Feeding my Headband

This is my first grow and I'm growing some headband in a 5 gallon DWC setup under a 400w light. Pretty much from the beginning I made the mistake of feeding her too much and burning the leaves. I am no in first week of flower and have the resevoir at 200PPM. I changed it to almost 300PPM and the plants started to burn. Recently She's been drinking a lot of water, I'm adding more daily, but not a lot of nutrients. The pH also dips from 5.9 to around 4.4 daily.

So I guess my questions are:

1) How do I know what nutrient level I should maintain and when to increase it?

2) Why is my pH dipping so quickly?

3) What does my water leverl/nutrient change tell me about how my plant eats?


Anything else you guys can think of that I may be missing would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to learn as much as I can!

Bump anyone!

That seems like a very low threshold for any plant. Even really light feeding plants usually top out around 600-800ppm. Do you have any pics of your plants? I don't think what you are seeing is nute burn. What type of water are you using? Do you know the ph and ppm of the water? Ph could be dropping cause of all the water you have to add everyday but I think it might be cause you are not testing the water correctly. You should be ph balancing the water before it goes in the reservoir. Also, you have to wait a few hours to let the water balance out after you ph it before you add it to the reservoir. It will fluctuate a lot sometimes. Gimme more info and I'll try my best to help.

Don't listen to the common DWC advice on RIU. Contrary to popular belief, seedlings actually do want food, immediately.

Everyone here insists you must starve your plants when they're young. 200-300ppm is too low for any age plant. Quit starving babies.

"You wouldn't feed babies steak!" is what they say. You don't feed them water either, geniuses. You feed them MILK. They don't drink the whole gallon container, but that doesn't mean it's not a nutrient rich solution!

Seedlings only drink a little bit of nutrient solution, not a steaks worth. That doesn't mean the water should be less nutritious, just that it consumes LESS of that water.

I only feed my children water for the first 2 years of their lives, then I start packing them bagged lunches for pre-K.

Wouldn't want them to burn them at a young age!

Oh no! Why do my kids keep getting skinnier and more sickly! The internet told me to starve them while they're growing up and the internet never lies!

(assuming it doesn't choke, your baby isn't going to die because you fed it meat. That's counter-intuitive logic there.)

i'd be inclined to disagree with the previous posts. be real careful feeding your plants in DWC and RDWC. because of the lack of a buffer and the fact that the water is your substrate the nutrients are more easily available to your plants within the solution.

in DWC i wouldn't go over 150-200ppm for babies. soil can go a little higher.

dude ive been doing dwc for 5 years now. started out just like you. I use gh products because it makes my ph stable. I can check it now and its good and in a week still good. looik up a feeding schedule. if it seems to much for seedling reduce it to where your comfy. dwc is simple. if you see nute burn, change the nutes, opposed to dirt where that's not so simple.

I would think your 4.5 ph is problematic. Start with stable ph, then worry about ppm.

Do you even know what a buffer is?

The higher your ppm is in a hydroponic solution, the more buffering capacity you have. A low ppm means you have very little buffering capacity. Distilled water has 0 buffering capacity, and thus its pH means nothing.

Buffers are salts! You're suggesting to use less salts for the reason of "lack of a buffer". Adding more salts (increasing ppm) would raise the buffering capacity.

ScoobyDoobyDoo said:

. because of the lack of a buffer and the fact that the water is your substrate the nutrients are more easily available to your plants within the solution.

in DWC i wouldn't go over 150-200ppm for babies. soil can go a little higher.

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churchhaze said:

Do you even know what a buffer is?

The higher your ppm is in a hydroponic solution, the more buffering capacity you have. A low ppm means you have very little buffering capacity. Distilled water has 0 buffering capacity, and thus its pH means nothing.

Buffers are salts! You're suggesting to use less salts for the reason of "lack of a buffer". Adding more salts (increasing ppm) would raise the buffering capacity.

Click to expand...

we have different definitions for "buffer" i guess. when we talk about buffers it's soil, rockwool, hydroton, etc... a buffer and buffering are 2 different things in my book. i gave my opinion and that's all. OP can take it or leave it.

With too low of a ppm, you will never have a stable pH.

If you add 1 drop of pH down to distilled water, it will cause it's pH to lower drastically. If you add 1 drop of the same pH down to a 800ppm hydroponic solution, the pH will barely move.

pH becomes more meaningless the lower the ppm is. I wouldn't be afraid to drink the distilled water with 1 drop of pH down in it regardless of what its pH was, because I know my body has a greater buffering capacity than 1 drop of pH down can bust.

Grandpapy said:

I would think your 4.5 ph is problematic. Start with stable ph, then worry about ppm.

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When starting with new hydroton be sure to rinse all the red out. If you don't the loose clay particles can effect the ph.