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5.5 to 6.5 is acceptable, 5.8 to 6.2 is perfect.

Nutrient water and water in the plant will balance themselves out. If you have high EC in the plant and low EC in the nutrients, the plant will leech nutrients back into the water, raising the EC in the water but lowering the EC in the plant. Same concept as RH% in the room, plants will...

You'll be good man, sounds like you have a good setup. I've read before that some people don't flood at night, too. I've always found it easier to run the same cycle all day. It might not be needed, but it surely doesn't hurt.

That's why your pH is all over the place. RO water will become acidic whenever you introduce air -- and with no nutrients there is no pH buffering ability. You also need to be careful since prolonged exposure to RO can wear your pH probe out faster. Once you get your nutrients mixed then you...

Do you have nutrients in the system or just plain RO?

I have two large air stones in my nutrient reservoir just to keep the water moving. I also incorporated a bypass after my pump that returns to the res. By keeping the bypass open slightly it creates a waterfall that helps churn up all parts of the res. For me they are not there to add O2 to...

While more water gives you a greater ability to buffer the ph, having that drastic of a drop points to other issues. Have you consulted the following chart yet? What is the EC and water levels doing while your ph is dropping like that? Personally I'd flush the system and change the res w/...

I used to until I switched grow beds. I am running The Bucket Company 10 gallon medical planters now, the insert screens that hold the hydroton also air-prune the roots as they grow out of the bag. They also prevent tiny pieces from building up and clogging in the long run, too. You can see...

Correct, they are only displaying the number to the nearest 1/10th. (Though they read higher internally.) I use my Hanna handheld if I need 1/100th display -- but to be accurate there it also takes a lot longer to give me a final #. I suspect the Bluelab is not showing the 1/100th because...

1.02EC Your meter is reading EC and doing the math internally -- it's not actually reading PPM.

ActiveAqua @ 20w is moving 400GPH w/ a max of 8' head height. DCT6000 @ 20w is moving 800GPH w/ a max of 10' head height. If I drop my pump down to 400GPH I'm pulling closer to 10w.

Asking because I don't know. Both of these are mag-drive pumps but there are vast differences in the output and head height at the same wattage, the only difference being input voltage. What explains that? My understanding when I researched this pump was that 12v was much more efficient while...

My pump (Jebao DCT-6000) is 12.5' max head. Here's what the Active Aqua stats show: Looks like it does offer a higher head height, as well. (More pressure.) Also my pump is a ceramic shaft, which is only available on the 1000GPH model of the Active Aqua. That shaft makes the pump suitable...

If you read the docs for most PPM and TDS meters they say that the reading is an estimate. That's because they are actually measuring EC and then doing the multiplication internally. Since EC is what you're actually reading, it only makes sense to use that as the data point. (And not some...

I use an external 12v pump in my recirculating ebb and flow beds. The pump is 1585GPH and has 10 speed settings which really allows me to dial in the flow rate. To answer your question... The Hydrofarm Active Aqua Pump takes 25w to move 400GPH, while my pump takes 42w to move 1585GPH. At...

Perhaps that wasn't worded clearly. I never said it did anything to the EC. I understand that keeping the pH in check is what it's meant for -- it's literally why I have it. The side-effect is that because it's using ion-exchange instead of adding an acid or a base to the solution you can now...

Correct. I could also do it like this, if I wanted... If my reservoir needs 20 gallons I could mix up a batch of 20 gallons of RO w/ full strength nutrients and add that into the reservoir. (I did this for many years.) The problem I found with that is I'd mix up 20 gallons, and end up only...

First, which ppm scale are you using? (Why don't people just use EC already?) If it's a 500 scale then that's 2.46 EC. If it's 700 (which I assume it has to be) then it's 1.75 EC. 1.75 could still be considered high, depending on the system. No waterfalls or airstones at all? I don't know...

I've been hearing "change the reservoir every 7 days" for 20 years now. It was the one part of my hydro system that I hated -- I didn't want to dump good nutes down the drain...ever. This current run I rebuilt my entire system and part of that was the Torus Hydro for pH management. One...

I have the Bluelab Guardian Connect and I have zero complaints about the unit itself or the probes. It reminds you to calibrate, which is a good thing for me since I tend to forget when the last time I did it was. The only issue I have is with the "connect" part of it. Their software sucks...