Drop That Sound
Well-Known Member
This is the closest pic I could find for the regular general hydro ph test drops most growers use, including me. Looks about spot on.
Please help me identify what these spots are
- Thread starter 420Mn
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This is the closest pic I could find for the regular general hydro ph test drops most growers use, including me. Looks about spot on.
Drop That Sound
Well-Known Member
IME, 6.0 is the yellowest yellow that it can get with GH drops. Any higher or lower, and it starts to have the slightest hint of orange or green to the yellow.
Screenshotted! Looks like I was in the 5.5 range
That's the one I have
Drop That Sound
Well-Known Member
Yeah... its not that I dislike PH meters, but you could buy 3 brand new ones of the same kind and they will all read differently. Even calibrated with the same solutions. Some are way off, even the spendier ones. Its kinda like intel computer cpus, or "top bin" led diodes, etc. They all come out a little different, but they test them towards the end for quality and grade them as top/lower bin parts. For example, if the cpu comes out a little better, they will label it as a more powerful processor (for more $$$), even though it came off the same factory line and made just like the rest.
With PH meters, they probably don't do that. They just ship them all out as is, knowing only so many are accurate. They know that maybe ??% of people won't know or use 3 different other meters to test the meters themselves against. That's my best guess anyway..
I'll stick with drops. I used them so long, i'm accurate within a .1, which is good enough for the plants I grow with.
With PH meters, they probably don't do that. They just ship them all out as is, knowing only so many are accurate. They know that maybe ??% of people won't know or use 3 different other meters to test the meters themselves against. That's my best guess anyway..
I'll stick with drops. I used them so long, i'm accurate within a .1, which is good enough for the plants I grow with.
That makes sense. Same goes for temp meters. A person could line-up multiple brands and multiple of the same brand and they all read different.
I originally planned to just use drops but people say they can be especially hard to read due to the coloring that's added to the GH nutes.
I plan to still use the pen once I figure out how far off it is by running a ph test on ro water using the drops and adjusting til it's at 6.0, then testing the water with the now recalibrate meter to figure out the difference. If it's a .2 difference I will take that into account when testing via the meter.
Thanks for all your help today man! You definitely steered this newbie in the right direction and set my mind at ease! I greatly appreciated the time you invested, man!
Fangthane
Well-Known Member
I use Recharge, which makes the water very dark. For murky solutions, I'll hold the vial up to a fairly strong light source and pay close attention to the initial reaction. You get a split second to get a good look at what happens before it mixes in very far and dilutes.
I presume you gauge your reading while the testing solution is still on the surface of the water and just barely starting to fall?
Those brown spots are starting to appear on a couple more leaves on that plant and now a couple leaves on another plant. I'm using ro water with calmag at 1/4 the recommended dose. Planning to up it to half, unless you think I should be adding more/less than that. Wondering if I should be using full strength as recommended by the General Hydroponics chart and the GH recirculating dwc feed chart that shows full strength from the beginning? The charts that show full strength calmag to start also show the micro, gro, and bloom @ 1/4 strength which mixes out at 200-300ppm. So, with the nute ratios for seedlings being on point for a starting amount, should I believe the calmag is too?
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Drop That Sound
Well-Known Member
I would go ahead and try at half strength then, and give it another week to see if it stops the progression.
Keep in mind its only been a few days since you hopefully got your PH in check.. Try not to do things too much or too fast, or cause big PH fluctuations if possible. I still feel like its more of a lockout than anything, but could be wrong.
Might wanna double check to see what EC the 1/2 dose of calmag puts you at first , before adding any nutes or anything, so you have a good idea of the real numbers your working with. I can't even recall what that would come out too..
Are you able to mix a few parts tap water in with the RO your using, to help buffer the solution a little better, and add extra trace amounts, instead of adding the extra extra calmag maybe?
Truth be told I don't feel qualified enough say much on this one.. for 1: because I haven't really ever used calmag for DWC (only when I grew in coco more often years back)..and second, because I don't use RO\filtered water either, except maybe for rare emergency situations over the years, and have gotten away with using my towns local municipal tap water the whole time now..
Most problems I ever had were just needing a little extra magnesium sometimes with a few strains, and never more calcium or iron, etc, because afaik whatever 2-3 part base nutes always had plenty, especially with DWC\bare root hydro, with no mediums throwing the ratios out of whack. Then again, I'm not too sure when using RO, but all sources point towards adding it.. I never had a big problem dialing in liquid base nutes, or even the salts i use lately in tap water.. always good healthy plants in DWC as long as i keep the PH in range and the roots wet.
How does the newer growth look now? Have you been keeping track of the res? Water level, PH, EC, temps and whatnot? That I can probably help with, and understand more whats going on.. Way better to read what the plants/res is telling you over time than to just feed based off any charts/schedules IMO.
Keep in mind its only been a few days since you hopefully got your PH in check.. Try not to do things too much or too fast, or cause big PH fluctuations if possible. I still feel like its more of a lockout than anything, but could be wrong.
Might wanna double check to see what EC the 1/2 dose of calmag puts you at first , before adding any nutes or anything, so you have a good idea of the real numbers your working with. I can't even recall what that would come out too..
Are you able to mix a few parts tap water in with the RO your using, to help buffer the solution a little better, and add extra trace amounts, instead of adding the extra extra calmag maybe?
Truth be told I don't feel qualified enough say much on this one.. for 1: because I haven't really ever used calmag for DWC (only when I grew in coco more often years back)..and second, because I don't use RO\filtered water either, except maybe for rare emergency situations over the years, and have gotten away with using my towns local municipal tap water the whole time now..
Most problems I ever had were just needing a little extra magnesium sometimes with a few strains, and never more calcium or iron, etc, because afaik whatever 2-3 part base nutes always had plenty, especially with DWC\bare root hydro, with no mediums throwing the ratios out of whack. Then again, I'm not too sure when using RO, but all sources point towards adding it.. I never had a big problem dialing in liquid base nutes, or even the salts i use lately in tap water.. always good healthy plants in DWC as long as i keep the PH in range and the roots wet.
How does the newer growth look now? Have you been keeping track of the res? Water level, PH, EC, temps and whatnot? That I can probably help with, and understand more whats going on.. Way better to read what the plants/res is telling you over time than to just feed based off any charts/schedules IMO.
I believe my ph meter was off by.2, which would have put me at 5.7-5.8. Am I correct to say that's a good ph level? I have it at 5.8.
Not sure about adding tap water. We use RO for houseplants because the water in this town is crap. It's so bad the water company is putting in an RO system, which I guess forces me to use strictly RO once that's done.
I had planned to do a full water change tomorrow as my EC pen is showing to be innacurate and I can't tell whether the plants are eating/drinking or both. Had to order a new meter last week, which doesn't arrive til tomorrow.
I was actually planning to mix calmag up in the bin first to get an idea how much EC/tds the calmag adds, then mix in the nutes, adjust ph, and do a full changeout. I figured starting fresh is probably my best bet to knowing exactly what's happening with EC, water level, and ph. Have some tds calibration solution arriving tomorrow as well.
New growth seem to be doing well. The plants seem to have taken off since starting the nutes.
The strange thing is the spots are appearing from the bottom leaves up. Starting with the first set of true leaves, which I snipped off at the advice of another grower, and now onto the second set of true leaves. The upper parts of the plant are fine.
I'm stumped.
Drop That Sound
Well-Known Member
Yeah that's a good target to stick with. Hopefully the PH will barely drift upwards over some amount of time, to just above 6 (yellow with a hint of green, NM what your ph meter says 
..) as the plants drink the solution down, and the nutrient PPM level stays roughly the same as you started with, meaning you are feeding the right amounts.
Just the slightest hint of orange, and I mean slightest you can barely see is more like 5.8-5.9 btw, at least in my experience with GH drops. More yellow than orange. Basically is piss yellow, and not really orange at all unless you look hard enough. I'll snap a pic on my next res changes..
I would add just enough calmag until you hit about 120-140 or so PPM on your new TDS meter, on top of whatever the RO is already at, which i'm guessing isn't completely pure if your town is that bad!
That should be plenty, and no way they will be deficient if everything else is good, and you can pretty much rule that part out. You don't want to add excess though, as that is a whole other problem..
Bottom up, sounds about right..
Hope everything else is good, like your water temps, and your roots most of all..
..) as the plants drink the solution down, and the nutrient PPM level stays roughly the same as you started with, meaning you are feeding the right amounts.Just the slightest hint of orange, and I mean slightest you can barely see is more like 5.8-5.9 btw, at least in my experience with GH drops. More yellow than orange. Basically is piss yellow, and not really orange at all unless you look hard enough. I'll snap a pic on my next res changes..
I would add just enough calmag until you hit about 120-140 or so PPM on your new TDS meter, on top of whatever the RO is already at, which i'm guessing isn't completely pure if your town is that bad!
That should be plenty, and no way they will be deficient if everything else is good, and you can pretty much rule that part out. You don't want to add excess though, as that is a whole other problem..
Bottom up, sounds about right..
Hope everything else is good, like your water temps, and your roots most of all..
Fangthane
Well-Known Member
I was under the impression that adding calmag dead last before adjusting pH was more or less set in stone. Not sure if there will be a silica supplement added, but if so, wouldn't adding calmag first conflict with that? Pretty sure my Pro-Tekt needs to be mixed in first, so I'm just assuming any similar products would also require that.
I use Gh nutrs and their calimagic. This is straight from their website.....When using Armor Si™ and/or CALiMAGic™, with FloraSeries®, these products should be added prior to adding FloraMicro®.
The ph drop test produces a piss yellow. The darkness of when someone is dehydrated and takes a piss.Yeah that's a good target to stick with. Hopefully the PH will barely drift upwards over some amount of time, to just above 6 (yellow with a hint of green, NM what your ph meter says
Just the slightest hint of orange, and I mean slightest you can barely see is more like 5.8-5.9 btw, at least in my experience with GH drops. More yellow than orange. Basically is piss yellow, and not really orange at all unless you look hard enough. I'll snap a pic on my next res changes..
I would add just enough calmag until you hit about 120-140 or so PPM on your new TDS meter, on top of whatever the RO is already at, which i'm guessing isn't completely pure if your town is that bad!
That should be plenty, and no way they will be deficient if everything else is good, and you can pretty much rule that part out. You don't want to add excess though, as that is a whole other problem..
Bottom up, sounds about right..
Hope everything else is good, like your water temps, and your roots most of all..
I presume that it's OK to go over 300ppm with the new water considering the calimagic addition you advised should total 120-140ppm and nutes should be around 300. So 400-440ppm total, calimagic+nutes, is a safe range?
Dameon187
Well-Known Member
I'll take a shot at it maybe needs a little nitrogen
From what I can gather online, a full dose of calimagic is closer to 400-500ppm. 120ppm is approximately 25% the recommended dose. Do you still think 120-140 is a good range for the calimagic? I was running at 25% calimagic. Just double checkingYeah that's a good target to stick with. Hopefully the PH will barely drift upwards over some amount of time, to just above 6 (yellow with a hint of green, NM what your ph meter says
Just the slightest hint of orange, and I mean slightest you can barely see is more like 5.8-5.9 btw, at least in my experience with GH drops. More yellow than orange. Basically is piss yellow, and not really orange at all unless you look hard enough. I'll snap a pic on my next res changes..
I would add just enough calmag until you hit about 120-140 or so PPM on your new TDS meter, on top of whatever the RO is already at, which i'm guessing isn't completely pure if your town is that bad!
That should be plenty, and no way they will be deficient if everything else is good, and you can pretty much rule that part out. You don't want to add excess though, as that is a whole other problem..
Bottom up, sounds about right..
Hope everything else is good, like your water temps, and your roots most of all..