What's the highest ppm you've vegged your plants at?

So I've got his dwc 5g bucket experiment going on. I just recently had access to a ph/ppm meter and was shocked to see that water was at 1300ppm! I've never in my life intentionally fed that to a soil plant. The plant has been alive for about 6 weeks and it growing very well compared to her soil bound sisters.

My feeding regiment was 3-2-1 GH, any time the water level was lower than 2" below the bottom of the net pot (about 1g of volume). And I would guess by looking at the leaves how much fert it needed. I think my last feed was 3x 3-2-1 and to be honest, I was surprised at how well the plant has been growing.

So I'm just curious is this normal for a DWC plant in veg to be thriving under such high ppms?

For what it's worth, I've also got grounded up barley straw in the bottom of the bucket which I was told would help alleviate slimes and rots (so far so good) and I also occasionally add .5ml of regular bleach into the system to keep the rez essentially dead.

Thanks in advanced!

Highest?.. probably half that, like 650.

You sure that reading is correct?

I wouldn't trust any meter that I didn't calibrate. Hell i don't really trust any meter anyway. Not even fancy $300 ones. I have brand new ones in the box and I still continue to use drops. So easy, just keep it yellow, hello!

Its pretty easy for the PPMs to spike up that high if they are really thirsty and the water level drops faster than they are eating! Especially in a 5 gallon bucket.

Sometimes it takes a few days to see the effects of over feeding, or lockouts, etc happening. If you see a nice plant I wouldn't worry too much about it...

Drop That Sound said:

Highest?.. probably half that, like 650.

You sure that reading is correct?

I wouldn't trust any meter that I didn't calibrate. Hell i don't really trust any meter anyway. Not even fancy $300 ones. I have brand new ones in the box and I still continue to use drops. So easy, just keep it yellow, hello!

Its pretty easy for the PPMs to spike up that high if they are really thirsty and the water level drops faster than they are eating! Especially in a 5 gallon bucket.

Sometimes it takes a few days to see the effects of over feeding, or lockouts, etc happening. If you see a nice plant I wouldn't worry too much about it...

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Aye, that's my consensus as well. I never took a reading of the water after I added the barley straw and I imagine they must be making the extra 600-1000ppm I'm not expecting to read. My meter is really old, perhaps I should get a new one.

^ oops PH meters that is, I do trust my cheap PPM meter. Ya probably just making the water all cloudy with that straw. I also suspect its just organic particles that won't burn the plant or anything but making it higher. You should be fine with just adding bleach. Try adding some straw to water and take a reading, you'll have your answer lol

Drop That Sound said:

^ oops PH meters that is, I do trust my cheap PPM meter. Ya probably just making the water all cloudy with that straw. I also suspect its just organic particles that won't burn the plant or anything but making it higher. You should be fine with just adding bleach. Try adding some straw to water and take a reading, you'll have your answer lol

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Of course. Thanks!

be careful with the clorox, it will burn your roots and send your ph sky high, lkie 11 or 12ph. i use pondzyme which is a combination of barley and beneficial bacteria. its cheap, doesn't mess with either ph or ec, and it help to keep roots clear andfacilitate nutrient uptake. http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produ...yYhd3iNivzgFCBEVBlvmKgxtz90btt4ClIaAsD58P8HAQ

I used to use bleach, but I found it difficult, erring on the side of caution, to maintain proper levels without a chlorine meter.

I'll 2nd DTS on the meters. I simply don't trust them. I find it too suspicious that professional grade meters cost 10x as much as the ones being marketing to us. Even if I had a pro-grade meter, with a crop as valuable as mj, I would want a 2nd identical meter to double-blind test against. Initial investment aside, just with the amount of time spent rinsing and calibrating (and double-blind testing against drops or strips anyways), this would only make sense in a commercial grow, imo.

I use dutch master gold zone @ 1 ml per gallon. No meters or guess work, $.03 a gallon.

I might get a chlorine meter and use bleach or pool shock.. in another year or two once my $30 bottle of gz runs out.

We veg our plants starting with 5cm*/1.25g/1.25m/1.25b and simply top off with 5cm*/5g/5m/5b for 9 weeks with no dumps. They absolutely love it. Healthiest veg plants I've ever seen, or just as healthy as any veg plant I've ever seen, I should say. If they ever got too big and started showing def, which they haven't, I would just up to 6/6/6 and then again to 7/7/7 etc.

I used to to use the 3/2/1 formula, until my mentor told me to just go 5/5/5.

Just my 2 cents.

*cm added back for RO