Grow Mediums Rapid Ph drop

[zepherlight]

Hi After the ph staying stable for the whole grow up till 2 1/2 weeks ago. Suddenly it dropped 2 points. Did a res flush and change and found a small leaf had some how fell in. Got it out and pulled the piece of root it had started to decay on. Ph stayed good 2 days then started dropping again. Ph upped for two days and flushed and changed again. Same thing again. It's wanting to drop hard. Over a point in 18 hours Res temp is good, massive o2, using hydro guard and Zho. Roots are nice and white.No oder from res. Can't find anything in res out of the ordinary. It's the end of my grow on one plant and maybe 20 more days on other. They've about stopped bulking up when it drops and start putting out new hairs til it starts dropping again. Hurting my yield bad. Any idea's on what might be causing this or advice would be greatly appreciated. Happy Growing

 

[lykaboss]

I dealt with the SAME EXACT issue, Are you controlling your humdity? Its a very important factor from my growing experience. What would happen is everything would be spot on until about 3rd week into flower then my ph would drop like crazy. I contacted Dyna Grow and the guy told me... he had the same issue in the past. He suggested that i get a dehumidifier set it to around 55, and when mixing my nutes always set the PH to 6.2. Once i did this...... it corrected itself. In veg state i run my DWC system in the 5.8PH range, but once into week 2 and 3 of flower i up it to 6.2 PH..... I check it every day and adjust accordingly. But i do not have them HUGE swings anymore.

For Example...... i would set my PH at 5.8, then 24 hours later it would be bottomed out at around 4.2....

Now after i made some changes..... I set at 6.2, 24 hours later it might be down around 6.0 to 5.8, then i would just bump it up a tad.

ALSO running a compost tea is KEY in my opinion. I use Skunk labs Horticulture Root Assist Tea.

I do not run a sterile system, i tried that, pain in the ass, much rather run a tea.

It also helps with PH swings and adds a really nice buffer.

Hope this information helps, i was pulling my hair out trying to get it sorted.

 

[zepherlight]

Hi I tried to keep it at 6.2 in flower also. Been uping the water I pour in to 6.5 and after about 15 minutes it's at 5.9 then it drops about a .1 every 3 hours. I'm adjusting 4 times a day. Humidity is between 43% and 57% I'm gonna flush with water with Zho and hydro guard and let it run in there for 12 hours then change that out for mild nute solution and run it for 12 hours and then go back to my normal mix. I have florakleen on the way but I don't think it's salts. I've run the nutes at low levels the whole grow and flushed at every change. Once a week. Was surprised at how well they did on low nutes. No deficiencies at all. The root mass is pretty solid and I wonder if something else is in there but I can't see it if it is. I'm very careful about anything getting in and was surprised to find that one leaf but where it was is clean and white now. Ph was stable at the end of my last grow with mostly the same mix. I'm at a loss.

 

[lykaboss]

How is your water quality? I use an Stealth RO 100 and my water comes out to 0 PPM's and 7.0 PH
Have you tested you plain water? Are you using RO water?

Also what kind of nutes are you using? Are they quality nutes? how are you mixing them?
Seems like something is way out of balance

 

[zepherlight]

Hi My water is tap. Comes out at 62 ppm and 7.1 ph. Water test showed low chlorine and I let water sit bubbling 24 hours before use. I pushed the ph up a little harder yesterday and this morning it hasn't dropped as much as it had been. Knock on wood. May wait and see before flushing again. As far as I can tell I have kept the res conditions as perfect as possible so I'm really curious as to what could have caused it. Does decomposing plant matter lower ph? If that's what it was. I would really like to know what conditions cause ph fluctuations. Be nice if there was a list of those things. The nutes are GH flora duo, koolbloom, cal-mag, hydro guard. Use Zho day after res changes. Nute parts at mild strength. No higher than 550 ppm and they have loved it at that level. No tip burn till it hit 600. And I mean very mild tip burn. When ph dropped to 4.2 tips browned quarter of a inch. That only got down that low once but it shut down all growth for a few days. Got new hairs exploding out again now that I'm working like mad man to keep it stable. Oh and was using silica and humic supplements but stopped last week since the one is close to finish. They only raised it .2 ph when I was using them. May switch to rhino skin next grow. Understand it's more ph stable. Well I'm hoping it might be clearing up. Hoping, praying, heck I'm gonna do a burnt offering to the weed God's right now. Lol. Happy Growing

 

[pyrokev]

decomposing plant matter will raise your PH