Dwc low ph issues

I was given a cloned Sasquatch plant as a gift.
600w sodium, e-ballast, 12/12 light, 4x4 tent, 73 degrees tent temp, cooled hood with carbon filter.
It was very healthy looking and at the end of the veg cycle. I'm doing a 5 gallon dwc with 3.5 gal nute water.
It's the typical hydroton pebble basket with red bull sized air stone. I've done this before but had root rot issues because of Rez temperatures too high. This time they are about 64F.
I'm using the simple general hydro flora trio and hydro guard to prevent root rot.
I was using equal parts of the trio at 1.2 ec at the start of flower, then on 3rd week flower I switched it to;
4 tsp micro, 2.5 tsp grow and 5.25 tsp bloom
Then ph'd to 6.1
This gives me an ec of about 1.5 using my truncheon meter

After 2 days my water level is about 1.5 gallons down (which is good) but ph has fallen to 4.4 already and ec has stayed about the same (1.4)
I'll add that after 2 weeks of 12/12 light, only a few hairs have grown at the various budding locations.
I have read that Sasquatch is a slow grower so maybe slow to start the flower process too.
Not overly concerned about that just yet, but the falling ph has me worried.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

After those two days do you PH up it and then it stabilizes/doesn't drop as drastically or are you having a consistent drastic drop? My last grow was using the similar setup, same size bucket, same nutes with hydrogaurd. Once I was 2 weeks into flower I got an almost consistent .2 PH drop per day, although I don't count my first day after res change because the first 24hrs my PH always climbs up to 6.2ish(I think the nute buffer PH causes that) and I have to drop it back down to 5.8.

btw why are you running that low of bloom nutes? Following the bottle you should be at 2-micro 1-grow 3-bloom or with your numbers 5 tsp micro - 2.5 tsp grow - 7.5 bloom? And yeah I wouldn't worry about the hairs.

I'm going off a different chart someone posted on here. I'll try to post it when I get time.

By coincidence, when I went to to bloom nutes, I also received my HM ph meter. Before, I was using I think GH drops to check ph.

The only way I have been adjusting ph is to use fresh ph'd 6.1 nute water for top off every 2 days. Of course that doesn't bring it back to ideal.
I'm considering switching to AN nutes. all the propaganda and hype they spout off about is a big turn off to me, but I have heard it's a good product.

After 2 days my water level is about 1.5 gallons down (which is good) but ph has fallen to 4.4 already and ec has stayed about the same (1.4)

I use GH as well. My girls liked a lower ec in flower than they did in veg and when in flower, I personally dropped the grow and went to a 2:1 ratio bloom to micro (w/ calmag for ro water) and hydroguard. In veg, and into flower, the ph would rise, but when into flower, it would drop like both of you are describing. For some reason, the girls liked a lower ec in flower, that seemed to stabilize the ph a bit. If your ph drops like that, you really need to get some ph up (and down) to regulate the ph, because if it's too low, they wont' drink, or absorb nutes. When in flower with rez changes, I set to 6.0 ph and go from there. ph up is cheap and lasts a long time.

Thanks for your input fellas. I do have ph up and down and I use it after mixing nutes.
I live in Alaska and use rain water off my roof. It goes into a tank that does get a small amount of organic in it, like hemlock needles and such but it ph's at 6.0 and the highest tds I've seen is 3. That was with my old meter that had very high resolution. It doesn't even register on my truncheon. I've been out of town the last last 5 days and had someone topping off with premixed nute water while I was away. I had an air stone running in that bucket since I left. I had my friend check the Rez with my meters and ph was falling too fast still. So I had talked him through mixing a new batch at a lower ec of about 1.0 to 1.2 and ph 6.1. That was 2 days ago.I got back tonight and tested the makeup water. It rose to 6.5 and ec raised from 1.0/1.2 to 1.4(truncheons resolution on ec is 2 tenths).
In the tent ec raised 2 tenths and ph rose this time instead of falling and she drank a shit ton of water. I think I was running a bit hot on the Nutes.
On the upside, despite all the ups and downs, my girl is absolutely georgeous! And the bud sites went from having just 4-6 hairs to like 50 and some a bit of bud growth amongst em too. Color is fairly dark green and healthy looking.
I'm going to mix again tomorrow and let sit with air stone for 36 hrs depending on what numbers I get tomorrow.
I'm gonna try keeping a small amount of grow in there but increase the micro to bloom ratio a touch and see what happens.
She better not get much taller as my light is about maxed on height.
Maybe I can get a pic on here if I can remember how to post them. I could use some help there too. I have a photobucket account.
Black Forest, do you use any bloom boosters from GH? If so what do you like?

This morning, I've been experimenting with the Lucas formula a bit. With 8 micro and 16 bloom in 1 gallon I am reading an ec of 1.9 and a ph of 4.4. I dumped that and did a 5/10 mix and got 1.1 ec and ph 4.6.
1.9 seemed hot to me. A 6/12 mix is 1.3 ec.
Should I risk changing things up or try to dial in my current method?

are you using RO water with lucas? my pH is always right about 5.8 with lucas. try just nutes and RO. no other additives. mabye some cal/mg if needed.

and you can use any 1:2 ratio with lucas. i start at 1:2 for seedlings and slowly work up to 5:10 i grow at high altitude and 8:16 will give me nute burn.

No, it isn't RO. A couple posts up I mentioned my roof rainwater has no tds, so it's pretty pure. Or is there something about RO that has nothing or little to do with tds?

have you measure the ppm/EC of it just to see?

if i mix up a gallon of RO and 5/10, it will pH itself to right around 5.8 ish.

Yes as stated above. 5/10 measured 1.1 ec and 4.6 ph
And that's with GH flora micro and flora bloom, not flora nova.

your EC sounds right on. let it set for an hour and then check your PH again. see if it goes up. it should. if not, how close is a store where you could buy a gallon of RO and try it again?

i didn't like the flora nova. it was too thick and i always had stuff at the bottom of my res.

No RO in my area. I do have an RO 3 stage I used to use for my saltwater aquarium, but them filters are way old.
I'll put an air stone in for the day and check it tonight

yeah, try letting it sit. i'd be surprised if it didn't creep up to a usable range 5.5 to 6.1

I think your ph meter is off. If you have any drops left you should compare them. I have never had to go over 1.0 EC with my plants on GH.

My ph meter is dead nuts on. I have 4.01 and 7.0 and it hasn't drifted a bit.
The 6/12 ratio I mixed up earlier today did come up 2 tenths today but is still low at 4.9 ph

Natureboy, what ratio were you using? I did get 1.1ec using 5/10.

Use more pH up. When you run out, get potassium hydroxide flakes.

Goldpan67 said:

Natureboy, what ratio were you using? I did get 1.1ec using 5/10.

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Yup, 5/10 in tap water therabouts maybe a little extra water to get .8-.9 EC. PH and PPM's stay pretty steady, using hard water micro. Last time I had a PH meter it would be accurate in the calibration solution but I could never get the same reading back to back in nute solution. I could test it 4 times and get 4 different readings. Too complicated and time consuming for me.