pH in hydroponics (auto-drip coco)???

I recently got my plants a hydroponic system, but keeping the pH level in it at 5.5 - 6.0 is really difficult. The water with nutrients in it is at about 6.8, and then we add "GHE pH down" which lowers it to 5.5 - 6.0. But after a few hours its back to 6.5.
Could the problem be that the plants are eating up the nutrients and leaving the pH closer to clean water pH? :P
And should i just leave the pH at 6.5 ?


Oh btw, plants are just about 10cm tall, growing a bit slow compared to what i'm reading on this chat, but they look healthy.

Don't try to fight the pH too much. You'll never win. What you're using to lower it loses strength after a while. Why people think they need to be in the 5's I'll never understand. As long as the plant looks good, don't worry. Just consider using a higher PPM as the plant grows, if necessary.

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Originally Posted by polishpollack

Don't try to fight the pH too much. You'll never win. What you're using to lower it loses strength after a while. Why people think they need to be in the 5's I'll never understand. As long as the plant looks good, don't worry. Just consider using a higher PPM as the plant grows, if necessary.

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Please, please, please, ignore this advice. I'm sorry, Polish, but you couldn't be more wrong.

Having correct pH in a hydro system is CRITICAL to keeping your plants healthy. You need to figure out what's buffering your pH (making it so hard to get it to go down). What type of water and nutes are you using? What's your TDS/PPM at right now? What's the grow medium? How does your reservoir smell? How do your roots look?

Hmmmm....think that about covers the key questions, at least what I can think of for now.

Well i'm just using the regular icelandic tap water and i'm using GHE flora series nutes.
I've got no idea what you mean by TDS/PPM though :S I'm growing in Coco and me reservoir smells no diffrent then the day i got it :P I am afraid to check how the roots look cus i havent let them stay in the coco long enough for them to get some good hold i think.

He he he... its a good thing you disabled your rep polishpollack. I dont know if you can get negative rep but you'd be down there if you could judging by that post and another I've seen.

TDS/PPM - Total dissolved solids/parts per million.

This is the amount of other things in your water apart from the water itself. Sodium, Calcium, Magnesium etc. A TDS meter is a vital piece of equipment if you are growing in hydro. Without it, success is going to be near impossible.

Nalani, you have a coco starter medium and going into hydro?
Check that your nutrients are designed for HYDRO and not soil, because quality soil nutrients are designed to buffer at pH 6.7 or so, which is correct for dirt.
If your plnats are living in a coco medium for a long time, use a coco nute or add some calmag to your hydro nute.
A PPM/TDS/EC meter is definitely important for running hydro! It will make your life SO mcuh easier. I used to run without one and it was not as easy as with one- you have to change the res more often because you don't knwo your nute strength adn have to do a lot more math, lol!
I am also becoming concerned with a couple pieces of 'information' from one poster. pH is an important concept to understand if you want to play in the water!

I got 2 charts with the nutrient solution, one for soil and one for hydroponics, so i'm following the one for hydro ofc.

I agree......what horrible advice on ignoring ph and I always love it when people like that pass their WONDERFUL info so freely.

Now who does that remind me of Stinky?

Nalani, can't help you as I don't play with coco but good luck with your growing and sorry for the threadjack.

lol... '.:karma:.0.o'?
All right Nalani let's get your system explained- is it a pure coco system? What TYPE of hydroponics is it?

The correct style of hydroponics that involves Coco is a hand-watered or drip to waste. Recirc can work, but can also be difficult to maintain. What is your style?

Tell us a bit about your watering schedule, what the criteria you used to set that schedule are? Does your coco ever dry out fully, or does it stay quite wet all the time?

What brand of coco is it? I see long fibres and that is good. Did you rinse it before putting in plants, or did the package state that it had been pre-rinsed?

Have you ever flushed it out well with clean water?

I very VERY strongly recommend either going to a coco-speicific nutrient system such as Canna Coco, or adding CalMag to your nutes. I'd lean towards the coco nute because it solves not just the Ca scavenging issue, but also buffers your medium correctly.

Edit- I still have yet to be convinced that you actually have a problem there, lol! The plants don';t look sick!

Well i don't think there is a problem, but my bf is being a bit paranoid so we just want to be sure. Also, better to get everything right so it won't become a problem. :)

And to answer your questions;


I don't quite understand the question about style of the hydro :wtf:

Theres no watering schedule. The pump is on all day and all night so the coco never dryes out.
The coco just came in a black bag, that you could even use as a flowerpot (the store had one where they had just watered the coco, put the plant in and volla! a plastic bag plant pot!) so i doubt it should have been rinsed. We only watered it a bit to fit it in our pots.
The nutrients we are using are probably the best ones we can get in little Iceland. GHE flora series, which has a chart for hydroponics, and it says " Application chart; Aeroponics, Coconut fibre, Grorox, Rockwool."


Thanks a lot for the help so far :jointsmile:

Okay, just checkin. So it is on a constant drip style. Are you running drip to waste, or drip back to the reservoir to be re-used? If you re-use nutes, remember to change the res every week!

re-used. i think tomorrow it will be 7 days since we put it up, so we will change the res then.

Wobster, the issue being asked about is pH, not TDS/PPM. I was aware of this but I don't think you were.
Weedhound, you told Blizzin in another thread to drop his ppm to around 600 from 1200. That will kill his plants, yet you pass around this bad information freely. Perhaps you're the one who is mistaken? Watch pH in a hydro grow, but what I was saying was don't try to fight it too much. Even some of you who say that nalani's plants look good must be saying something about the pH. Nalani says it raises and they can't keep it down, and you folks tell her to watch the pH closely but the plants look good. Makes no sense.
With people in these forums it's always pH nute lockout here and pH nute lockout there. I don't get it. You just end up chasing one problem after another.

All I have to say is......you are absolutely right........you don't get it. Nuff said. I have no interest in arguing with you.

Again, Nalani, good luck.

Hey. I changed the thread title because coco behaves differently from other hydro and we need to get some coco-nuts interested in your nice looking, healthy, plants... lol

Did someone say coco nut? lol

I'm reading through the thread. I'll put my thoughts in here soon.

And polishpollack.. you're wrong on all accounts. I've been watching your posts and you've been spreading some really bad information around. If anyone takes your advice you're going to screw over their crop.

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Wobster, the issue being asked about is pH, not TDS/PPM. I was aware of this but I don't think you were.

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Well apparently you weren't aware that it DOES matter to monitor your PH. Sit down and shush until you can learn to spread good advice.

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Weedhound, you told Blizzin in another thread to drop his ppm to around 600 from 1200. That will kill his plants, yet you pass around this bad information freely. Perhaps you're the one who is mistaken?

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No, perhaps you were the one who was mistaken. When dealing with a sick plant you want to cut back on the strength of your nutrient solution. Truth be told you could run PH'd water with just some calmag in it and your plants would probably be fine for a while.

Lowering your solution strength is key to diagnosing symptoms in a plant. The idea is to lower it to the point to where it's not likely that nutrient lockout is occuring due to another nutrient but still keep it at a dosage where the plant can feed. In addition a high PPM solution can be hard on the root system if the roots are sick.

Sit back and shush until you can give good advice.

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Watch pH in a hydro grow, but what I was saying was don't try to fight it too much. Even some of you who say that nalani's plants look good must be saying something about the pH. Nalani says it raises and they can't keep it down, and you folks tell her to watch the pH closely but the plants look good.

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While PH rising once through the day won't kill you; if you leave your plants like that for 2 days or more then they can suffer a number of issues. Being out of your PH range will cause a number of deficiencies and lockouts that are all linked to each other. Essentially causing a chain reaction which will erupt in a multitude of symptoms making it very difficult to diagnose.

Rather than do that why not check your res 1 - 2 times a day and make sure you're in the correct PH range.

Again sit back until you can give good advice.

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Makes no sense.

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You're right.. you don't make any sense.

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With people in these forums it's always pH nute lockout here and pH nute lockout there. I don't get it. You just end up chasing one problem after another.

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Majority of all problems result from PH issues. In soil or coco or soiless you have possibility of creating a ph situation even if you are always watering with ph 6.5 water. Reason being is that nutes break down into salts (if you are not using organic nutes or something with a chelating agent like molasses); this creates issues in the soil chemistry making it difficult for you to ever bring it back within range if you haven't been flushing the plants on a semi regular basis.

In hydro even going from let's say 5.8 to 6.3 an create a significant amount of lockout issues which in turn are linked to other nutrient uptake or plant symtpoms.

For instance, a K lockout can create conditions that leave your plant looking droopy and sad. Reason being is that K is responsible for the turgidity in guard cells which open and close the stomata. When they lose their turgidity the stomata stays closed and it is unable to breath or transpire correctly; in turn leaving you with a sad looking plant.

Now this doesn't always happen, but it's an example of a situation that is genuinely a lockout but you wouldn't ordinarily guess it was.

Again.. sit down and shush until you can give good advice.

Polish, I explained what TDS/PPM is simply because nalani said 'I've got no idea what you mean by TDS/PPM though'.

I don't grow in a hydro setup, nor have I any experience with coco, so I dont offer advice on maintaining one. I will however try to help people understand things that they don't understand already. :S3:

On to the actually coco part of my reply. You're in for some good news; coco is one of the most diverse mediums in terms of PH.

Coco can operate under hydro, soilless, or soil ph ranges. Meaning it's total ph range stems from 5.2 - 6.8. However with that said once you pick a ph range you want to use then you need to stick with it. Constantly fluxuating PH can be a stressor to the plant.

I like to keep my PH around 5.7-5.8 just because coco is fairly inert and the roots do better in acidic conditions when in a medium that is inert. However if I accidentally mix up a batch of solution that is 6.0 I don't stress about it; but that is only because the nature of the medium. I want everyone to understand; even polishpollack that if I were growing in hydro then I would be a stickler about being EXACT on the ph I wanted.

I see you're running a drip system. When running a continuous drip system you must be sure to flush your medium at least once every 4 weeks. The reason being is salt buildup. Even though coco is an inert medium salt can still destroy the chemistry of the medium. Salt will create some very drastic ph fluxuations that you need to be aware of. A simple flush once every 4 weeks takes care of this. Transplanting is also recommended at this point.

Keep in mind that you can confine plants to a slightly smaller pot than you would in a soil grow as long as you're willing to water it more frequently. At the same time though.. you can't stay in the same pot forever. You will eventually have to transplant.

The quality of coco is also important. Many coco distributors make their coco through a steaming process. This typically isn't a big deal so long as you flush a few times and presoak your medium. Reason being is that steaming the coco helps to release nitrogen nitrates within the source of the medium itself. This is toxic to plants ad also messes with PH. Canna Coco is RHP certified and not steamed; therefore does not have this problem. This is what I use but you can use any brand coco so long as it's not steamed.

To be honest; your specific PH fluxuation does't seem to be coco related at all.

When you are refilling your resevoir where are you getting your water? You said tap water so I'm going to assume that it's STRAIGHT from the tap. When pulling water from the tap you have dissolved solids that can make it difficult to reach and maintain a proper PH. These dissolved solids can act as a buffer and will bring your PH back up until some of these solids evaporate off.

If possible try filling up water and taking the TDS/EC measurement... let that water stand for 3 days and take it again.

So long as you're below 300ppm on your tap water then you're probably fine.


Like others here have said. Your plant looks great and doesn't look sick to me. Tell your bf to stop being so paranoid. :hippy:

You should be using Reverse Osmosis water dude... daihashi is right on about the tap water..I can guarantee you it is probably a high PH to start and at least 200-400 ppm probably buffering that PH back up quickly with dissolved highly alkaline minerals found naturally in your water table like magnesium for instance. Buy a RO water machine to run your water through first from your tap or buy bottles at the store or have it delivered...you have to start with clean water, this is absolutely vital. Do this and you will avoid PH & general nutrient problems in your hydro system. Also, FYI a slow PH drift is natural as plants slowly use up available nutrients in a hydroponic solution and evaporation occurs, add in oxygenation, rinsing through a non nuetral grow media, etc and there is almost always some PH drift. Most growers start out just a little bit lower when setting the PH in a brand new nutrient solution and let it naturally rise slowly up to around the 6.2 range or so as different primary elements have higher availability rates at various PH ranges and plants seem to respond well to this as it mimics conditions found in nature with changing water tables and soil layers, rainy days & drought etc (all which would affect the PH below the soil in the root zone) The PH of 5.8 seems to be ideal in water culture for maximum uptake of just about everything & even still many growers use a PH closer to 6.5 like they are used to doing in soil and even then they do just fine as most new fertilizers use highly chelated nutrients with very fast bio-availability along with humic & fulvic acids contained in additives and organic hydro nutrients in which case if your PH is off you probably won't even notice a difference as these substances greatly increase nutrient uptake across ALL PH ranges...change your nutes once a week and you should be fine. Remember, start with CLEAN water every single time..that means reverse osmosis or distilled only! You will find you have a much more predictable and stable PH this way..another thing to note is that some coco media has a very high PH due to mineral salts present from their place of origin and processing and even if it says it is pre-rinsed you should soak it before using unless you are absolutely sure it's of the highest quality and has a near nuetral PH. Rinsing water through it and then testing that runoff PH is a good way to tell if it needs to be rinsed or not. Ok, I am done. :)

Hope my rantings help! Peace! :rastabanna:

This grow ain't broke. I see nothing to fix.
You can run coco just fine on most tap water, using correct ferts, unless your tap water is unusually bad. I've done it. You just need to run by the numbers, with a good EC meter. It's a matter of knowing your background mineral content and adding calmag if needed. Coco grows require more calcium than other media.

I agree, it will work OK...but if you want it to be puuuuurrrrrrfect..go with clean water everytime. It does'nt make sense to have the best lights, nutes, strains and techniques and then feed them tap water that most times contain high levels of chlorine, excess minerals harmful to plants and fluoride, etc. Invest the few hundred bucks in a good R.O. water filter it is literally one of the best possible things you can buy for your grow.

PS - your plants look great! :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by FreeDaHerb

I agree, it will work OK...but if you want it to be puuuuurrrrrrfect..go with clean water everytime.

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I've always had a sick fascination with people that get so caught up on their own growing techniques and situations that they refuse to consider other methods might actually be as good or superior, depending on the individual grower's situation. Suddenly the ego gets kicked into high gear and "this worked for me" suddenly turns into "I'm right and you're wrong" or at least "my system is optimal and yours, while it will work, isn't nearly as good".

I've got grow going now with a strain that loves a LOT of food. It thrives at a TDS almost 30% higher than most other growers use. I've used distilled water for all my grows and yet every single time I've run this strain, it ends up showing cal-mag deficiency starting around day 10 of 12/12. By the time it's finally ready to harvest, the plant looks like a two week old corpse.

This time around I'm taking Stinky's advice and using tap water (mine runs ~180ppm right out of the faucet). I keep a bucket of water sitting under the sink to allow the chlorine to evaporate and I've been using that to top of my reservoir. I'll let you know in about 3 weeks if the tap water makes any difference.

But, no, distilled water doesn't always make for a "puuuuurrrrrrfect" grow.

just to be clear, icelandic tap water is probably the cleanest water you can get :thumbsup: We even have a "joke" about it, where some icelanders sent some water samples out of the country to get it diagnosed, and the reply they got was "Send us your real water, not distilled water!" :D

Also my brain doesn't understand those big plant growing words too well xD But thank you all for your advices!! :jointsmile:

"Wobster, the issue being asked about is pH, not TDS/PPM. I was aware of this but I don't think you were.

Well apparently you weren't aware that it DOES matter to monitor your PH. Sit down and shush until you can learn to spread good advice."

To Wobster, sorry for the ding, however it just looked at that moment that you were off topic. My apologies.

To daihashie, I was saying don't fight pH. Check if you want, it's good that people do, but I've grown some killer plants without checking either pH or ppm, so perhaps I should have said that to be clear and yes, I guess I'm a little biased. The words "don't fight the pH" shouldn't be confused with "don't check the pH." Not the same. I was surprised by the response my words received in this thread. I find it hard to believe that lowering ppm with aid in solving a problem. Wobster didn't state how long ppm should have been lowered, so it was confusing. Stinkattic has it right by simply saying she doesn't see anything wrong with the plants. This is what I meant when I said don't fight the pH. If you have the time to keep a 6.0 pH and it works for you, by all means, do it. It's funny I get told to shush when Stinkyattic comes along and contradicts those who are telling me to be quiet. So the pH stabilizes at 6.5? Why insist pH must be elsewhere when plants look good? I have grown six foot plants without checking a thing. I'd show you pictures if I had a digital camera. The only real problem we face is being unable to ask plants what they prefer. About molasses, doesn't that work only with bacteria in soil? There won't be much bacteria in hydro, right?

Molasses will work in hydro too, but personally, unless I were COMFORTABLE running a TRUE hydro-organic regimen with healthy reservoir flora (beneficial microorganisms), I would stick to something like Sweet.
6.5 is a perfectly fine pH for coco and there's no need to fret over it if it stays there.

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Originally Posted by polishpollack

To daihashie, I was saying don't fight pH. Check if you want, it's good that people do, but I've grown some killer plants without checking either pH or ppm, so perhaps I should have said that to be clear and yes, I guess I'm a little biased.

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This piece of advice is just bad practice. Especially to a person who is trying to troubleshoot a problem. It just so happens that this person didn't actually have a problem; however if they did and you told them don't fight the PH then you would've possibly sent them down the wrong path or worse... indirectly been the cause of screwing up their crop.

There is no room for bias when giving advice. There is SOLID growing practices and then there is what we all do in our own grows based on our personal experiences.

If it's a personal experience then express it as such. Don't say something like that so nonchalantly like that is the best way to work with plants.

As I said; it was bad advice.

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The words "don't fight the pH" shouldn't be confused with "don't check the pH." Not the same. I was surprised by the response my words received in this thread. I find it hard to believe that lowering ppm with aid in solving a problem. Wobster didn't state how long ppm should have been lowered, so it was confusing.

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Well you said flat out in another thread that lowering it will kill a plant. Fact is that it will not kill a plant. Plants maintain their own stores of nutrients and can go a little while with water that has 0ppm.

This was another situation where you tried to state your personal opinion as irrefutable fact.

It was just bad advice.

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Stinkattic has it right by simply saying she doesn't see anything wrong with the plants. This is what I meant when I said don't fight the pH. If you have the time to keep a 6.0 pH and it works for you, by all means, do it. It's funny I get told to shush when Stinkyattic comes along and contradicts those who are telling me to be quiet.

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Well first off I highly respect Stinkyattic; however what she says does not dictate whether I agree with her or not. She has worlds of experience over me but I am not dumb by any means and if I have my own thoughts as to what the issue may be then I will state it.

And just 'works for you' may not be necessarily ideal for the plant. The key is to learn how to grow the correct way and not learn how to grow through a chain of decisions that are just convenient for you ie: growing at 6.0 ph when your correct ph range is between 5.3-5.8 (if in hydro.. this is just an example and has no relevance to the thread.)

Please show me where Stinkyattic contradicted me or anyone in this thread? Everyone that posted in this thread put up information that was relevant or supplementary information to what someone else said.

Sorry but don't pat yourself on the back just because you felt Stinky took up your side. I don't see it that way and even if she did it wouldn't change my thoughts:

Bad advice!

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So the pH stabilizes at 6.5? Why insist pH must be elsewhere when plants look good? I have grown six foot plants without checking a thing. I'd show you pictures if I had a digital camera. The only real problem we face is being unable to ask plants what they prefer. About molasses, doesn't that work only with bacteria in soil? There won't be much bacteria in hydro, right?

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Just because something looks good doesn't mean that it is right, or that it's growing in optimal condition. If you know what you're looking for then a plant actually will tell you what it likes and doesn't like.

Molasses is usable in hydro grows; however molasses has been known to clog the parts used in a hydro grow; therefore it's recommended people use Sweet, Boost or some other carb supplement instead of molasses.

I am really not trying to bust your ass or be mean. Just be careful about the advice you are handing out.


oh god.. Here let me disect this post. I really don't want to get into an argument over this so I will point out why what you did was wrong.

No worries polishpollack. I think some of the arguements arise from the way we translate things. We come from different corners of the world and use different terminology that can cause confusion. I think the reason ur getting pulled over a lot of the things you say is because you seem to state them as fact rather than opinion. Peace to all... we all got the same love afterall :hippy:

This is getting ridiculous. Why are we still arguing about 'you said this, i said that'?
Shoo shoo, everyone get moving along and go grow something.