ph perfect top ups / watering

Hello, i have a few plants in 5gal bubblers and a few in PROMix.. i am using AN ph perfect and was finally able to stop ajusting ph out of habit.. it works great so far but i am confused in regards to non feeding waterings.. mid week if i was to just water would i adjust the PH? Same goes for the bubblers.. if i start monday with a fresh clean bucket filled with the required nutes would i adjust the PH of the water for top ups?.. the only way around it i could think of was to mix A/B on monday then use my micro nutes for top ups.. big bud bud candy b52 ect ect would be an example of micros i could use during topups.. thanks for reviewing and any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.

I personally don't even "top up", I just let my nutes run out, or nearly run out... and then, reset.... I've only had them droop on me once, when I wasn't running a seperate reservoir and they sucked up their full 5 gallon buckets full of water and nutes in 36 hours. At which point I said, ok, this is way to much work... and implemented a 20 gallon reservoir.. Now I reset only once about every 4-5 days. This system is on year 4..

The only time I check and adjust PH is when I first mix my nutes, out of the tap my water is 8.0- 8.2.

I empty everything, clamp off the feed line from my reservoir, refill my res, adjust my PH to about 6.0 - 6.2( using citric acid PH Down, add my nutes, which should bring my PH down even lower to the optimal 5.8(I don't know, I don't check, the first time I grew hydro, the nutes I used ended up lowering the ph to 5.8, so I assume this happens everytime, so I never bothered to check any more.)

Right or wrong, it's what works for me without a problem.

You should be checking and adjusting the Ph every time you water.

intenseneal wrote: You should be checking and adjusting the Ph every time you water.

LOL! We're running hydroponics... in Bubblers.... When do you suggest we water?

Hey Ben, how did you connect the buckets to the rez? I am dealing with the bubblers drinking up to 3 gals a night! Also do you have an order in your mixing? Are u using AN Ph-perf?

I top with plain tap water, and no pHing. New reservoir every two weeks.

regards,

Well, I just use 1/2 inch black tubing with 1/2 inch elbows and T-bows and half inch rubber gromets(seals) to connect everything together and yes I do have a particular order in my mix, I use General Hydro's 3 part mix, and use micro's first, and then stir well, then "grow" and then "bloom" and go by the directions. The reservoir I got for free from a friend it's called a "Texas Flood" reservoir*It is 2 big 20 gallon buckets, one sets on top of the other and the top one feeds the bottom one through a floating trap valve, so essentially you can set this thing up to run for weeks at a time* (from Raintree or Hydrofarm, can't recall now), however, I only need half of it to run a couple to a few buckets.

I only have used General Hydro Citrus orange PH down(admittedly this leaves a slight orangey taste in the bud, even after rinsing it good, it's ok, i geuss..) and I finally broke down and bought a digital PH/TDS tester. (worth every penny, before this I was using a ph drip/color kit and matching up the colored water to the chart to get my PH reading)

In the summer time in the hottest part of the year, I had a noticeable problem with heat, but, not "emergency" enough to warrant me buying a chiller that would only be used for a month out of the year.

Each time you top off the water it should be Ph'd to match what you run your water at. Topping off with water with a different Ph will effect the Ph of the water in the res or bucket(s).

Ahh.. That makes more sense. Yeh, sorry for being a smart ass Intenseneal, it's just in my nature sometimes hehehe. Anyway, that's why I just run a larger rez and just reset the nutes rather than "top off"... that way I don't have to mess with the PH and trying to get it exact.

intenseneal said:

Each time you top off the water it should be Ph'd to match what you run your water at. Topping off with water with a different Ph will effect the Ph of the water in the res or bucket(s).

Click to expand...

Unless you want your pH to have a nice steady moving range, I start the pH around 5.6 - 5.7 and after 1 week I top off with tap water which brinngs my pH up near the 6.0 - 6.1.

This allows for adequate uptake of all nutrients.

regards,

ru4r34l, I find after 1 week that my reservoir is nearly empty anyway, lol!

2 plants go through 15 gallons in a week. leaving about 3-4 gallons in the bottom of the buckets and reservoir. At which point, I dump everything and reset.

It's frickin amazing to me how much water these thing go through.

I would just point out that all the people talking about "you should pH your water/nutes every time" aren't paying attention.

--->> Advanced Nutrient pH Perfect nutes. <<--

Everyone see that? Okay, you don't have to pH them. You just don't. Maybe if your water isn't RO and its particularly full of certain things the water treatment plant puts in there to make it safe to drink, yeah maybe then you'll need to mess with the pH.

My advice is either what's been said already - let them drink all they want until there's just a little left, then res change. Or, top up with about half strength or 3/4 strength nutes. Take a ppm reading beforehand and see where you're at. If the ppm is fine or even low I'd just refill with full strength honestly. If it's higher, depending on how much is left and how much higher it is, I'd cut it down to 1/2 or 3/4 strength to top off.

All that's assuming you'll be doing a res change eventually. I'm lazy and like to put mine off as long as possible, plus I feel like I'm pinching pennies better by not tossing out nutrient solution as much. I know guys that don't ever change the reservoir, they only top up. They do a bunch of math to make sure they're hitting exactly the ppm they want and so on... too much work for me and I just feel safer with a res change every 2 or 3 weeks. (Sometimes longer, like I said I'm lazy.)

Advanced recommends that if your topping off a res you use half strength of the ph perfect when u refill. You shouldn't have to adjust at all with ph perfect and if you do adjust it takes a shit load of ph up just to get it to move at all, plus with how it's designed their is no need to adjust at all. Really if you follow their instructions 1 ml 2 ml 4 ml there shouldn't be any probs. I've been running their full line with ease for a while just had to find the rules of how to use it.

You being in a five gallon bucket I'd let them drink it up and then refill the whole bucket really don't need to keep topping off with just single five gallon buckets.

If your flushing or something like that you will still need to ph to your desired levels of your medium. Hope this helps was trying to keep it short.

My bad guess I should have read the above post! Lol

duelly noted hooked on ponics.