its always a good idea to grab some GH pH drops from your hydro store and check your meter against them.
had quite a few of the $160 Hanna pens fail... always stored in storage solution and surgically calibrated in both 4 and 7 solutions and still they went. replaced the bulbs on some only to find electronics were out...
when mine have gone (pH meters)... it was never obvious. There would be like a small glitch but then everything seemed to be working normal. Only way to know was to check against drops.
The meter is great and in the age of the iPhone we should be able to rely on technology vs archaic drops.... fortunately as you work w/jacks for a bit you'll find you only need to check once in a while b/c everything stays pretty even.
where a faulty meter bites you is when u start adding up or down to get to what you think is an ideal range but your meter is actually out and you were on target right off the bat BEFORE you started adding up or down.
after you've mixed a bunch of res's you'll know immediately if something is not where it should be but hey... drops are really hard to f-up.
Hey av8or, just read the whole thread and it seems you're getting a world-class education in how to troubleshoot. You've faced quite a few 'bugs' in your system since the start but all this crap is just making you a better grower. A couple years from now you'll be grateful for going through all this crap for the simple fact problems you encounter in the future will be immediately recognized and resolved.
One thing I didn't see any mention of when you were battling your overwatering problem:
How long is it taking for each planter to drain after the flood? Ideally, the drain should be fairly swift but not too quick. I've noticed on my little system when the drain is happening at the correct speed I can hear the air bubbling down through the media as the water pulls it in during the drain. If it's draining too slow you may not be getting a good mix of O2 and solution to keep the roots from drowning.
Those are my thoughts, a little late in the game as it looks like you've got it pretty well dialed in. Happy growing!
this is precisely why, if you are using jack's and calcinit at the .666 ratio, you do not correct the intitial ph immediately upon mixing.
hydroponic nutrient manufacturers have to deal with continuous solution maintenance as well as plants needs.
their "recipes" are balanced for solution stability as much as plant uptake.
jack's is the most "balanced" i've ever used.
Rocketman, thanks for the advice. As for my over watering problem, I was taking clones rooted in soil and throwing them into a 90 minute flood cycle with basically zero water gap. I since have leveled my sites and corrected the air gap. The suction noise can easily be heard as the air exchanges in the root zone. Switching to turface helped tremendously. The Napa 8822 has so many fines. It breaks down fast. Turface is simply superior. Getting hydro clones has helped a lot, too. Of course, now I'm attempting cloning myself and I've not lost one of the four yet! Emphasis on yet. And you're right about noticing problems faster. I seem to have run into a few snags upfront, but the upside to running a perpetual is the ability to only harm a couple plants and make corrections early and often, as opposed to drowning my whole crop and having to start over. I'm about to harvest my last drowned plant. After that, it's a month of strawberry coughs who have been slammed by mites twice. Then it's smooth sailing from there. The latest sour urkle put into veg is five foot wide and three foot tall. I am too new to even begin to estimate the eventual yield on her...I'll let you all know in ten or eleven weeks. This is ridiculously fun.
What is this? I found a bunch of them crawling around the rim of a ppk site. Couldn't see anything on the plant itself. These pics are taken at only 4x magnification. Little bastards are huge. I can't identify these bugs. Anyone know?
What is this? I found a bunch of them crawling around the rim of a ppk site. Couldn't see anything on the plant itself. These pics are taken at only 4x magnification. Little bastards are huge. I can't identify these bugs. Anyone know?