Why Does My Ph Go Up Every Day? Will I Ever Stop Adding Ph Down?

my nutrients (canna) state that once the initial ph of the res is set, do not worry about it from then on, as the nutrients are designed to work around changes or some such.

I fill my res, and leave it. My ph goes up and down, and my EC often hits around 5.5, but the plants show no ill effects whatsoever and keep doing exactly as they should

I also switched to AN ph down. That shit is scary strong!! It saves me so much money over that laguna crap! AN seems to stay at the range longer too, but that could just be Bullshit. I can vouch for it saving me money tho! A ph swing of 5.6-6.4 over a week is no big deal. Looks to me like you got it fig'd now.

What i want to know, is why does some soil grower always have to come in and compare it with hydro? Cant it be understood that the messing with the variables is what some people enjoy? I have a tall list of negatives about soil growing, but this aint a thread for that.

Very interesting about the hydroton and the ions. I also notice that after a while, the ph swing slows and adjusting lessens. Maybe its that it takes a while for the media to buffer to the ph range im trying to keep. Thanks for the info. Happy growings!

Try sure to grow products and most of your water problems will cease...

I support SURE TO GROW very much so. Im not saying your water problems will cease but STG is a great product. Since you use hydroton I know you would dig the stuff. It's light weight and ships cheap. It's PH neutral. It's a polymer. It's versatile in all your different apps. Check it out if you get a chance.

I bet you need to just adjust to your water and your products. My water is trash but I get by some how. I run a ph of 7.2 and PPM of high 500's. It took me a lil to tune in but now I know to use between a ounce to ounce and half of ph down to bring my 55 gal down to 5.5 from a 5.5 to 6.1 float. Time is all it is time time time and lot's of lights I think lol.

Good luck bro. Hey come check out my signature grow. It's grand opening on 5,300 watts plus I run 48 3 gal buckets of SURE TO GROW.

so here they are 22 days later, if any of you are following. they have been in flower for about a week and a half and i really hope they are done getting taller.i cant move my light up any more. As soon as i switched to CNS17 they went nuts. i also started adding humboldt nutrients Ginormous. I got myself a real PH pen and noticed my drift isnt as bad as i thought. but the Advanced Nutrients PH down kicks ars. instead of 100ml a day i'm adding 10ml. and thats only when i add the ginormous to the rez. it makes the ph go up a lil bit. Now my question is Azatrol. i found thrips in the room next door. i hear you can add it to the rez, but for how long? should i just run it 1 or 2 days and change the rez?

Oh and if anyone is interested here are some pics of Quarkle and Big Bud in my dirt grow. the quarkle is a pretty lookin, really purple bud, but no where near the size of the Big Bud strain. the first one is Quarkle this is the big bud
thats the big bud in the background and the quarkle on the right they still have 4 weeks to go

Whats up dude. Sorry to hear about thrips. I to get them and there the only pest I have ever had that I know of. I heard Dr. Dooms works well for them. I personally use a mineral oil, habinero, garlic, spray and it seems to work nice. I honestly forget about them most of the time. They don't seem to do much. I notice the metallic sheen on my leafs from them eating and if u look close and see lil black dots thats there doo doo. But no real sighns or damage. They have multiple stages though. Read up on them if u haven't. I bet that Quarkle will be sweet. Big Bud is a great producer but not a connoisseur weed to me. You will be happy either way I bet. Looken good.

i always have ph fluctuation with my hydroton sometime you need to flush out the containers as the sediment from it can make ph swing up dramatically. i battled it my first couple res changes and believe me i clean my hydroton extremely well and still sediment falls to bottom.

i like to soak the hydroton first in 5.0 ph water to help out for a couple days before using to help stabilize the swing. i would invest in a r.o machine easier to control ph when your water is 5.8 to start.

that is a hella high ec your running there.

maybe bad ph solution

Bacteria and/or Hydroton and/or rockwool that hasnt been flushed with propper ideal PH water.

Few things:
1) I use Myco Madness which is a bacteria enhancer to help roots grow and it skyrockets my PH. Bacteria growth can be a cause of increasing PH
2) hydroton is not PH balanced correctly and if water is touching the PH (either with drip or if the hydroton is sitting in the water itself) then it will mess with your PH too. Its a good idea to flush your hydroton in PH balanced solution before use.
3) ^^ same goes for rockwool.

-T

Hay man im using some clay balls in a NFT system and find ph is always raising as well,it seems pretty normal to me its just what happens best cure is bigger resevour. my leaves even had the same leaf curl as you haha very much simalar ill try post pics

hydroton raises the ph everytime early in the grow. it seems to be easier to control ph a few weeks in, which may have to do with nutrients being at a higher ppm. I use RO water so I think that the hydroton pushes ph up more easily especially when the nutrients are at a low ppm level.

I am starting a hempy cup grow with perlite. I am practicing with the pH prior to starting the grow. I have high pH water, near 8.0. I pH'd down to 6.2. Ran it through the hempy cup and the runoff was 6.56.

From reading this thread, I assume the perlite is raising the pH. Correct? Should I shoot for a water pH of around 5.8 and let the perlite bring it up?

5.8 is always the sweet spot but if it's lower there won't be much harm in it, Marijuana likes the water a little more acidic.

Is your water 8.0 even after you let it sit a while?

Not sure. Does the pH go down if the water sits awhile?

well i have gotten used to the PH thing now. after the 4x4 flood table with the 40 gal rez, i decided to switch my 4x8 tray to ebb and flow aswell. got a 70gal rez. its the low profile botanicare one so i wont have the same prob as my 4x4 room. in there i have the barrel under the tray so it sits up pretty high. now i'm 3-4 weeks out from harvest and the tops have grown up past the light and along the celing. like vines would do. i have tried tying them down but its no use. there is no mor room to tie anything back anymore. everytime i tie a top down it shoots 5 more straight up to the celing. they have pretty much blocked out the light to the rest of the room. and its a big bud strain so i've got a mess on my hands. i cant see through the buds on the first row of plants to see the second row. I wanted to get some weight, but this is getting crazy.

but ya the PH thing. after the first few weeks it stabelizes pretty well. just gotta get the hydroton soaked in the corect PH'ed water. i noticed with my 4x8 i used a bigger rez and net pots. i used 1/4 of the hydroton than my 4x4 i just filled up completly. it only took 3 days for my PH to stabilize. but i also noticed that it comes out of the tap around 6.0 now insted of 7+ like a few weeks ago. i'm sure it changes when ever the water district adds chemicals so i check it every time i add back. I'll try n get some pictures of my jungle and my nice neat 4x8 room up soon

well here is a couple pics from my most interesting harvest. The previously mentioned 4x4 tray with big bud that went all wrong. unfortunately the colas got so big and dense that they molded inside. AND the back side of the colas where there was no light looks like crap. really scraggly all brown dead buds from the lack of light. But at least i can say I had a 5lb 3oz cola from my indoor grow. if i'm lucky I'll get a OZ of smoke-able bud off each top.

No u will always bring it down, did'nt read any posts im sure u heard that enough.

Quick question is if your rez is exposed to HID lighting for extended periods of time. I ran into a PH issue where my rez under my mom cabinet was uncovered but was getting 20 hrs of light due to the intake design on my cab. I didn't have to be stealth so it was supposed to be a non-issue. But, I saw PH rising a bit every day. I use tap water at 139 ppm, Canna Aqua Vega, and H2O2. Was getting a slight bit of slime after 5 or 6 days. I cleaned and lightblocked rez at next change, and it solved my issue.
I have multiple media's in my mom box too, which are all prebalanced.
Sour Diesel - rockwool coupon//hydroton mix
Yumbolt 47 - hydroton only
Sweet Tooth#4 - hydroton/Sure to Grow Hail mix
Killing Fields - Grow Stones only
All were started in rockwool 2"grodan cubes. Not saying light is your only issue, but the slightest bit of slime caused my ph probs. Had already ruled out mediums, rez temps, etc. Narrowed it to the light.

What I can say is pick up a new meter off eBay. The dropper method is just a pain in the ass and results can vary just on the angle of light hitting the vial.