Meter Question

[GodBud]

Does it matter if the meters calibration is 1 point or 2 point? Would the following meter do everything I need it to do to successfully have a good grow?

Peace

eBay: Milwaukee SM802 SMART pH/EC/TDS COMBINED METER, SM 802 (item 280071899338 end time Jan-25-07 00:15:07 PST) (http://cgi.ebay.com/Milwaukee-SM802-SMART-pH-EC-TDS-COMBINED-METER-SM-802_W0QQitemZ280071899338QQihZ018QQcategoryZ3212QQ rdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

[blondie68]

that is the exact meter that i have. i LOVE it. easy to use, easy to calibrate, easy to read. i even had to leave town and a friend was watching my house for me checking the girls and my animals. my friend is not a green thumb but i asked him to put in a gallon of distilled water every day and then to turn on the meter and what buttons to push to make sure my ph was 5.8 and ppm around 1500. i got back and the girls looked great he said that the meter was real easy for him to use. so i have nothing but praise for my meter.
hope this helps.
blondie

[deftdrummer]

wish I had friends that are willing to help with my grow. Only problem is nobody knows about it!

[alwayssleepdeprived]

It looks like a good one to me...A really nice thing about that meter is having the cord so you don't have to dip the whole item in there...the one I got claims to be waterproof but I don't like getting anything with batteries submerged if I can help it

I was debating between the Milwaukee yer lookin at and a hanna pen tester...I ended up goin with the hanna 98129 for several reasons

1. It was a bit cheaper I think you can find it online with all the test calibration/storage supplies for like 120 including shipping

2. The ph sensor or whatever is easily replaced not all that pricey it's like 50 bucks so if it does go it's atleast some savings

3. It was a bit more accurate than that model...I wasn't super pleased with having a .2 variance on ph...this one claims a .05(to answer your 1 point/2 point question I believe the 2 point test helps with accuracy) and it has auto adjust for the temp

4. It was in stock at the local shop so I could walk out with it in hand and bring it back if somethin was wrong with it...

I haven't used it yet cause I just got it this afternoon but I'll post back tomorrow with how well it functions

I bet the milwaukee will last longer than the pen though which is a big consideration...

Honestly any tester whether Milwaukee or hanna will give you more than enough accuracy to have a successful grow so good luck and happy cultivating...let us know how it turns out

[GodBud]

The Milwaukee is working great. Very easy to use and its accurate. My girl is thriving! :thumbsup:

[alwayssleepdeprived]

Woot...I'm glad to hear it I just got done calibrating the tester and it was dead on in almost every category...to be honest I was amazed at how close it was able to peg ppm it was within 10ppm of the 1382 calibration solution every time I checked it after doin a few things with the tester...

here's some of the basic info on readings

The ph in my tank is at 5.85 and it does seem the accuracy is within .05 according to the solution tests

I found that my tap water is 190ish which is pretty high I think 200 is hard water and it's just over 100 when coming out of the britta so I'll keep using that just to keep th extra ppm out

The biggest thing is gonna be seein if the ppm is going up or down it would be awesome to know whether to give them more food or not cause after almost nuking them the last time I've been afraid to push the limit again...I'm assuming that an undernuted plant will take more nutes out and leave the res at a lower ppm and if it stays about the same it's probably eating just as much as it's drinking I'd assume maybe just a tiny bit more food than it drinks would be ideal cause ya know it's getting atleast as much as it wants to eat someone chime in if my reasoning is off ;-) ttyl

[GodBud]

My situation is pretty weird. My water out of the tap reads 220 or so. I know thats high but I just have to live with it. Whats weird is that my ppm are rising can you explain that? What would cause the ppm to go up. I was under the assumption that if the plants eating the nutes the ratio of nutes to water should attenuate. However thats not the case. My girl is looking tight though!

Peace

Day 20 Flower :thumbsup:

[alwayssleepdeprived]

It's possible you have evaporation going...if the solution was perfect and the plant drank and ate the same ratio if the water was just evaporating away the solution would get more potent over time...so say ya got 100parts of x in a 10 gallon solution if ya lose 5 gallons to evaporation you'd see you'd see 100 parts go up to 200 but I've heard a lot of people say that they notice the ppm slowly rise once they hit flower...if that's not the reason it could have something to do with the ratio of nutes the plants eat compared to what yer feedin this could leave a bulidup of a certain nute...I guess ideally the solution would stay the same strength possibly get just a little bit stronger (ie...a bit higher ppm from the point of a res change to the next)

As long as your plants look/feel healthy I'd say you are fine though besides a few of the leaves looking a bit curled down which is somewhat to be expected anyway once you get deeper into flower...from what I can see in the picture they are doing well for day 20 depending on how ya deal with those fan leaves you might be able to get 3z's per plant

Oh btw an easy way to test the evaporation idea is to just leave a bucket with the same amount of ventilation or as similar as possible to your res and see how fast it's drying up...my room is pretty cool it only gets to 75 or 77 during peak day I have 9 plants avg 10 inches tall still mix of male/female till I can tell the sex as I've just started bloom...but I go through a gallon per day

[GodBud]

Thanks for the advice. That could be whats going on I will look into that. What is an affective way to lower humidity?

Peace

[alwayssleepdeprived]

besides the obvious dehumidifier...Sealing the res as best you can it's the only water in the room most likely so without that leakin the air should get pretty dry especially with lights on...humidity shouldn't be a serious problem if you have adequate ventilation...I've heard of people using dehumidifiers in flower to help resin production but never during veg cause it is a tropical plant

What % humidity are you running at currently?

[GodBud]

It fluxuates between 50 and 60sh. The res is pretty tight. But its just a cheap ass gage I got at wal mart for like 3 bones so it may not be accurate. When I am standing in the grow room it doesnt feel humid and I have a fan constanty blowing on high 24/7. It rained here today and it feels pretty humid outside maybe that has something to do with it. I have read on here that 40% is what you want during flowering but I guess thats opinion. Like I said she looks really good. I hope she stops going vertical on me though she is about 3 feet right now I only have about 2 more feet to spare. I would think the palnt would start focusing on flower production any day now and stop sprouting new shoots. If you look at the thread that MisterE has on here titled Alien NLX something to that affect he grew the same thing I am growing. He had 2 females I only have one but he had a nice yield. I am thinking with just the one I have I will come close to what he got with 2 plants just the simple fact that my girl is getting all the light to herself. I am tieing fan leaves back so that all the bud sites are getting optimal light. I believe he went like 65 days so I have about a month and a half or so. I need to get a 30X lens pretty soon so I can start looking at trichs. I have never done this before so I am hoping its pretty easy. I am wondering when I need to cut off all N and just focus on P and K and then I need to figure out when to stop adding nutes all together as I begin the leaching phase. Any tips on any of the above thoughts.

Peace

[alwayssleepdeprived]

50-60 is probably fine for veg your eyes are the best doctor for the plants anyway...umm I could see 40% being a good percentage but 30% may even add more resin because the leaves will try to protect themselves against losing moisture with a nice glue coating hehe...and it helps collect pollen which the silly little girls think they have a change of gettin ;-)

You are right it's definately a matter of opinion and even moreso specific to each grow area...I'd say you can cut nitrogen way down now if vertical concerns are already approaching...on top of cutting N, supplement with a bloom stimulator on top of the bloom nutes if yer not already doing it but at day 20 they look fine to me I've never got more than a z per plant(many reasons for this including space/light limitations) so a 1/4lb cured would be a dank score off one plant

This is my first time trying aero and I've done nearly everything to kill these little ones and they're still kickin...I've never used a trich lens either but I've heard it so many times I'd take it as true, should be easy with a 30x scope to see everything you have to...I'm going to be starting a new journal with the next generation clones I create from the ladies of this batch atleast I can tell that 2 are definately female which is comforting...I'd like to get the basics down with my new system getting some real data specific to the room like temp...ph...ppm...light intensity...after I get those in line I'll worry about the little things I'm hoping to harvest 4-5 ladies and get a z each but just gotta take it one day at a time

It sounds bad but my main concern so far has been on preparing the room itself and working out how everything needs to be setup to operate smoothly...I'd really like to be able to spend less than 20 min a day working on them if possible once I get to that point I'll shift gears