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

[stinkyattic]

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!

[nalani]

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

[polishpollack]

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.

[Weedhound]

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.

[stinkyattic]

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

[daihashi]

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Makes no sense.

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

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.

[Wobster]

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:

[daihashi]

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:

[FreeDaHerb]

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:

[stinkyattic]

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.