PH issues in my Aerograden

i'm 7 weeks into flowering and i'm using foxfarm nutes an for the last 2 weeks ( maybe more ) my ph has been pretty much unmanageable
most of the time its around 6.5 no matter how much ph down i use
and when i can get it to drop it plummets as low as 3.25

i've heard that rockwool can cause the ph to be unstable but its never been this bad
i have seen some white stuff building up in the drippers so i figure maybe some of my nutes are gettin caught up in the drippers

Any help would be very much appreciated

Ditch the pH down. I've tried that, lemon juice and neither of them worked well for me. I suggest grabbing some concentrated H3PO4. It's very slow to loose its strength, and acts as a self buffer so that the pH doesn't really jump around too much. Also, you only need very little to bring the pH down to 5.5, so a small bottle will last a bit.

Mike: are you changing your nutes weekly and giving your reservoir a good scurbbing? It sounds like you might possibly have and algae bloom going on in your tank and the white stuff you described might be mold or mildew. Take a whiff of the smell in your tank too. If it smells like polluted water that pretty much seals it. I've had problems with both until I put covers on my planting cages, switched to black plastic drip irrigation hose to your air stone and sealed off the unused planting holes. The paper covers from A/G are adequate but the plastic net pot covers form your local hydro store are even better. Light getting into your reservoir can do this. I hope this helps. HSA

unfortunatly my PH issues along with a mini heatwave killed my girl off
but i learned alot an i'm gettin ready to put together my own hydro setup in a couple of days, get a new fan for my grow closet an pickup some 55 watt cfls

BeavTek said:

Ditch the pH down. I've tried that, lemon juice and neither of them worked well for me. I suggest grabbing some concentrated H3PO4. It's very slow to loose its strength, and acts as a self buffer so that the pH doesn't really jump around too much. Also, you only need very little to bring the pH down to 5.5, so a small bottle will last a bit.

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that H3PO3 stuff is something i'm gonna have to look into

HSA said:

Mike: are you changing your nutes weekly and giving your reservoir a good scurbbing? It sounds like you might possibly have and algae bloom going on in your tank and the white stuff you described might be mold or mildew. Take a whiff of the smell in your tank too. If it smells like polluted water that pretty much seals it. I've had problems with both until I put covers on my planting cages, switched to black plastic drip irrigation hose to your air stone and sealed off the unused planting holes. The paper covers from A/G are adequate but the plastic net pot covers form your local hydro store are even better. Light getting into your reservoir can do this. I hope this helps. HSA

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i did all the nute changes and scrubbing but theres no way for me to get to the inside of the drip system so i guess i'll just have to use some hydrogen peroxide to clean the whole thing out an put together some sorta cover for the thing cause that aerograden has all sorts of places for light to leak in

sounds like salt build up from too much synthetic nutes.

superstoner1 said:

sounds like salt build up from too much synthetic nutes.

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i dont know about that, i only use organic nutes

From the white deposits and freefalling PH it sounds like a hard water issue.
It does a great job of resisting ph changes until the buffering capacity is used up and then the Ph tends to drop like a stone without warning.

Had the same prob using fox farm nutes in my 2-3600w aero rooms. Here's what I did. First, I stopped using fox farm nutes. Not suitable for aero. I hope you didn't buy too much. Only their MKP heavy tri-pack is ok for aero. My water is very soft (under 100ppm) so I know this was not the problem. Did you notice that the foxfarm nutes don't like to be heavily aerated, tend to stay milky brownish/yellow when agitated in the res of a dwc bubbler? I noticed this and I also noticed the sediment that never dissolves ( it is quite excessive ) in the big bloom container ( read big shit for aero systems, cause that is actually what it is mostly made of). Once I changed over to good old GH micro/bloom Lucas ratio, I started to get about 50% more yield and better taste. The fox farm gave me a flavor that was, well...like crap. It might work good for soil, even passive systems. Definitely not for aero or dwc. The high aeration of aero combined with guanos (shit!) give anaerobic bacteria the upper hand. This negative (anaerobic) bio load is what drops your ph. Ask any wastewater treatment plant operator and he will tell you the same.If you use any guano whatsoever in an aeroponic system you essentially turn focus from being a gardener and you instead become a wastewater treatment plant operator.Think about it...

Anaerobic bacteria would be hard pushed to survive in a well aerated system (anaerobic = without oxygen). A healthy colony of aerobic bacteria produces a lot of acidic waste (carbonic acid etc) which will cause a steady drop in ph. The symptoms point to hard water being the cause because the PH-down has a limited effect until it reaches the tipping point where the PH plummets.

most of the time its around 6.5 no matter how much ph down i use and when i can get it to drop it plummets as low as 3.25

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Atomizer said:

Anaerobic bacteria would be hard pushed to survive in a well aerated system (anaerobic = without oxygen). A healthy colony of aerobic bacteria produces a lot of acidic waste (carbonic acid etc) which will cause a steady drop in ph. The symptoms point to hard water being the cause because the PH-down has a limited effect until it reaches the tipping point where the PH plummets.
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First, the fox farm nutes should stop, than let's see where the pH ends up. Had the exact same problem ( to reiterate) switched to gh and the problem was solved. Also, there aren't too many people out there that have great aeration. they think they do, but they don't. The gold standard of aeration for any reservoir water column are the 8" aluminum oxide air stones coupled with a 50-100 watt Danner brand (or equivalent) pondmaster air pump. The air/water interface must look like a rolling boil of a deep fryer on high. So, the logical order of alleviation for the pH problem is from the easiest to the hardest. The easiest thing to do is to stop using Fox Farm in an aero reservoir, because Big Bloom is not a fully soluble product. If that doesn't work in and of itself then soften the water ( if the tap is less than 120 ppm in Cal Mag hardness that would never be the problem). But whether or not any of the aforementioned worked, better engineering controls should be implemented, i.e. gold standard fish farm aeration, simply because it yields the most dissolved oxygen in the industry. Aluminum oxide air stones (made by the Koreans) are available on drsfostersmith.com and they don't deteriorate.
I didn't say that he or she should first change the aeration and that would solve it. I said first throw out the Fox Farm liquids, they suck in aero and thats from myriad experience with it. My clogged sprayers were magically clear (I use basket screens) on every grow thereafter since switching to GH Flora.

Also, I start my pH at 5.3 and after about 6 days it climbs to 6.15 and my aeration is almost to the point of a preliminary settling tank of a wastewater facility. No ph adjusters so there goes the carbonic acid theory. Aerobic bacteria might produce that much carbonic acid like you say, but that doesn't mean there aren't other variables to overcome that.Variables like extreme growth due to extreme aeration. First raise your reservoir aeration standards to the limit that the fish farm industry practices, than a critique on the effects of high aeration can be discussed from experience. This way everybody has the same experience to compare with.

This is not a PH problem!! Just trash this FOX FARM NUTES BRAH!! I spend almost a year using this nutes in my case it was painful!! I changed my nutes and resolve all my problems man I am really happy with my results nowadays!!
I can recommend Dyna gro or if you have money just go if another brand but try to AVOID the organic stuff from FOX FARM this shit just made a lot a lot a lot mess into your system!!
Fox Farm Can work man but all good results I just see over the soil never in hydroponic system, BIG BLOOM = HEADACHES

Atomizer said:

From the white deposits and freefalling PH it sounds like a hard water issue.
It does a great job of resisting ph changes until the buffering capacity is used up and then the Ph tends to drop like a stone without warning.

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since i didnt have these PH issues the whole grow i know its not hard water and i havent had the ph issues for nearly long enough for my nutes to have been a problem. Damn near everything ya said problemsolver pretty much went over my head lol, but something tells me most of u dudes who've had problems wit foxfarms had issues with ur particular setups. Even though i think HSA hit the nail on the head i'm not gonna rule anything out yet

my second hydro grow is gonna start in a week or so. gonna make my own setup an use the aero for clones


edit
just read what ya said what ya said again problemsolver after a couple of puffs an its startin to make some sense. ur sayin the air in my system along wit the bat shit was feeding some bacteria. the thing is i dont have a dwc bubbler and my water would go back to being clear pretty quickly after feedings so i dont think we had the same issues. besides that i dont have money to go out an buy brand new nutes so from now on i'll only grow things in the aero for 2-3 months since to play it safe