so i started with a dwc system and strugled with root rot from the beginning. but, that's not where my first mistake occurred. first i didn't give my seedling full light until they started turning light green and showing roots out of stone wool , at this point i put them in net pots with the the roots being just tickled by nutes. on hind site i should have top fed fed them until their roots where more developed. i was using fox farms trio and was experiencing ph swings all the time. eventually i started realizing the color of the roots was not from the nutes but, from root rot that i struggled to get ahold of and may have been why i was having ph swings. i dipped my plants in pure h2o2 that probably lead to other problems but, hey live and learn. i couldn't get my water temps down either. this all lead to stunted growth one of the plants still isnt 8 inches tall but looked the healthiest from the beggining and now has the best bud growth. i eventually switched from fox farms to general hydroponics in hopes it would solve some issues from the fox farms. i started feeding at the heavy feeding level and dosing 10ml per gallon 3% h202 and still experienced what looked like calcium deficiencies but it may have been to strong of a nute solution or wrong ph i raised my ph to 6,2 and lowered the nutes to the lowest feed schedule suggested by GH and started icing my water and boom things started turning around. i decided at this point that the dwc system didn't work well for me because of water temps and loss of air flow due to tubes popping off my check valve. so, i built a flood drain system and transplanted all my plants. i rinsed my leca and bought a rodi unit to rule out any chloramine/ chlorine issues used the lowest feeding schedule and added calmag at 10ml per gallon and phed to 6,2 my tds was at 1300ppm but i did a crap job at cleaning the leca. today i got spots on my leaves that look like calcium deficiencies and my ph swung down to 4.8. and my ppm is 1500 im thinking its the leca dust that caused the ph swing that sent my plant into a deficiency again but i wanted input from others to see what they thought.
dirty leca causing ph fluctuations?
- Thread starter grow41
- Start date
HydoDan
Well-Known Member
A little chlorine in your system will keep the nasties away and stop the ph swings..
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ya i tried lowering it once thinking that could be a problem too and started noticing other coloration issues. im not convinced it still isn't an issue but without calmag im sitting at about 800 ppm of base nutes. i can say i have been running it at this level and havent had ph swings that were not related to root rot of which i am not experiencing since icing my res and now that i am running an eb flow system.
Do you use general hydroponics flora series?
Turpman
Well-Known Member
No. Does your ppm go up or down?
unfortunately i have not kept records until now, but i have never noticed much change. i usually changed out weakly and paid more attention to ph and leaf changes. this is my first grow and honestly i had problems everywhere from environmental to to many nutes to to little. i really felt fox farms started alot of the issues. once i got my water temps right and adjusted ph to 6.2 got rid of the foxfarm stuff i got my roots back. today was my first 24 hrs transitioning to leca filled flood tray. i checked my ph after one flood event and no ph change since redoing my reservoir, ill check again in the am.