Hi. I've been growing autos in coco/perlite for about a year, and about to begin my 5th run.
I reuse my coco mix and store it in a big Rubbermaid tote. When I harvest, I clean the coco, dry it, and return it to the tote. When I'm ready for another run, I mix up the batch in the tote, take out what I need, and pre-soak it with a pH'd 1/2 strength nute mix.
Today, to prepare for my next run, I pH'd 6 gallons of nute mix and water to 5.8, and mixed it with the coco mix I plan to use (2 3-gal containers worth), creating a wet slurry mix. After letting it sit for awhile, I checked the pH in the mix and was surprised to see it really low (5.3).. Well, I started adding pH-up and it took A LOT to get it to rise. I'm at 5.8 now, but I'll bet I had to add about 80mL of pH-up to get it there. This really bothers me and makes me think there's stuff I'm not understanding about how coco stores nutes. I'm not sure I should have added so much pH-up and wonder if it's going to have any ill effects on my grow.
Does anyone have any idea why it was so low, and whether or not I made a mistake trying to correct it? I can't seem to find much info out there on this specific problem. Thanks.
I reuse my coco mix and store it in a big Rubbermaid tote. When I harvest, I clean the coco, dry it, and return it to the tote. When I'm ready for another run, I mix up the batch in the tote, take out what I need, and pre-soak it with a pH'd 1/2 strength nute mix.
Today, to prepare for my next run, I pH'd 6 gallons of nute mix and water to 5.8, and mixed it with the coco mix I plan to use (2 3-gal containers worth), creating a wet slurry mix. After letting it sit for awhile, I checked the pH in the mix and was surprised to see it really low (5.3).. Well, I started adding pH-up and it took A LOT to get it to rise. I'm at 5.8 now, but I'll bet I had to add about 80mL of pH-up to get it there. This really bothers me and makes me think there's stuff I'm not understanding about how coco stores nutes. I'm not sure I should have added so much pH-up and wonder if it's going to have any ill effects on my grow.
Does anyone have any idea why it was so low, and whether or not I made a mistake trying to correct it? I can't seem to find much info out there on this specific problem. Thanks.
