New England Garage 8kw DEVA's, 54k btu, 32 plant, Ebb buckets coco top feed dtw

[Palindrome]

I would go back to Phosphoric acid, as there is nothing in muriatic acid your plants can use.

Adding muriatic (Hydrochloric acid - HCl) to your water, you release Chlorine into the water. Yes it evaporates in about 24 hours, if your res is oxygenated. HCl + H2O = H3O + Cl (clorine - not good for the plants)

Adding Phosphoric acid (H3PO4) will release phosphate (PO4, something your plant use a lot of in flower stage.

I use 85% H3PO4 and it goes a long way, so check the solution your buying. DON'T buy the stuff for koi ponds and such, thats weak solutions and they are very expencive in the long run.

Before pH adjusting, I delute the 85% with 50% water. Makes it easier to work with, but always remember to ad acid to water and not the other way around.

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

Where are you getting your 85% phosphoric? I've been using gh pH down and its usually 12-15 bucks for a quart which burns up pretty quickly in my 275 gal reservoir

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

I would go back to Phosphoric acid, as there is nothing in muriatic acid your plants can use.

Adding muriatic (Hydrochloric acid - HCl) to your water, you release Chlorine into the water. Yes it evaporates in about 24 hours, if your res is oxygenated. HCl + H2O = H3O + Cl (clorine - not good for the plants)

Adding Phosphoric acid (H3PO4) will release phosphate (PO4, something your plant use a lot of in flower stage.

I use 85% H3PO4 and it goes a long way, so check the solution your buying. DON'T buy the stuff for koi ponds and such, thats weak solutions and they are very expencive in the long run.

Before pH adjusting, I delute the 85% with 50% water. Makes it easier to work with, but always remember to ad acid to water and not the other way around.

Expounding on your above idea, i dont think Muriatic acid is as bad as it sounds... unless im completely off base with my past research on the use of Muriatic acid as PH down.

Hydrochloric acid is the salt of hydronium ion, H3O+ and chloride. It is usually prepared by treating HCl with water.

HCl + H2O -> H3O+ + Cl-

Hydrochloric acid can therefore be used to prepare salts called chlorides. Hydrochloric acid is a strong acid, since it is completely dissociated in water.

The chloride ion is the anion (negatively charged ion) Cl−. It is formed when the element chlorine (a halogen) gains an electron or when a compound such as hydrogen chloride is dissolved in water or other polar solvents. Chloride salts such as sodium chloride are often very soluble in water.

Chloride is the most recent addition to the list of essential elements. Although chloride (Cl) is classified as a micronutrient, plants may take up as much chloride as they do secondary elements such as sulfur.

The primary roles of chloride include:

Chloride is important in the opening and closing of stomata. The role of the chloride anion (Cl-) is essential to chemically balance the potassium ion (K+) concentration that increases in the guard cells during the opening and closing of stomata.

Chloride also functions in photosynthesis, specifically in the water splitting system.

Chloride functions in cation balance and transport within the plant.

Chloride diminishes the effects of fungal infections in an as yet undefined way.

Chloride competes with nitrate uptake, tending to promote the use of ammonium nitrogen. Lowering nitrate uptake may be a factor in chloride’s role in disease suppression, since high plant nitrates have been associated with disease severity.
Chloride is a critical component in the development of plants.

Factors Affecting Chloride Availability
Most soil chloride is highly soluble and is found predominantly dissolved in the soil water. Chloride is found in the soil as the chloride ion. Being an anion, it is fully mobile except where held by soil anion exchange sites. In areas where rainfall is relatively high and internal soil drainage is good, it may be leached from the soil profile. Also, where muriate of potash fertilizer is not regularly applied, chloride deficiencies can occur. Atmospheric chloride deposition tends to be rather high along coastal regions and decreases as you progress inland.

Chloride, nitrate, sulfate, borate, and molybdate are all anions in their available forms, and in that form they are antagonistic to each other. Therefore, an excess of one can decrease the availability of another. Little information is available on other specific interactions that may occur.

Chloride Deficiency Symptoms
Too little chloride in plants can cause a variety of symptoms.
Chloride deficiency symptoms include:

Wilting due to a restricted and highly branched root system, often with stubby tips, and

Leaf mottling and leaflet blade tip wilting with chlorosis has also been observed.
In particular, chloride deficiency in cabbage is marked by an absence of the cabbage odor from the plant.

Chloride Toxicity Symptoms
Too much chloride in plants results in symptoms that are similar to typical cases of salt damage.
Chloride toxicity symptoms include:

Leaf margins are scorched and abscission is excessive.

Leaf/leaflet size is reduced and may appear to be thickened.

Overall plant growth is reduced. Chloride accumulation is higher in older tissue than in newly matured leaves. In conifers, the early symptom is a yellow mottling of the needles, followed by the death of the affected needles.

Identifying toxicity in plants can help avoid long term damage.
https://www.tetrachemicals.com/Products/Agriculture/Chloride_-_An_Essential_Element.aqf

 

[gmanwho]

Where are you getting your 85% phosphoric? I've been using gh pH down and its usually 12-15 bucks for a quart which burns up pretty quickly in my 275 gal reservoir

im not sure the actual percentages, but the advance nutrients ph up an down are super concentrated. i buy the gallon an dilute it. i maintain easily 600 gallons of rez throughout. I would blow through gallons of gh down in a month

now i reuse my old gh gal containers. i fill them with ro an add 250mill of the advance nutrient down or up to the ro gal container.

only advance nutrient product i use. it is like 60-70$ for the original gallon, but it lasts me so long now. seems pretty stable once in the rez too, despite knowing that there are so many factors that will change your ph. shit, even aerating your water will change the ph....


if you wanna smooth things out. the milwaukee mc122(ithink) off ebay or amazon for $190-200 is a great low dollar ph doser. i own 6. an their ph probes are some of the best ive encountered in the past years

bwell

 

[Palindrome]

Where are you getting your 85% phosphoric?

A Greenhouse supply company

I live in an area with a lot of greenhouses, some of the suppliers have outlet stores.
I called one of the shops, asked if they had industrial strength pH down. They did, and easy as that I went to pick it up.

 

[~star~crash~]

i've used the advanced nutes ph up in the past ...it's seriously concentrated & don't let it touch your skin it will burn

 

[Palindrome]

In general, I don't trust nutrient companies who don't write whats in their product. Advanced Nutrients might have a strong pH down, on the bottle they claim it's the strongest alowed by law. But who's law? I can legaly use 85% where I am, but it's not that strong.

It's very helpful to know, whats in the bottles you work with.

Calculated from the AN bottles vol and weight, it's not a 85% solution. But it's a strong concentrate i'll give it that, so id maybe give that a try.

 

[TheReverend]

Hey bro, how do you like ebb n flow active aqua system so far? You've got 32 sites total? So are you running (2)16 bucket systems - 4 plants/light, correct?

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

I had this system leftover from previous grows. I trashed the controller bucket and used the buckets only. They are great for this drain to waste top feed system. I wouldn't pay retail for the setup though. I would try to find any bucket system used on Craigslist to piece together your own system. I had a 16 bucket system and then I bought 4 extra 6 bucket expansions that were like 70 bucks each. Now that I know the part numbers for the inner and outer buckets I would probably just buy it separate and piece everything together.

 

[TheReverend]

I had this system leftover from previous grows. I trashed the controller bucket and used the buckets only. They are great for this drain to waste top feed system. I wouldn't pay retail for the setup though. I would try to find any bucket system used on Craigslist to piece together your own system. I had a 16 bucket system and then I bought 4 extra 6 bucket expansions that were like 70 bucks each. Now that I know the part numbers for the inner and outer buckets I would probably just buy it separate and piece everything together.

Gotya... makes sense. I see lots of cats take those type of systems and mod them. Seems like none of them are suitable out of the box for some reason.

HOw about the DEva's? I see them online for $440ish... wondering what you think of them?

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

I never tried it out of the box. Just not a big ebb n flo fan but if I could score the whole setup for 300 bucks or less on Craigslist I'd snag it up. I like the drainage setup on the buckets. It drains well enough and the buckets are perfect for a dtw setup.

These are my first DE lights in operation and they appear to be doing good. They seem very well built and robust. They are low profile so I bet they could work with 8' ceilings well enough if you kept the canopy low enough. I lie that they are modular and easily field repairable and now Rev micro released a new ushio QMH bulb which is very similar to a cmh. Although.the bulbs aren't cheap having the ability to drive any 600-1200w DE has or cmh is sweet

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

My 275g res is consistently between 52-56 deg F. I'm wondering if this is causing issues being too cold? tonight i will try to catch it when the pump kicks on and measure the temp at the dripper feeding the pot.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

My 275g res is consistently between 52-56 deg F. I'm wondering if this is causing issues being too cold? tonight i will try to catch it when the pump kicks on and measure the temp at the dripper feeding the pot.

What about a smaller control res in the grow room. Whatever size u need to feed everything, then auto fill back up with a float valve, so u have constant room temp water to feed with. That's what I do. Coming out of the well its 50f or so. In my lung room, its 60f, but in the grow rooms, its 72f before it hits the plants.

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

I can get the temp into the law 60s with another aquarium heater. I might even wrap the res in insulation to get it into the mid-high 60s. The problem is when our outside temp are in the teens and 20s.

Using a res inside the room would wreck my equal distribution header which is designed now to slope back to the reservoir to eliminate stagnant feed water from sitting in the drip lines for hours.

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

Do you think 55 degree feed water is causing an issue?

 

[Mr Blah]

Do you think 55 degree feed water is causing an issue?

If you ask me, I don't think so. I believe it is the time of year in Maine.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Do you think 55 degree feed water is causing an issue?

Definitely causing an issue with uptake. Your feeding coir, not pure hydro roots in water suspension all the time, so stagnant water in a line for a few hours between cycles should cause no problems except slow bio mass build up causing fungus gnats eventually. Just cleaning or replacing the lines every so often can solve that. but as far as plant health, your plants will hum right along with a bit of water sitting for hours in those lines. Its a much better option to get that temp up if it requires stagnant water in lines.


I just run a light bleach solution with warm water through my systems after each cycle and flush with regular water. Been reusing some older manifolds like this for years now.


Whatever your choice, get those water temps up to at least 68f before they hit those roots. I prefer 70 to 72f. The lower you go below 68f, the more uptake problems your gonna have. Usually lighter color new growth was a first indicator for me to check root/water temps.

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

Usually lighter color new growth was a first indicator for me to check root/water temps.

well im definitely seeing lighter color new growth as well as what appears to be Mag def. but i think something else is causing the lockout. maybe feed water temp or possibly salt buildup still... I had worked my way to feeding every 4 hours but i think this may be a problem. im going back to feeding every 12 hours to see if this helps. my runoff was essentially equal to the feed input EC.

 

[p0opstlnksal0t]

With 2x 300w aquarium heaters res temp was at 68f when I got home. I can live with that. The problem is once filled from the well it gets down around 55f and takes many hours to get back into.the 60s. I think I'll add a third heater and see if this speed up the process

 

[chase1]

I grow in coco dtw with Rez far colder than 55 An never had a issue from it