But my point is that they will take up water as well as nutes and when using a pH-stable nute brand, pH adjustments become a thing of the past. If you're looking for a fancy gadget, I'm sorry, I can't help you there. Good luck!
I researched pH controllers and bought what I think is the best one, it's a Reef Fanatic sold at Aquacave http://www.aquacave.com/detail.aspx?ID=1902 .The Aqua Medic controllers are good but way more expensive, although I do use their dosing pumps to deliver the pH adjust solution which are great. Only Milwaukee makes a cheaper controller but it's way short on features. Here's a link to all their controllers http://www.aquacave.com/ComputersControllers.aspx
If you're pH is dropping that much, your plants are drinking more water than nutes which means you're probably overfeeding. What EC are you feeding at?
1500ppm is wicked high. I would dial that back to 1100-1200 as see how your pH is affected at that point.
Yeah, I should try 1000ppm, it's too easy to get caught in the rational of wanting to feed them more, MORE.
Whoa, you're on the .5 and feeding that high? I would leach your medium and start them at 750ppm on your scale (you may never need to increase that throughout flowering either). I think you'll find your plants will stay healthier longer and you'll probably yield more too.
When in veg, your plants are sucking down nitrogen; removing nitrogen (from ammonium nitrate or potassium nitrate) doesn't shift the pH quite so much. In these forms (ammonium and nitrate), nitrogen isn't much of a buffer system.
A good friend of mine is using DynaGro in his DWC garden and is currently in ph hell! He adjusts him ph to 6.0 and within 1-2 days it drops down to the 4.5 range. This has been going on for 3 weeks straight now. He has been on the phone several times with DynaGro but can not seem to fugure out the problem... Any ideas?????
Is he using protekt? What are his feeding levels? Does he have any infections or slime buildup in his res area? I've run DG nutes with and without organic additives as well as beneficial bacteria and have never had the issue that your friend is having. The only thing I can think of is that he has some sort of growth or he's overfeeding.
Thanks for the perspective. I re-cal'd my TDS meters to the .7 std, and diluted my rez's to 1000ppm. I'm just in veg now but It'll be interesting to see the difference in bloom.
Yes he's using Protekt, he's using the full DG line-up. He's using about 2/3 strength off the DG feeding chart. They don't show any signs of burn, he grows AK47 which i'm sure you know is a pretty heavy feeder. This is his 2nd frow using DG, same strain, no changes from his first grow using it except these new ph problems. I just recomended to him earlier that he start using H2O2 in case there is some bacteria or pathogens causing these problems. He's going out to buy H2O2 tomorrow...
1000ppm is too much for veg, cut that in half.
My AK47 is not a heavy feeder, 1.3 EC or about 950ppm on the 442 scale. Try the h2o2 and find out exactly how much he's feeding.
Really, just 500ppm for veg? Is that fairly standard? It sounds so low. Guess it would save nutrients. I've never gone that low before so I'll take your word and give it a shot
