WTF is going on with my rez!!!!!

ok, seriously pulling my hair out here folks trying to figure out what is going on so I figured I would throw it to the group. Serious help is appreciated, e.g. help from people that have experienced or heard of things in the past.

So this is the deal. the PH is always rising in my rez. Always. on day three, the rez gets a kind of milky white, then on day 4 or so, I get all these bubbles. I can not for the fucking life of me think of why this is happening and I'm not exactly dense.

I'm running botanicare nutes and cal/mag and 120 PPM each. I added some microthrive microhizal innoculant to the flood table at each plant site a week or so ago. After the first foaming I thought it could have been the mycorhyizal so I added 4 cups of h2o2 to my 25 gallon rez to nuke them. Other than that, there has been nothing else put in the grow system at all. NOTHING.

I PH to about 5.8. The after a couple floods its at 6.1 and when I come back the next morning its around 7.4!!!

My rez is made from a heavy duty plastic tarp. Standard vinyl hose going to an ebb/flood table made from plywood and PVC shower pan liner. I did put some silicine around each drain in the table but it was fast drying stuff and it was in there a week before any water when into the table. I have about 4-5 inches of rinsed hydroton in the table. There is no hydroton dust in the rez. Net pots and seedlings.

OK, one last, VERY weird thing. So I figured that perhaps the hydroton had absorbed lots of non ph balanced water during rinsing (around 7) and maybe that is why it became a little basic, thus leaching the water and making it more basic. So I filed the rez with 5.5 water, flooded the table, and shut the drain off to let things soak. I then took PH reading throughout the table. near the table inlet (where the water comes in) the PH was 5.5. Now at the OTHER end of the table (the last portion to fill up) the PH was 6.5??? What would cause that? I sloshed all the water around in the table and the ph was falling back to around 5.9-6.0 in the portion that was 6.0.

Figuring it was the hydroton and that I had fixed the problem I finally went to bed around 3 am. Woke up this morning... 6 point muther fucking 8 PH and bubbles.

This is really frustrating.

There is no chance one of my kids added something weird to the system as the entire thing is in a locked room. what the hell would causethe water to become so basic.

ha ha i have the same issue, i run sugar peak nutes and you have to LET it BREW for 3-4 days . then knock down the ph and monitior for two more days. it alway foams like that, i noticed it real bad in the Grand finale and hi-brix stage!

or its dish soap damn kids

So bubbles and soaring ph not a problem?

Are you recirculating your rez? A lot of times nutrients will just stick to the bottom and side if they're just being aerated and not moved around.

i use botanicare, in DWC and i never have issues. if your using rockwool, i would suspect this as the reason for your high ph. rockwool has a neutral ph when it's made but it's also made of minerals and if it's allowed to re-absorb it's runoff water, then it can raise the ph as high as a point overnight. i haven't heard of the foaming, sounds like a bacterial problem of some sort. if you don't already have an airstone in your res. i would add one for sure. i don't believe you really need beneficial bacteria in hydro anyway... they're more for aiding root growth in soil. some of them do assist in processing carb solutions, but most are for root development, which i never have seen a problem with in hydro systems anyway. personally, in my DWC systems i only check ph when i change the solution, once per week. in DWC ph fluctuates wildly, and i've found that with botanicare this isn't a problem. i add about 700-800 ppm max for my DWC plants and set my ph to 5.8. as the plant uses nutes, the ph will rise. certain nutes are only available at certain ph ranges, so i believe it's best to allow the ph to vary. i used to adjust to 5.8 every day, but my plants grow faster after i stopped this practice.

Great advice. +rep for the help

I flushed the Rez, rinsed with bleach, flushed again. Soaked the table with 5.5 water for 20 min. Then flushed the table with straight tap to rinse any particles out. Pain in the arse for sure. Mostly cause my inlaws are milling around upstairs. .

Rrlbt420, any idea on what the range of your ph fluctuations are?

usually it will peak around a 6.5, and by the end of the week this is about right. when i used advance nutrients it would fluctuate a lot more, sometimes as high as 7.5 sometimes as low as 5.5. botanicare is a lot more balanced it seems. 6.5 is a little high for hydro, but again ph isn't a huge problem with botanicare as they're mostly or all organic. if you're not using r/o water, expect your ph to go higher.

are you using any addatives for frost increace along with an air stone?

reggaerican said:

are you using any addatives for frost increace along with an air stone?

Click to expand...

frost increase?

Not sure what a frost increase is?

An update, ph levels still climb overnight . Can be upwards of 7 in the morning and I believe my plants are showing signs of zinc deficiency because of it. The leaves curl under big time, they look like rams horns. It happens overnight. I THINK that the milky color is caused by nutes precipitating in the high ph.

So I tore apart my table and got rid of the PVC shower pan liner as I thought it's offgasing could be raising ph. I also rinsed the hell out of the hydroton. It didn't help matters . Starting to really piss me off!!

Did some reading and thought perhaps the rising ph could be from co2 concentrations in the water off gassing? Not sure what base co2 levels but I read that high levels can cause the phenomenon. My airpump is on the grow room floor (high co2) so I'm going to move that thing. I also installed a two stage water filter (particle and carbon) but tht didn't seem to help (and I raising ppm from 22 to 45??). It is taking sediment out though.

Could the nutrients be reacting with the chloramine in my water? Somehow breaking the amonia-chlorine bonds thus causing the amonia to off gad and the water ph to climb?

Fucking mystery to me. Any help is appreciated.

Self bump

My only advise is to get rid of the bacteria and start using some 50% h2o2.