hardcore ph fluctiontion

ok i had another tank chilling so i went through the process of mixing my nutes with a close eye on the grocheck no i started with ro water ph balanced at 5.9 i mixed the nutes and no drastic spikes untl i added advance nutrients barricade to the mix. Now i was aware from before that his causes a spike in ph and it did indeed go up to 7.4 so i reballanced the ph back down to 5.9 and now im waiting im hoping that ph in tank2 will not fluctuate if it doesnt then i have no clue why the other tank moves if it does than i clearly have to leave the barricade out of my mix.

barricade is potassium silicate and has been discontinued by AN so im going to stop using it since its not on the nute calculator anymore.

Do any of their other products contain Silicon?? Its good stuff and lacking in hydro medium.. Good job pegging the likely culprit though.. Also, how much of that do you add EC wise?? I'd be tempted to try it on a very limited basis for the Si..

bushmang said:

ok i had another tank chilling so i went through the process of mixing my nutes with a close eye on the grocheck no i started with ro water ph balanced at 5.9 i mixed the nutes and no drastic spikes untl i added advance nutrients barricade to the mix. Now i was aware from before that his causes a spike in ph and it did indeed go up to 7.4 so i reballanced the ph back down to 5.9 and now im waiting im hoping that ph in tank2 will not fluctuate if it doesnt then i have no clue why the other tank moves if it does than i clearly have to leave the barricade out of my mix.

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I've found that mixing different products can be problematic. eg "Sweet" used in conjunction with normal nutes will cause excessive EC. I'd just pick a good solution such as "Ionic" and just go with that alone. Also ppm is a crappy way to measure nutes - EC is much more acurate and it's universal.

But ya, mixing a soup of chemicals can cause a reaction that releases a free OH group and you have high PH.

I would just adjust PH, add a single good nutrient solution and leave well enough alone. I've even seen issues with Ionic Boost used with Ionic Bloom. The basic solutions are damn well engineered.

Actually EC is a shitty way to measure nutes, but thats all we can measure.. ppm can only be calculated, and thats not even possible with proprietary formulations..