pure perlite hempy and PH lockot

well first off this is my first hempy bucket grow, i have been using coco/perlite in soil pots for years though.

anyway, when i grew in coco pots i always had the PH going down in late flower, to like 3.0 sometime i learned fast to just flush them and fertthem every time i water, it was alot of work buti did many good grows

anyway on to the current problem, i am trying hempy bucket pure perlite in 5 gallon buckets

i got 6 under 4x400W(2hps/2mh)

anyway everything is going great, but now 1 months into flowering and the lower leaves of the plant keep turning yellow and falling off

the entire bottom of the plants leaves have turned full yellow and then died and dried and droped

the thing is i measure my nutes (lucas formula) and PH it to 5.8 and water.
the salution is perfiect, its the same 1 i used for coco

what i THINK is happening is, since i only need to water every 3 or 4 days. when i water with the salution the PH is fine for many hours, but since there is no buffer (pure perlite) the PH then rises slowly over the next few days, and by the time i water again is "think" is way to high

i say i think because my PH meter died, i know my nute mix is right thoug i messured and tested it for years, this is the first grow without my PH tester

anyway im prety shur that thats whats it is, the PH just rises to fast cuz ther is nothing to keep it were i put it when i water/flux


if anyone else has had this problem with hempy bucket, plz share your experience , and anyone who thinks that know how i can fix this plz share,

all i can think of is to water every day, with the hempy bucket it wont overwater the plants i dont think, wont the water hold O2 for 24 hours till i water again?, shoul i maby ise 4 parts perl 1 part verm next time to help buffer?

I also use the hempy's and I prefer to use vermiculite mixed in b/c it retains moisture similar to soil, it's kinda amazing whereas perlite dries quickly. Anywho, i'm no pro but it seems like you may be onto something with the nutrient lockout issue but have you considered doing a little flush cycle? In the original hempy thread, hempy says you should NOT water everyday b/c it is important for the plants to drink the water so they are not always submersed completely all the time...the roots need to breathe and they do that by displacing (drinking) the water. Every other day is the maximum that hempy suggested. Those roots gotta breathe brother....I think you should consider a lil flush w/ plain ol distilled water & see how the recovery goes from there.

yea when i couldnt figure it out i just dumped 4 gallons of Ph'ed ferts through each plant. i wanted to flush them back to the ppm/PH thay should be at without leaching them by useing plain water

ya it cost a lil$ in ferts but i just didnt see this coming, i used same ferts in coco

as for the perlite drying out, it seems to last 4 days with just perlite. im fine watering every 4 days

but i was thiking of useing soem vermiculite in my next batch but not doing hepy, just a 75%perlite perl 25%verm mix and in a regular soilpot and just do liek i did with coco,