res top off help

Wussup guys and gals. I have 2 waterfarms running and had a questions about topping off the res. On the 22nd I did a res change and added 2tsp of flora micro, gro, and bloom/5 gal with an EC of .6 Last light i was doing my daily ph adjusting and the EC has drop to .3 one one waterfarm and .4 on the other. I have just been topping off with PH water so far. Should i be topping off with water that has nuits in it?
 

kilo810

Active Member
Wussup guys and gals. I have 2 waterfarms running and had a questions about topping off the res. On the 22nd I did a res change and added 2tsp of flora micro, gro, and bloom/5 gal with an EC of .6 Last light i was doing my daily ph adjusting and the EC has drop to .3 one one waterfarm and .4 on the other. I have just been topping off with PH water so far. Should i be topping off with water that has nuits in it?
maybe like 1/4 strength. I use plain RO water. You can't guage how much of a specific Nute a plant uses so trying to add them could be dangerous and cause nute burn. go with a light dose if any.
 

kilo810

Active Member
Also a small change in Ph like that is not something I would worry about. honestly I would worry about a whole digit change over night. 5.8 to 6.8 would be screwed up overnight.
 
Thxs for the quick reply. So top off with 1/4 strength until res change? On the next res change i wanted to add 5tsp of micro, gro, and bloom is that a good idea? the 2 plants are about 3 weeks into veg. according to the instruction i was suppose to use 5tsp/gal my last res change but i didnt wanna over do it cuz i was only giving 1/4 tsp/gal the res change before that.
 

kilo810

Active Member
good to be cautious less is more. LOL yes only go 1/4 strength when tooping off. Just to be safe but to keep feeding the plants aggressively. Personally I don't know what nutes your using but normally about 75 percent of the manufacturer recommendations is normally sufficient.
 

panhead

Well-Known Member
No you should not add nutes & here's why,when you start off with a fresh rez the NPK is balanced,the problem lie's with how plants feed,they dont use equal amounts of N P or K.

Lets say your ec of .6 breaks down to 300 ppm n,then 300 ppm p & last 300 ppm of k,this is your fresh rez starting point,after the ec drops to .4 obviously it means the plants have ate .2 ec worth of nutes,correct ?

Now what .2 ec of nutes is missing ? Is it N P or K,or how much of each nute,what happens if the plants only used all one part of strictly N so now you still have 300 ppm of both P & K,now you add nutes with the top off water & raise the ppm of P & K,it dont take long & your water can contain overload levels of several different nutes even though the ec still reads .6 which is very low,now you get burn or lock out with .6 ec.

Its much safer to just change the rez as often as possible,then you know exactly what ratios the water contains at all times.
 
Also a small change in Ph like that is not something I would worry about. honestly I would worry about a whole digit change over night. 5.8 to 6.8 would be screwed up overnight.
When i was giving /4 nuits my PH would jump from 5.5 to 6.7 in one day, now that i up my nuits my PH seems to be a bit more stable now ranging from 5.5 to 6.4.
 
No you should not add nutes & here's why,when you start off with a fresh rez the NPK is balanced,the problem lie's with how plants feed,they dont use equal amounts of N P or K.

Lets say your ec of .6 breaks down to 300 ppm n,then 300 ppm p & last 300 ppm of k,this is your fresh rez starting point,after the ec drops to .4 obviously it means the plants have ate .2 ec worth of nutes,correct ?

Now what .2 ec of nutes is missing ? Is it N P or K,or how much of each nute,what happens if the plants only used all one part of strictly N so now you still have 300 ppm of both P & K,now you add nutes with the top off water & raise the ppm of P & K,it dont take long & your water can contain overload levels of several different nutes even though the ec still reads .6 which is very low,now you get burn or lock out with .6 ec.

Its much safer to just change the rez as often as possible,then you know exactly what ratios the water contains at all times.
U make a good point. so when i do i res change should i up my nuits? i wanted to do one today. BTW i am using RO water PHed to 5.5 but it usuaklly jumps up to 6.4 in a day so i adjust once a day to 5.5 I am also using flora micro, gro, bloom series.
 

Warlock1369

Well-Known Member
If your useing half your water and adding fresh RO then I would use 1/4 but other then that don't see it a big deal. But don't forget useing RO you need to add cal-mag as well.
 
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