Ppm going up

Hi guys, new to the group and growing. My question is, why my ppm is going up and my ph is almost staying the same. I'm starting week 7 in flower and my nute solution is 800 and in 3 days it will go to 1800ppm and ph is 6 -6.1. It seems like the plant is drinking water and not taking up nutes? I noticed this problem in week 6. Could the be nute lock?

I think it's just an indicator that your plants are needing less nutrient salts compared to the amount of water they use. Drop the ppm down until you find an equilibrium.

I did a small flush yesterday with ph'd ro water. Hoping that helps with getting rid of some salts. Going to drain and add nutes tonight.

MCEC420 said:

Hi guys, new to the group and growing. My question is, why my ppm is going up and my ph is almost staying the same. I'm starting week 7 in flower and my nute solution is 800 and in 3 days it will go to 1800ppm and ph is 6 -6.1. It seems like the plant is drinking water and not taking up nutes? I noticed this problem in week 6. Could the be nute lock?

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Plants will drink more water than nutes. Keep your water res levels in check

Nothing wrong with a 48 hr flush. Check the ppm of the flush water.if it’s still high replace the water again.

Edit to add that’s almost tripled ppm.Do u have a pic of the plant?How does it look?

I checked water tonight and the ppm were high 1800ppm. So I drained all that water and added 10L of ro water to every bucket.Hoping that will help. Will check tomorrow.

Plant looks ok. If you want that fall look of red yellow I’d stop the N and calmag. Maybe two more weeks to finish?

If your PH is staying the same and your PPM's are going down, you're doing ok, your plant is just consuming it's nutrients. You only need to worry when the PH drops in relation to the PPM going up. Or, for that matter, ph drop in general. I would keep your nutes the same. Hold off on your cal/mag as you get close to finishing, your plants will get really touchy about the amount of nitrogen they recieve. Looks like you've got some heat stress issues though.

Logan Burke said:

If your PH is staying the same and your PPM's are going down, you're doing ok, your plant is just consuming it's nutrients. You only need to worry when the PH drops in relation to the PPM going up. Or, for that matter, ph drop in general. I would keep your nutes the same. Hold off on your cal/mag as you get close to finishing, your plants will get really touchy about the amount of nitrogen they recieve. Looks like you've got some heat stress issues though.

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Yea, definitely had some heat issues. Did a flush with cleared. That brought my ppm down some. Going to do another one tomorrow . What is a good ppm level for final flush? And / or to start using just water?

Ive done straight ph water on week 9,didnt really change color much.This time round Im lowering N starting week 5 a little each week.

MCEC420 said:

Yea, definitely had some heat issues. Did a flush with cleared. That brought my ppm down some. Going to do another one tomorrow . What is a good ppm level for final flush? And / or to start using just water?

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When I know it's only going to be about a week until harvest, I'll siphon about half the nutrient water in my res and add the same amount of plain ph'd water back so that I half my ppm's. I'll let that run for a few days, adding back plain PH'd water as needed to bring the water back up. Then 3 days before I chop, I totally empty my res and add back only ph'd water and add more as needed. I keep my ppm's those last few days below 100, and if ppm's rise above that from nutes leaching out of the roots, I change the water again. Hope that helps

myke said:

Ive done straight ph water on week 9,didnt really change color much.This time round Im lowering N starting week 5 a little each week.

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Mine really don't change much either. Some of the large fan leaves will begin yellowing some, or get purple stems, but I've never had a plant turn 'fall colors', even after flushing for close to 2 weeks.

PH - static
EC - rising
Water level - falling

=

Plant is drinking more than its eating. Lower the EC.

This can also be due to an evaporative affect. Unless PPM's are either rising hugely or the PH is dropping in relation to the ppm rise, then there likely isn't really a problem. In DWC it's not uncommon to have minor upsets in ppm's.

I've never heard of a DWC ppm rising unless you are taking the high measurement before topping up with RO water.

I've done around 50 tubs worth in DWC and got into a pretty good routine. Before I got the pH Perfect nutes I would top up a tub with RO then check the ppm. If it had dropped below my target level then I'd add a bit of nutes to bring it back up to where I wanted it give or take 50ppm. I'd give it an hour or more then check the pH and it would take a few drops of conc. sulfuric acid to get it down to 5.4 or so. After a while I didn't bother checking pH more than once every 3 top ups which I would do every 3 days with big plants. At each top up I'd just add a few drops of acid along with the nutes. I would do whole grows that way without ever changing the nutes.

Once I started using pH Perfect nutes I never bothered with pH again and just checked ppm.

There is no need to pH RO or distilled water before use. Neither has a true pH of it's own so just pour it in. If adding nutes to it then you might want to check and adjust pH depending on the nutes.

Near the end I would do as mentioned above. Remove about half the water and top up with RO. It might take me two weeks to crop a tub taking the big colas first then letting the smaller ones fatten up and ripen before taking the rest. After the stretch I feed Lucas Formula style to lower the amount of N they get.