Something's Happening in this Hydroponic Setup... S.O.S

Hello all! Hopefully someone can help me diagnose these issues!

Ok, I am about 2.5 weeks into my grow and the two main issues I'm having are 1: The PH will not stop fluctuating! No matter what I do, I cannot make the PH sit in one position. Last night I mixed a fresh batch of 10-15% nutes into my 3 gallon reservoir and properly PH'd the water to 5.8. I come home tonight from work (24 hours later) and the PH is hovering around 7.6. I immediately pulled out my old school PH testing kit thinking my digital PH meter was on the fritz until the little vile turned a dark blue.

I saw in another thread that using rockwool cubes can fluctuate the PH as the drips run through it and can change it. Ok, if so what do I do to combat that? I leave my tap water out to dechlorinate for 48 hours before mixing in my nutes throughly and then adjusting the PH to a PERFECT 5.8. I recently covered my Superponics 8 plant reservoir in foil to reflect light/heat and now my water is staying nice and cool instead of WARM to the touch like it was a few days ago. What is doing this?


I think the PH is causing an imbalance in nutrient intake (I'm gradually increasing the nutrients as advised) because my plants are turning yellowish and I believe slowly dying off. What can I do to save them before it's too late?

My second problem is Growth. I cannot get these babies up. Is this directly related to the PH imbalances or is this more about the PPM? Right now my PPM meter is showing 518. Is this good or bad? I'll admit I looked into every hydro but didn't look much into this subject. I never understood what my PPM should be and what range is good. Does the size of your reservoir have anything to do with your PPM? How can I get my plants to grow more?! I haven't seen them grow since taking them away from the one CFL bulb and into this 400w HID bulb.

To better help answer my questions and help diagnose these issues, here is some information on what my setup looks like:

8 Plant Superponics System
2 Air Stones
Rockwool Cubes
Hydroton Rocks (For medium around Rockwool Cubes)
400w HID
Two 6" fans (one to blow cool air in, one used as an exhaust)
Three 2.5 week old White Widow's (started from seedlings, no clones)

The tent never gets above 80 degrees when on, and never below 65 when the tent is off (Chicago has been cold lately).

Here are pictures so everyone can kind of see what I am working with and what is happening:
























Thank you for reading everyone and I appreciate any tips, changes, etc that come my way!

Appreciate it!,
D

I can speak to just a couple of your questions since I've never used your drip hydro system.

IMHO your nutes are too strong for 2.5-week-old plants. My rule of thumb is this, and it's never failed me:
Sprouting to week 2.5-3, just plain water, no need to ph.
3 weeks old, nutes to 200-300 ppm
4 weeks old, nutes 300-400 ppm
5 weeks old, nutes 500 ppm
6 weeks old, nutes 600 ppm (many growers stop here with good results!)
7 weeks old, nutes 700 ppm
8 weeks old, nutes 800 ppm

This includes the natural ppm in my water. I hold at 800 throughout flowering, until the last couple of weeks when I drop back to 600. In general, the plant stops taking nutes those last couple of weeks, so I don't have to add nutes to keep that ppm level.

As far as PH goes, I've had times when it's fluctuated like that. Just check in the morning and night and correct.

And for growth, they look good for 2.5 weeks. The first couple of weeks of seedling life, they're putting down roots more than growing up top. Just give them a couple of more weeks to fully establish their roots, and they'll start to shoot up.

Oh, and the size of the res has nothing to do with ppm. Parts Per Million is what ppm stands for, and it measures the level of a substance's concentration (in our case nutes) in liquid (in our case water). The level of concentration is the same in a cup of water as it would be in a lake.

Nothrill,
Just in case you're still unsure about the whole PPM thing. That stands for parts per million and is just one way that the "Total Dissolved Solids" (tds) of a solution is measured. You will also see EC which is electrical conductivity which is actually what all the TDS meters are measuring. It is the strength of your nutrient solution.

You said you are using tap water. What is the ppm and ph of your tapwater right out of the faucet?

And what are you using to correct the ph?

A bit of ph drift is inevitable but to drift so high isn't good. It could mean you have very hard water and you are using a short acting ph down and it's breaking down. A common occurence.
JD

The smaller the res is the harder it is to control the p.h. and the ppm.

Very Important things you need to know .
PPM
PH
WATER TEMP . LOTS PEOPLE FORGOT ABOUT WATER TEMP ENDING UP ROOT ROT . In the pic it show too much nutes or ph is off . depend on how high ppm in water ,...

What type of nutrients are you using? It's impossible to tell what's wrong with your plants with only ppm and pH info.

It's also important for us to know the ppm of your tap. 550ppm isn't too high, and lowering it will not fix the problem.

You guys are missing it. He said 15% nutes so I'm gonna assume that's a weak mixture and is fine. His ph fluctuates like crazy, always rising. That's indicative of a pathogen taking over the water. (Not pythium yet, so don't tell me ph should be dropping!!)

he also said his water is cooler now. Not warm to the touch anymore. Too bad! The bug is already in there! Roots are to blame here why does no one else see this?? Blind leading the blind on this site whenever it comes to dwc I swear!

fix: either look into beneficial microbes or running a sterile res. everything else you're doing seems fine.

I am just speaking from personal this is for the PH problem

I had the same problem on my first grow and I think I had some kind of slime.

I ended up taking everything apart (dont worry about the netpots, rockwool, hydroton, plants) and cleaning everything with H2O2

my airstones bubbled in the peroxide for a while along with everthing else.

I started running a sterile res adding H2O2 to my res twice a week.

You could try some tea as well if you are not a peroxide fan

is the bottom of your res light tight?? it looks clear.... you gotta keep the lights off the water and roots!

If all else fails, water without enough nutes in it will self regulate pH because of buffers.

^^^ wrong

and has obviously never had the problem you are facing.

Root stimulator and distance from light helps growth - need a root stimulator (Great White, ect)

dustinpdr420 said:

The smaller the res is the harder it is to control the p.h. and the ppm.

Click to expand...

Hello all!

I'm currently at work but will provide exact answers when I get home!

You mentioned a small res is harder to control, any tips on a three gallon res setup to combat 2.0+ changes right after a fresh, PH controlled batch was put in there?

JohnDee said:

Nothrill,
Just in case you're still unsure about the whole PPM thing. That stands for parts per million and is just one way that the "Total Dissolved Solids" (tds) of a solution is measured. You will also see EC which is electrical conductivity which is actually what all the TDS meters are measuring. It is the strength of your nutrient solution.

You said you are using tap water. What is the ppm and ph of your tapwater right out of the faucet?

And what are you using to correct the ph?

A bit of ph drift is inevitable but to drift so high isn't good. It could mean you have very hard water and you are using a short acting ph down and it's breaking down. A common occurence.
JD

Click to expand...

Great insight! I'm currently using a stand PH Up/Down testing kit that I got off of amazon. Is it possible the brand isn't good and isn't really working?

My PH before mixing nutes in my dechlorinated water was around 7.1. After it was all mixed it dropped the mix down to 5.8. Within 32 hours it had jumped to nearly 8 so SOMETHING is going wrong.

churchhaze said:

What type of nutrients are you using? It's impossible to tell what's wrong with your plants with only ppm and pH info.

It's also important for us to know the ppm of your tap. 550ppm isn't too high, and lowering it will not fix the problem.

Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B004PS4B08/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1394308701&sr=8-1

I'm using this nutrient set and following the guide that came with it (but starting off with BARELY any nutrients)

Tips on this nutrient set?

SnaFuu said:

You guys are missing it. He said 15% nutes so I'm gonna assume that's a weak mixture and is fine. His ph fluctuates like crazy, always rising. That's indicative of a pathogen taking over the water. (Not pythium yet, so don't tell me ph should be dropping!!)

he also said his water is cooler now. Not warm to the touch anymore. Too bad! The bug is already in there! Roots are to blame here why does no one else see this?? Blind leading the blind on this site whenever it comes to dwc I swear!

fix: either look into beneficial microbes or running a sterile res. everything else you're doing seems fine.

Click to expand...

Exactly, water is cooler now, no longer hot. No light is getting in the reservoir so it has to be my water or a pathogen like you mentioned.

Should I look for beneficial microbes? Where can I look for those and how much in a three gallon reservoir?

Thanks again everyone! I can provide exact numbers when I get home tonight!

Also, should I just dump everything out and put in nothing but PH controlled water for another week??

Thrill

Ive heard good things about a product called pondzyme. Just put "a pinch" per gallon of water. Apparently you cant add too much. This seems like the most simple way of introducing bennes to your system. Ive never actually used it however.

I use heisenergs microbe tea. You can find the thread as the top sticky in the DWC forum. Maybe someone can link you, im on my phone. It's a bit of a pain to make but it works great for me so i refuse to try anything else LOL.

Also ill just mention you might want to buy a bigger air pump, or at least add a few more airlines with stones to your bucket. Just to absolutely rule that out as a possibility to your problem.

Good luck!

nothrill said:

Also, should I just dump everything out and put in nothing but PH controlled water for another week??

Thrill

Click to expand...

you need to kill what ever it is that is causing the problem with tea or peroxide

https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

SnaFuu said:

Ive heard good things about a product called pondzyme. Just put "a pinch" per gallon of water. Apparently you cant add too much. This seems like the most simple way of introducing bennes to your system. Ive never actually used it however.

I use heisenergs microbe tea. You can find the thread as the top sticky in the DWC forum. Maybe someone can link you, im on my phone. It's a bit of a pain to make but it works great for me so i refuse to try anything else LOL.

Also ill just mention you might want to buy a bigger air pump, or at least add a few more airlines with stones to your bucket. Just to absolutely rule that out as a possibility to your problem.

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thank you man I appreciate it. I'm on my phone too at work so my options are limited lol. Thank you!

Commander Strax said:

you need to kill what ever it is that is causing the problem with tea or peroxide

https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-dwc-root-slime-cure-aka.html

Click to expand...

Thank you man! I had this slime a water change ago and figured may be it was algae building up because I hadn't put foil on top of my reservoir to reflect light. (This problem is now solved and 99% of light isn't reaching the water)

Will that solution help solve this?

Hi Nothrill,
The GH "ph down" is nitric acid and plenty long lasting. Good as you can get. Sounds like you have it narrowed down to a slime issue. H202, SM90 or a oood beneficial program...is what I've heard people use. I never had that problem so haven't personally had to deal with it. Good luck though...
JD

I ended up picking up some pond-zyme as suggested by other members in that DWC Bacteria thread. I'm going to add a pinch and see what happens over the next few days! I will post with updates!

Thanks again for all the help guys!