it will cause your ph to go up.

 

[DHF]

OMG......New Growers please read this........

OMG......New Growers please read this........

Hey Bro.....So much hydro knowledge has fallen through the cracks the last several yrs and not fed the up and coming generations on the forums.................

With recirculating hydro systems such as waterfarms , as the plants eat and take up nutes. ppm`s drop and ph rises......If it`s too fast then you`re being too agressive with your feed cycles.......slow down........

Not gonna go too far down the rabbit hole , but your plants are ok as long as they don`t show you deficiencies and signs of over/underwatering.......

Again.......as plants eat.........ppm`s drop and ph rises.........gradually.........Do not chase PH with alkaline or acid solutions just to keep numbers where you THINK they oughta be.......

PH up and down are useful , but poisonous to yield if overtreated.......Dialage takes yrs Bro....just go with the flow and learn from every run......

Peace........DHF............

 

[jm420]

Thats one of the biggest probs with waterfams.Btw its a drip system not rdwc (unless you made the upgrade).The drip should always be running with the WF not all the roots hit the res .Thats DWC, there will be a root mass in the hydroton that needs to be fed never mind drying out.As someone pointed ou ph down ec up =too rich,ph up ec down =too lean.
What I did before I got rid of them was diconect from the res and ran each bucket indivual ,straight lucas formula ,its more work but got me threw harvest.

 

[OMountainMix]

We have retired our 8 plant and will only use it for vegging. The plants don't seem to take all the nnutrients out of the water, the rez has a tendency to get gunked up, especially after the innards get clogged on each system (which they LOVE to do). Drip clean would help with that some, but we're finding that the Turbo Gardens work a lot better. Plants literally sucked all the nutrients out of the water and left the water clean.

I am not sure why your ph would be so up and down, but I wonder if you didn't clean your rocks. We rinse very carefully and bake them to dry. A lot of the time we do a second rinse and bake, but frankly I rinse in a totally anal-retentive way the first time, so it's probably not necessary. Perhaps you have remaining fertilizer salts on your rocks??

Also, when we do start using the 8 plant again for veg, we are planning to add drip clean to the mix, and we were using hygrozyme and hydrobact with them. We did get a nice yield from them with fairly small plants (3-4 z's per plant adds up). We hate how the drip rings get clogged so often, though. We can also fit two turbo gardens in the space the 8 plant needs in our flowering room. Still, you can get a good to great yield off the 8 plant.

If your plants are healthy, I wouldn't stress much, but I would make extra sure to clean and sterilize (NO BLEACH) your systems and rocks after this run. You'll need bottle brushes to adequately clean all the innards and hoses.

 

[abuldur]

No problemo,
A slight ph drift i normal in hydro.
It would be a concern if your ph was going downwards fast (acid) this beeing a shure sign of root rot,bad bacteria buildup.
Just dont mind your ph to much.A slight drift is actually good for your girls allowing them to have acces to all nutrients.

If you really want a stable ph for your res do this:
http://www.genhydro.com/genhydro_US/instructions/WF_Upgrade_instructions.pdf

I run the same amount of waterfarms as you do.
But they are all connected (as showed above) and the lower part of the controller is equiped with a bio filter (same stuff you put in fish tanks) this grows good bacteria which keep your ph steady at all times.

peace