pH System

R

Roy Jones

Member
I came across a good buy for an automatic pH adjuster and reader. So far it has worked amazingly well and is spot on accurate. Only problem is I'm running it 24/7 and have gone through half a bottle of pH up/down in 5 days. This was just a test run to see how everything works out.

My question is should I continue to run this 24/7 on in increments throughout the day? I have my drip feed on 3x throughout a 24 hour period.

Will it be okay to set my adjuster to turn on at the same time as the watering?
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
That sounds like a screwy system to me if it's using that much acid/base to maintain the pH. I haven't gone thru a half bottle of both combined in 15 years much less 5 days.

Is it set to keep one point of pH like always hit 5.8 o something like that? Can it be set to stay in a range of pH like 5.6 - 6.2 before it doses the nutes? It's quite beneficial for the plants to go thru a range like that so the optimum pH for various elements of the nutes is reached at times.

I switched to pH Perfect nutes a couple years ago and with RO water never bother checking pH in DWC or soilless growing with great results.

:peace:
 
R

Roy Jones

Member
Thank you for bringing up the range. Was told by previous owner it could only be set to 1 increment, however I just found a set of small screws on the side that allow me to set a range.

Apparently the range was 5.65 to 5.85 with the middle at 5.7. I now believe this was what is causing it to drain so quickly.

I have now set it to a range between 5.50 and 6.50 with midpoint bring 6.0. This should definitely help out.
 
Yesdog

Yesdog

Well-Known Member
Roy Jones said:
I came across a good buy for an automatic pH adjuster and reader. So far it has worked amazingly well and is spot on accurate. Only problem is I'm running it 24/7 and have gone through half a bottle of pH up/down in 5 days. This was just a test run to see how everything works out.

My question is should I continue to run this 24/7 on in increments throughout the day? I have my drip feed on 3x throughout a 24 hour period.

Will it be okay to set my adjuster to turn on at the same time as the watering?
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honestly you dont need down- you're generally asking for trouble using both up and down, especially if they're both buffered. it sounds like its correcting itself- I bet your solution is also getting cloudy or running a precipitate on the bottom.

EDIT: if you have any 'bounce', it'll most likely be a bounce up. Gradual trends will and should ultimately run from low pH to high. If you want to run micro-titrations- use a strong acid/base with no buffer. There is no need for buffering because the system should do that for you.
 
Yesdog

Yesdog

Well-Known Member
ugh, honestly you dont need up*

down is really the only thing you should need- if you're using RO and the ph is very unstable, you can use a verrrry small amount of up to act as buffer, then just exclusively use down from there
 
R

Roy Jones

Member
Even after changing the range up, it's continuing to run through the bottle rather quickly.

Going to stop using it as an automatic adjuster. Think it's doing more harm than good.
 
Yesdog

Yesdog

Well-Known Member
Roy Jones said:
Even after changing the range up, it's continuing to run through the bottle rather quickly.

Going to stop using it as an automatic adjuster. Think it's doing more harm than good.
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You might have some precipitates hanging around. Once things get acidic enough, they dissolve and drive the pH back up, seemingly forever, but if you chase and flush enough it should go away

Especially with phophates and carbonates, like found in most commerical pH up n down
 
Yesdog

Yesdog

Well-Known Member
rkymtnman said:
what if you put it on a timer so it can only run once or twice a day? that's the most you should be adjusting pH daily anyway.
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Yeah, especially the slow/weak acid/base/buffers. Takes forever to neutralize especially if bumping solubility limits. I've screwed things up so much adjusting too quickly. Especially with up. Honestly if you can auto titrate, you shpuld probably use the hardest (strong, not just concentrated) acids and bases u can. Nitric acid and straight lye solution. No need for buffers cause u got a machine to do it.
 
R

Roy Jones

Member
Quick update on this:

After adjusting the controller to 2x a day, it still drained quickly during those combined 30 mins. I then switched to 1x a day. Still drained fast.

I have since taken it off. After doing this, I noticed the pH was still way off. I would get it to 5.8 and then it would shoot up to 7.0+ within hours.

Water temps stay cool at 66-71*F with my water cooler.

I have since dropped the pH to 5.1 to see if this eats up all the alkaline and stuff in the water. If this solution works I will then find the sweet spot to add the pH down. EDIT: Was this a good idea?

I've been using tap water with a base of 160ppm.

pH has been tested with 2 different meters each displaying same results.

If this doesn't work, I'm guessing the only thing left would be to get an RO system although I'd rather not shell the money out for it.

Any other suggestions?
 
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BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
Would save a lot of screwing around. AN also works very well in my experience. Haven't tried the Flora 3 part but the 1 part works well too. I just wouldn't use the bloom formula, just the grow formula for the whole grow. It's better balanced.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
If it's using pH down and up both a lot then the system is not working correctly and it's not good for the plants.

I would at least buy enough RO water to fill it up with a fresh nute mix, manually adjust your pH to where you want it then set your system up for a narrow range of pH that brackets your desired level by a point or two either side of level you want. If it still goes through a lot of sol'n then I'd scrap it.

Be sure to test the RO water you buy as not all sources are the same. We used to buy ours at the local CO-Op store but they rarely serviced their machine and after buying 5 jugs that turned out to be 250ppm we no longer get it there. Amazingly enough the convenience store sells the best in town and is never over 10ppm and it's 50 cents cheaper per 5gal jug than the other good source in town.

I would get my own RO unit but my water comes from a dugout in my yard and the water would need a lot of pre-treating before I could put it through the RO filter. Would need a booster pump to keep a steady pressure as well so looking at quite an outlay of cash to get it all working right. Still might do it tho. Going to sell my Polar Bear water distiller that was $3000 new and came with the house when I bought it. Needs serious cleaning out and a new heating element that I already have.

RO water with pH Perfect nutes is the way I roll and I never even check ppm.

:peace:
 
R

Roy Jones

Member
OldMedUser said:
If it's using pH down and up both a lot then the system is not working correctly and it's not good for the plants.

I would at least buy enough RO water to fill it up with a fresh nute mix, manually adjust your pH to where you want it then set your system up for a narrow range of pH that brackets your desired level by a point or two either side of level you want. If it still goes through a lot of sol'n then I'd scrap it.

Be sure to test the RO water you buy as not all sources are the same. We used to buy ours at the local CO-Op store but they rarely serviced their machine and after buying 5 jugs that turned out to be 250ppm we no longer get it there. Amazingly enough the convenience store sells the best in town and is never over 10ppm and it's 50 cents cheaper per 5gal jug than the other good source in town.

I would get my own RO unit but my water comes from a dugout in my yard and the water would need a lot of pre-treating before I could put it through the RO filter. Would need a booster pump to keep a steady pressure as well so looking at quite an outlay of cash to get it all working right. Still might do it tho. Going to sell my Polar Bear water distiller that was $3000 new and came with the house when I bought it. Needs serious cleaning out and a new heating element that I already have.

RO water with pH Perfect nutes is the way I roll and I never even check ppm.

:peace:
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Great idea to check convenience store! That would be very beneficial. Will look into this asap.
 
rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Roy Jones said:
Okay I found some stores that sell RO by the gal and the cheapest is .50/gal. Not too bad, so I will give this a shot and see how things turn out.
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i bought 3 of the 5 gallon jugs at walmart for about 8 bucks each. 37 cents a gallon to refill at walmart.

what nutes are you using? just about all have pH buffers in them.

are you sure you don't have any root rot going on? that will cause pH to get out of whack really fast
 
R

Roy Jones

Member
I just started nutes yesterday as they just hit their 2 week mark. GH Floraduo series is what I have.

No root rot. Roots basically just got established. They look great.

From yesterday at 9AM until today 24hrs later, pH has risen from 5.1 to 6.4. Watching closely to see if it rises anymore.

Hoping the RO water will fix the drastic pH issue. Really have no idea what else it could be.
 
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rkymtnman

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Roy Jones said:
I just started nutes yesterday as they just hit their 2 week mark. GH Floraduo series is what I have.

No root rot. Roots basically just got established. They look great.

From yesterday at 9AM until today 24hrs later, pH has risen from 5.1 to 6.4. Watching closely to see if it rises anymore.

Hoping the RO water will fix the drastic pH issue. Really have no idea what else it could be.
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i love flora duo. i do drain to waste now and my pH stays constant for up to 14 days with RO. that might fix your problem.

just so you know, you will get a slight rise of pH if your roots are in the nutes all the time. it's normal. when i was doig dwc, i would set at 5.5 and let it rise to 6.1 and then readjust.
 
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