aerogarden pH rises too quickly... please help

hi

i currently have 5 baby lowryder 2s under 400w metal halide... for the first week i gave them one of the original aerogarden nute tabs, and now i give them stealthhydro's high feed nute.

ok so when i refill the reservoir with distilled water and add one teaspoon of nute, pH level goes down to about 6.2... little bit higher than what i'm looking for right? so i add half teaspoon of pH control powder that came with the nutrients to make it about 5.6~5.7.

but then after a couple of hours the pH level goes all the way up to 6.5+ and it really pisses me off. i already screwed up once with pH in the beginning(didnt have a pH meter and let it go too alkaline, what i know as nuteritient lockout occured) so my girls are still trying to recover from it.
for the past few days i've added so much of pH down powder to keep it under 6, and the plants start to look sick again. i know i'm supposed to expect some increses in pH over time, but this much in a matter of hours??

first i thought it was something wrong with my pH meter but it says 7.02 for pure distilled water.... so i guess it's working fine

i'll also post some pictures later..................
ANY comments are appreciated... thanks in advance!

I believe the PH is going to fluctuate quickly because of the small amount of water in the rez.

The reason I say this is because I am pretty big into the aquarium hobby and its a major problem when guys try to make like 2.5 gallon coral reef tanks. The way they go about fixing the problem is to create a sump.

In other words... maybe you should have another rez that pumps into your AG setup? Maybe a 5 gallon bucket or 1 gallon bucket? The more water the slower the fluctuations will be.

I use the AG 6 Spacesaver model and am doing just fine with no PH test or anything.

Make sure you meter is calibrated. I had the exact same problem when I was using spring water. After I switched to distilled my Ph has stayed consistent much longer. It might be the Ph down your using, not sure if theres a difference between powder or liquid but I use Technaflora Ph down and it works great. Or you could just switch the brand of water you're using and see if that helps.

Make sure you are using the ph meter correctly sounds like it might need to be calibrated or it could just be the water your using or lack of.

OK too much light, too much heat, not enough air.... You could actually use that thing if your plants had the CO2 to support it. I do homemade fermentation in gallon jugs method to produce CO2 in a small space where I cant be opening the door alot.

SO! theres a formula I made for you, instead of explaining it, how bout we cut to the chase...

If you have 550 sq ft of space you would need 16 gallons of fermenting sugar and water for 1400 ppm-1600ppm (lasts 2 weeks), 2 cups sugar to 6 water.

I have a 3'x5'x8' tall, closet with crap ventilation and a totally stealth in house situation... SO! its 120 sq I need, and have 3 - 1 gallon milk jugs above the grow (CO2 falls) I get 1300 - 1600 ppm. with 3 tubes 3/8 sillyconed thru the cap clipped to the grow lid, reflector, whatever... Theres a tiny exhaust fan on slo to exhaust without disturbing the CO2 fall to the plants. I have an AG or three. wanna see this next grow I do?

Heh 8 weeks, 4 plants, 5-6 ounces off autoflowering dwarf seeds from tha joint doctor. Oh and I plant 7 and I tourture 1 male cutting him back but keeping him barely alive... you should see my girls "cream" in that last week.

If this aerogarden wasen't so phucking small I could "bag" a lower branch with pollen and get the best seeds of what I grow.

Like this: plant 7 , get 2 males, 1 weak female, put 1 male and the weak female out of the house somewhere to make seeds, BUT PLEASE just allow him enough pollen for your use. Dont wreck the outdoor growers. (god if the government paid attention) Bag it for a top notch lady clone you just clipped. Take care of the other two outsiders, the weak female with him and make seeds to dump on the market. I use them to "johnny appleseed" near river and swamp banks. heheh

INCREASE THE PEACE

Cheers

My distilled water phs at 5.5. Check you meter.

Please help I have the same situation going on I have a nute lockout and can't seem to keep my ph under6.4 it's frustrating cuz I'm using a ph perfect technology called ph perfect in my nutes called sensi grow and sensi bloom ! No matter how much ph down I use it just climbs in an hour and it does this no matter what nutes I used what is making my ph rise I use distilled water that has a ph out of the jug of 7 I have tried just adding the sensi grow nutes straight to the water and tried balancing the ph to 5.5 before I add and no matter what the ph rises and stabilizes around 6.5 NO MATTER WHAT I DO please help

Hey JAB, just a thought but are you using hydroton, rockwool, or both? And did you rinse the medium out well and soak in correctly pH adjusted water before use? This could be especially pronounced if you were using the medium previously at a high pH like you stated and if you didn't completely rinse and pH correct the medium before using again. Both hydroton (more neutral) and rockwool (more alkaline) are usually to basic out of the bag in any case, and with a small reservoir this could have a big impact (esp. with rockwool) like you are experiencing.