Adventures in Hydro #2 - LP Aero/NFT mash-up - or - switching to HPA?

Indoor Growing Hydroponics
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#603

I was following that until realized you said you use KOH - thats a strong base, so PH Up. I was more interested in the PH Down product. Did you mean Phosphoric acid?

Excellent ideas for testing! Thanks!

Yeah, a doser is on my bucket list for sure :slight_smile: Im going to have to work up to that slowly though. Im going to start on that in small pieces - with that Arduino relay/timer setup first. Then when my current PH meter dies, or I get some extra cash set aside, I’ll start on the PH meter/doser setup. The meter portion should be easy. There are examples on the web for the software that I can use. I can work on the doser part a little at a time.

LOL Thats me. m addicted to fiddling with or adding tech just for the sake of the tech in some cases, or just to see fuzzy roots :smiley:

When I first heard about PH swings being ‘good’ for growing, I was sure that was “stoner science”. Partly because I first read it from someone who couldnt put a coherent sentence together, never believed in periods, capitol letters, grammar, etc, and obviously new nothing beyond second grade science, and/or they were stoned to the gills :D.

Very good find! Those guys are far cheaper than any other source I have seen so far. Interesting to me that they still dont show up on my Google searches.

Ah! That clears up so much!!! I was thinking of the pKa as a value of the two buffer components AFTER they were in combination - not the individual components. I just re-read that section in the buffer calculator and its clear you just adjust to the desired PH after mixing by adding a base or acid as needed. . Thats what had me confused. Thanks!!

Im not toooo worried about that. So far, all the reports Ive read seem to talk about problems occurring closer to 10mM. As long as Im careful not to go above 5mM I think I will be fine - maybe :slight_smile:

On the other hand, too hi a PH has its own nute problems, so either way I have issues. The trick will be to find the minimum that works.

Well, that plus trying to eliminate or reduce as many other sources - algae - of the upward PH drift as I can.

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#604

I owe you another thanks @Northern_Loki for finding that MES source.

With that low a price, I decided to try 100 gm of the MES. They have it for $20 plus tax, free shipping from the same guys on Ebay with 4 day shipping coming from California.

I figure if I can get by with 1mM concentration I will only need about 45 gms to finish this grow, and thats assuming I increase my flow rate by 60% over what it is now. That will still be enough even if I have to go up to 2mM. It will probably be enough even if I go to 3mM.

Looking back at those other reports, it looks like some nute issues started popping up at 5mM, so I would like to stay well under that level. Who knows, I may be able to get by with even less.

Im debating if I can remove my accumulator tank from the system, and get it cleaned out and put back fast enough to avoid damage to the roots. I think I can water by hand sprayer every ten minutes and they will still be ok. Atomizer says the roots can survive for several hours, so I should be fine.

The reason Im wanting to do this asap is because I think a part of the problem with the PH going up in the accumulator tank is that I have it laying on its side at the moment. That means the water inlet is coming in/out of the side of the tank rather than the bottom. Any sediment that gets inside will be trapped and may not get purged all the way when I drain the tank. I may have a build up of dead and/or alive algae in there.

If I clean it out and mount it vertically, Im hoping at least some of the PH rise when the nutes get pressurized will go away. That might make it easier for the MES to stabilize the PH in the hi-pressure part of the system.

So far, no matter what the PH is in the rez, it goes up to 6.0-6.2 very fast once it gets into the accumulator tank.

Im hoping the MES can get the tank PH down as well as the rez PH. If not, Im wasting my time PHing the rez. Thats another reason to start with a small sample to test it out.

Im still waitng to hear back from Dow on the resin beads. I think that is still - at least potentially - a better option cost wise over the long haul. At this price point, the MES is not that $$. Especially if it allows me to go back to Mega Crop or some other cheaper nute than Advanced.

If I can get by with 1mM molarity, a 100 gm pack for $22 delivered might just get me through an entire grow cycle. Or even better, a 500 gm pack for $70 wold last me 2 years of growing - maybe.

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#605

Almost forgot - if the MES cant keep the accumulator tank PH down to where I want, then there is little reason to PH the rez - other than to keep the nutes at a PH where they dont have precipitation of some elements, so below probably 6.5 at the max.

If that is the case, then I think the only other option would be to put the resin beads in a filter that is positioned just before the solenoids. Hopefully, the resin beads would lower the PH just before the water hit the sprayers.

Have to find the right beads for the right $$ first though.

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#606

The amount of PH down I use is miniscule, I have a 1l jug with about 100ml of PH down in it that lasts about 6 months also. It literally only starts off the solution at the right PH then after a day or two the trend is always downwards.

Same here. I had people saying they allowed a swing ‘just in case’ and the amount of swing was so arbitrary it just seemed like people who had no clue about PH or why it was important.

Definitely no rigorous scientific approach to figuring out why it was good, or which ranges were best.

This is the method stated as most effective from one of your links. They said they had trouble passing enough solution over the beads after a while. I would think that a recirculating pump with an inline filter made of the beads would be most effective. I suspect that a single pass through the filter just before spraying may not give enough time to affect the PH enough.

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#607

I think you got it and I know it’s mincing of words, to clarify, a buffer by itself will not “keep the PH down”. What it will do is slow the change in the PH when the PH of the solution is within the buffering region.

If you were to continually add OH- or H+ ions into solution that has a buffer, eventually the PH will leave the buffering region. It just takes more of those ions to move the PH than it would otherwise.

The higher the concentration of the buffer, the greater the number of ions that will be needed to move the PH.
The closer to the pKa(s) of the buffer, the greater the number of ions that will be needed to move the PH.

Conversely,
As you move away from the pKa(s), fewer ions are required to move the PH.
As the concentration of the buffer decreases, fewer ions are required to move the PH.

What is happening when you add OH- or H+, is that you are essentially changing the ratio of the buffer chemistry between the acid form and the basic form. This buffering process “consumes” some of the freely added H+ or OH- ions such that they do not contribute to the solution PH (based on freely available H+ ions). This “consumption” of free H+ ions slows the change in the PH.

As you move away from the pKa (by adjusting the PH), the concentration of either the acid or the conjugate decreases (while the opposite form increases). This makes it appear as though the concentration of the buffer placed into solution has decreased during the process of adjusting the PH in one direction. If you move back in the opposite direction, you’d see the buffer appear to become more concentrated / have greater capacity up to the point where you pass the pKa value.

That is why when you look a buffer capacity curve, it has the shape of a bell’s curve. And is also why the greatest capacity (the greatest ability to resist change is PH) is at the pKa(s).

A strong acid or strong base PH up/down does not provide buffering. They provide the H+ or OH- ions. They fully disassociate when in solution. The weak acid / weak base buffers resist changes in the H+ / OH- concentrations. They partially disassociate in solution. Now, to be accurate, buffers do contribute to the PH to some extent but only up to the point where they are deprotentated (providing H+). Which changes depending on the PH of the solution. For ease of thought, though, do not think of buffers as being used to adjust the solution PH as a PH up/down. The most important consideration for the buffer is the pKa and it’s concentration in solution. Then adjust the overall PH of the buffer whether in solution or before adding it to a larger solution.

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#608

Good grief. I keep forgetting you have exactly the opposite PH drift I do. Ok, its official, Im off to shop for a new brain… :slight_smile:

My flow rate is so much lower than any normal hydro system, that the filter trick should - I hope - work ok for me. My flow rate at the moment is still under 2 gallons/day. Most circulating pump systems are a few orders of magnitude higher than that. I would expect that the resin would be more effective at lower flow rates. Thats the hope anyway!

Im going to have to re-read everything you said in that post a few more times, but it is helping a lot. That last paragraph especially. I think I need to look at alkalinity again too.

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#609

This is something I have learned from this thread, I always had the assumption that a PH buffer would make a solution trend towards a fixed value. I imagine I got this idea from looking at the 4PH, 7 PH and 10PH calibration fluids.

It does explain why a freshly filled system will have a PH that is a bit wild and shifts around with such sensitivity that you can see when the lights turn on, when the plants are putting out ions (early-mid morning) and see echoes of variations in the temperature graph. Once some PH down and PH up are added and the plants grow into the system it is much more stable.

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#610

I agree with @MicroDoser. This has been one - among many - of my major misunderstandings. Ive been thinking of the buffer as forcing the PH into a certain range, and keeping it there, when its actually just resisting the PH change thats being caused by some other reaction.

Part of the confusion is that the buffer does change the PH all on its own. In one of the buffer calculators, when you first add MES to distilled water at 0.5M, the PH will immediately drop down to 3.2. Then you are supposed to add NaOH to raise the PH to your desired value. In that case it was 6.0.

Also, when I think of buffers for PH calibration, I think of them as fixed in PH and unchanging - but those solutions have no outside pressure to change - except by contamination from the probe.

Our growing environment is very different. There is always something trying to change the PH one way or the other. In my case, even when no plants/roots are involved.

On the other hand, people are using the resin beads to fix or hold the PH within a narrow range - until the beads loose there capacity.

So, yeah, it is very confusing subject. Far more complicated than I ever expected.

Looking back at the @Northern_Loki graphs from the buffer thread, what I can expect is for the MES to flatten out the curve as far as the PH rise. The PH wont stay at any one value, but rise more slowly - as long as what ever is forcing the PH up is still active. I am hoping the rate of increase goes low enough for the system to be more manageable. As it is now, I have to PH down every 12 hours or so - which is waaaay too often.

Im not sure what to expect if I put resin beads in a filter before the solenoids. They will drop the PH of the solution, but will the amount of drop be constant until the capacity is reached or will it taper off as the resin gets used up?

In other words, if the accumulator tank is at 6.0, and the resin beads drop the PH to 5.6 when fresh, will it still drop to close to that amount until its used up or will it drop less and less over time? How linear wil the change be over time?

I suspect it will depend on the ratio of resin to water flow rate plus what ever the PH happens to be in the tank.

Ideally, the PH drop will be less and less over time. That will allow the PH to swing through the range we want.

More experiments to do if we ever get a resin picked out thats affordable.

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#611

Ahh, yes. Well it’s true. MES free acid it is an acid. More specifically a weak acid. And, sure you could use it as a PH down. Add it to water, and it will partially disassociate driving the PH. But, this is where we start to loose sight of the point of a buffer. A buffer only works within certain ranges tied to the pKa(s). And, to get near the pKa (buffering regions) you add or produce the conjugate base. Initially, with MES acid in pure water, there is no conjugate and it is not a buffer yet. Within the buffering region is where the magic happens. Once you are in that region, other mechanisms will cause PH to move, the buffer will resist those changes.

They, the calculator, creates the conjugate by using NaOH. We use KOH for hydro to avoid adding sodium. Both are strong bases and both create the conjugate. p.s. a weak base would work as well but the outcome is something not necessarily easily predicted. You might notice that many of the buffer calculators limit the range of the PH for a particular chemistry. This is because for a PH outside of that range (based on the pKa(s)), it is no longer considered a buffer (the chemistry is either deprotenated / protenated). The further away from the pKa, the weaker the buffer action becomes.

It’s not easy to decouple how one thinks of the buffer from the routine PH up/down adjustment / drift / etc. The intuitive feel simply is not there.

In the end, it boils down to everything being inter-related one way or another. We are just moving H+ and OH- ions around. But, not differentiating the actors makes it easy to miss the trees through the forest :grin:

Yes, that is what should occur.

Yes, precisely the same thing is going on the chemistry in the cal buffers. The PH is adjusted to the calibration value using a weak acid / conjugate such that it is within the buffering region. The PH overtime can change due to CO2 entering solution, contamination, etc but the buffer will resist a change in the PH. Due to those reasons, the PH will change and is the reason they have expiration dates and is also why they tell you to dispose of any used calibration solution. It isn’t changing because of the buffer components.

I did read somewhere that you are supposed to PH adjust those beads prior to application. Soaking them in a PH adjusted solution perhaps. As to capacity, that’s an interesting question. I’d venture to guess that it would look similar to how a chemical buffer would act with the PH slowly changing as they absorb H+/OH-. Wouldn’t mind getting my hands on some to test.

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#612

Thats very true. Trying to get this all straight - and keep it straight - makes me feel like one of those tree fell on my head :smiley:

Yeah, that is also how the resin gets “rejuvenated” so you can re-use the resin. Just rinse well, then soak in low PH acid solution for a while. I still have not heard back from Dupont, so dont now what resin to buy yet. There are sources for the Amberlite CG50, but I want to see what the newer version costs and try to find some with larger particle sizes. That will make filtering and handling easier I think.

Here is my plan for the MES. Let me know if anything sounds off.

Im going to take 50 gms of MES and dissolve it in 3 liters of RO water. That should give me a 0.0853M solution of MES.

Then if I mix 10 ml of that solution to one liter of RO water, that will give me a 0.000853M or .85mM final concentration in the rez. I can easily just add more or less to adjust, but I think I will start with that and see how it does.

Im thinking this should be done in this order.

Start with just RO water.
Add the MES solution I made, and mix well.
Add KOH to raise PH to what ever I want. Im going to start at 5.5 - anticipating a rising PH
Then add nutes, mix well - starting with CalMag.
Then adjust PH using Phosphoric acid or more KOH as needed. Im guessing I will need more KOH. My CalMag and the nutes both lower PH when first added.

I just realized that I may be close to harvest. The C99 says it takes 50 to 60 days of flower time, and Im on day 42, so I may be ready by next week! I kind of doubt that. Most of the trichs are cloudy, but very few are amber so far. Plus most of the calyxes are still very white.

HPA is supposed to finish sooner than regular hydro, so I guess we will see how this goes.

The MES will be here early next week. Im going to take the accumulator tank out and clean it as best I can and replace/clean the rez and some of the pipes before the MES gets here. I want to see if that alone makes any difference.

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#613

It is for me now you have posted in this thread, thanks for this. It has helped me a lot.

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#614

I verified this as the following with the M.Wt of MES at 215.3g/mol:

~54.5g into 3 liters for a 85.4mM solution.
Dilute 1:100 for 0.854mM.
Adjust to target PH with KOH

This will be about 1/5 as strong as the 5mMol titration. I’ll see about doing a titration at this concentration.

DOW also produces ion-exchange resins, as well. There is also purolite brand. I have no clue as to how to select a proper resin.

I went ahead and ordered 100g of Amberlite CG-50 via fisher. Though, their website is very screwy and we’ll see if they actually fulfill the order.

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#615

Awesome!

I need to go back and look, but did you try a combo with MES mixed with Mega Crop yet? It would be interesting to see what that curve looks like compared to the tow separately.

I am very eager to see how that turns out! Thats the fine powder form - 75 to 150 μm particle sizes. Have you thought about how you’re going to test it?

I need to go check, but I think it was Dow I emailed…

#616

Each of the titrations have been performed with MC at a relatively high EC. All of the graphs are in the OP (first post), look for the (3) MES graph then scroll towards the end to see the transfer function equations. FYI, this is MES hydrate which has a slightly lower M.Wt than the monohydrate due to added water. Same thing otherwise.

Probably the same way, titration.

edit:

I quickly did a titration and added it to the plot in the buffer thread OP. At ~0.000854M MES free acid, you’ll see a transfer function of y=~2.240x+b at the MC EC of 1.7. In comparison, straight MC (v1) has a transfer function of y=2.99x+b while the .005M citrate buffer has a transfer function of 2.68X +b. See the other transfer functions for comparisions in that thread…

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#617

Ah, thanks. My memory is getting worse. I should have just looked again before asking!

I love the new data, formulas etc. I asked in the other thread about comparing the slopes and using that ratio to predict how much change in the rate of PH rise to expect at different concentrations of MES.

I need more thanks to give!

#618

Ive been busy the last few days. We have been having a relatively warm winter, but that changed last week and this week with a ton (for us) of snow. You folks who have real winters will laugh, but 2" around here freaks everyone out, and we are supposed to get as much as 8" in some places :smiley: My granddaughter and I love it, but she gets to stay home from school and I dont work :slight_smile:

In between all the prep for the snowmagedon event, I managed to get a bunch done on the system:

  1. re-plumb the accumulator tank so it sits vertically,
  2. cleaned the accumulator tank a little bit. I didnt have time to do as good a job as I wanted, but I did get a good (bad) bit of nasty looking gunk out of it. It was brown and like thick oil and smelled nasty.
  3. I replace most of the plumbing inside, and between the rez and the main pump.
  4. I did a much better cleaning job on the rez.

As a result of all that - its clear my system is infected with nasty brown gunk/algae/slime/crap of some sort. It also seems very certain that that gunk is at least partially responsible for the PH rising. I am quite certain this is the main issue in the rez.

After cleaning the rez and replacing the most of the plumbing, and cleaning the rest as best I can, I did a new mix of AN nutes and RO water plus some CalMag. I did it to the same concentrations I did before, EC 1.0.

After that, the rez was holding PH longer than it did before the cleaning. The accumulator tank did better - actually much better, for about 4 hours or at least 4 times as long. It was steady at 0.1 higher than the rez, as compared to .5 higher before, but after 4-5 hours, the PH started going back up.

That got me to doing some other testing and checking.

First - It seems like if there is ANY air trapped in the hi-pressure parts of the system, that forces the PH up even faster. It want to stay up as long as that air is still there. I can tell because the water wants to fizz up when first drawn from the hi-pressure parts of the system. If there is fizz, then the PH is higher than if no fizz.

I did some testing in several places in the system and if there is air trapped in a filter, the PH is lower before the filter, and higher after the filter. Once I purge all the air, its reads the same on both sides.

Evey once in a while, I see this fuzzy water when I draw it from the accumulator tank - but not every time. If the bladder was leaking, it should happen every time. Plus Ive checked and I get no water out of the schrader valve, so Im pretty sure the bladder is not leaking.

So - where is that air coming from? Yesterday, I noticed a bunch of bubbles forming inside a mason jar of fresh RO water I had just drawn - lots and lots of bubbles. I am now thinking that when I re-fill the rez with fresh RO water, I must not be allowing enough time for the cold RO water to equalize and its outgassing after it gets into the tank and warms up. When that fresh, cold water gets compressed, it must be super saturating the water - driving the PH up.

That combined with the gunk is causing the drastic PH rise when the nutes get compressed.

The bottom line seems to be the gunk though.

Earlier today I did a second flush of the accumulator tank. When I “cleaned” it earlier, I connected it to my tap water through some hoses and valves so I could fill it with water, then drain it quickly, then re-fill and repeat. During the first fill, I put some dishware detergent inside the fitting before filling. The I let that sit for abit and started the flushing cycles.

But my house water pressure is only about 50 PSI, and the tank is per-presurized with 80 PSI of air on the bladder. That means I was not able to fully stretch the bladder or fill the tank very full at all. The bladder is textured or quilted or folder in some way. It looks to me like it has a million folds that can trap gunk and the tank would need to be filled almost full to stretch it out.

So, early today I filled it up to 135PSI with nute water and drained it a few times until the rez was empty. I got quite a bit more gunk out this time. Then I re-filled the system and spent some time trying to purge all the air out. Before the next grow, Im going to add more places to bleed air out, and try to eliminate places air can get trapped, to make it easier.

After all that, I re-filled the system. This time the rez and tank stayed about 0.1 PH apart for almost 6 hours instead of the 4 hours from before.

Now that the water in the tank has warmed up, it is somewhat fizzy again, and the tank PH is reading 5.9 while the rez is at 5.4 - back to the 0.5 PH difference.

BUT - here is the problem with all that thinking. Compressing extra C02 into the water SHOULD drive the PH DOWN - not up! One detail that supports that is the fact that the PH goes UP even more after the pressurized water sits long enough for the fizz to go away.

So, once again I seem to have results that are contradictory.

The one thing Im certain of is my system is contaminated. Im gong to have to address that no matter what - and it is probably the key issue in one way or another.

Im close to finishing this grow, so super cleaning will have to wait. Im just hoping I dont have to replace too much of the system. The 1/4" tubing and fittings are cheap, the accumulator tank, pumps and other parts are not.

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#619

I keep forgetting to mention one other interesting thing I noticed while I was cleaning the accumulator tank.

While cleaning the rez, the roots still got sprayed at the same intervals they have been getting - so no stress from lack of water. The accumulator tank holds enough water to run for maybe 2 days even if the rez is empty. So taking the rez out of the system for cleaning or working on it is no problem.

Removing the accumulator tank stops the watering, so I had to hurry. It took me maybe 2 or 3 hours total down time before I had the system back together and re-filled. Before I started, i changed the timing on the nozzles from the normal 0.9on/44off cycle to 10 seconds ON and 4 seconds off. I let that run for several minutes to saturate the root ball before I disconnected the tank.

The key point is, once I got everything back together and checked the plants, I saw that several of the colas had fallen over or were leaning badly. I could immediately tell the stems were soft and flexible. I propped the leaning stems up and waited. Within two hours, all the stems were getting nice and hard again and no more leaning.

So HPA systems seem to react the same way soil does - when they get thirsty, the stems get soft and flexible. One way to check if you are way under watering in HPA :slight_smile:

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#620

I live right on Lake Superior and as I look out the window right now I have about 4’ of snow in the backyard. :slight_smile: I think we pick up 2" if I blink some times…

I noticed quite a bit of build up inside of my chiller when I was cleaning the other day. The lines were really clogged up and it took a good hour of hot water flushing through to really clean it all out. When I did my initial nozzle test I noticed after I emptied the system that what was left in the bucket was pretty nasty – so I assume my accumulator needs a good clean as well. Now that I have water in the room again and the RO is hooked back up I will get out there today and do a good flush of everything too. Hopefully my new filters + UV will keep this clear this time around…

I found this out the hard way myself. When I left for vacation at the end of my last run I had adjusted the timings up so I could do a res flush and then forgot to reset them after I was done. So the whole time I was gone I was spraying at 5m instead of 2m and when I got home the plants had started to fall over and the stems were super wimpy compared to how springy they were when I left. We used the yoyo’s to help them get to the end, but they just weren’t ever the same. (Starving for 2 weeks, ugh…)

I already warned the woman – no more planning vacations at the end of a cycle.

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#621

Oh boy - what a day I am having. I sure hope the “interesting times” Ive been having today are over!

First - around noon I was checking PH and getting steep rising again in the accumulator tank and at the nozzles. So, I decided screw it Im killing this zombie algae crap or kill the plant trying I didnt much care which one.

So - I shut off the connection between the rez and the rest of the system, and then added a crap ton of pool shock, and let that circulate in the rez for about 45 minutes. It took almost that long to get the powder to dissolve.

Then, I drained the accumulator tank through a tap near the nozzles, and turned off the timers and solenoids - so the roots were not getting misted. I had pre-soaked them as before.

Then I filled the accumulator tank with the pool shock mix. I also let some of the solution feed into the rest of the system up to the solenoids and let it spray a few times. That was just to get chlorine into all the tubing and solenoids and nozzles. Then I spent the next hour draining the accumulator tank back into the rez and re-filling it, then drain again and repeat. The purpose of that was to exercise the bladder in the accumulator tank to get as much of the crud exposed to the chlorine and try to kill it and knock it loose if possible.

I did the final drain through a tap I added right before the solenoids to try and flush the rest of the tubing, etc. The last step was to drain the rez, and re fill with plain RO and flush everything again a few times. Finally, I drained and refilled and added nutes again and had it back up and running after about 2 hours total down time. That was long enough for the stems to get soft again, but nothing fell over this time.

I was half way through re-filling the accumulator tank with the fresh nutes when the power went out! That was 4PM and it was starting to get dark outside. It had not snowed much today, but we still have about 6" total. I know, I know - we are whimps, but that is a lot for us :slight_smile:

Anyway I wasnt too worried because our power has not been off for more than an hour in several years. But this kept going. I was spraying the roots by hand every 5 minutes or so, but thats a pain. I couldnt get on-line or get any news on my phone and txts were not going through. That made me think this mus be a wide spread outage rather than something local.

So, I decided to crank up the generator for some temp power - but - I couldnt find the dam 220 power cord to connect the generator to my main panel! I have a separate box I installed to run the house wiring from the generator and isolate it from the mains power - incase the power comes back on, Im not feeding power to the grid.

Anyway, I was going nuts trying to find that dam cord. Its only been 4 or 5 years since I last saw it, so it could be buried very deep. I took a break after I started getting angry and frustrated and decided to start the generator and let it warm up. Plus I could string a drop cord for some temporary lights to help look through the storage room. Of course, the dam thing wouldnt start! I almost ran the batter down, but it finally cranked over after I remembered to flip the choke! :scream: I tore the storage room apart and no cord. Then my wife asked me if I had by chance put it outside with the generator. I scoffed at her and said I would have seen it, plus I was sure I had put it away after the last time. She just gave me that look, so I went outside again, and there was the dam cord right next to the generator in a storage box with the funnel, extra gas, etc. My excuse is the box had some snow on the lid… Yeah, she didnt go for that either :smiley:

So, I finally get the generator running and power up the house and get the system running again. Four hours later, the power came back on and we are now toasty warm again :slight_smile:

But wait - there is more!!!

So, after a hot shower and popping one of my capsules, I finally had a chance to double check PH in the system. It had been about 6 hours since re-filling it.

The rez PH was at 5.4 and the accumulator tank was at 5.3!! WTF? I checked the tap at the nozzles and it was at 5.3 as well - plus it was a little fizzy.

Ive got my fingers crossed that this will hold for a while. If so, it means that the brown zombie algae slime crap has been driving the PH up pretty much all by itself.

This is the first time that the PH has been LOWER in the hi-pressure part of the system - other than maybe the first time I filled it. I am assuming that the reason is that some trapped air has raised the C02 concentration in the pressurized parts of the system, lowering the PH.

I dont know why the gunk was raising my PH, or why higher pressure made it go up even more, but it sure seems to be the primary cause.

I added some PH up and brought the rez to 5.6. It seemed like a bad idea to keep shooting the roots with 5.3 nutes. I will check the rest of the system in a couple of hours to see if this trend is continuing. I expect the PH to go up a bit once the air in the system gets absorbed. We will see…

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#622

Its been almost 4 hours sense I adjusted the rez PH up to 5.6, and the rez is still at 5.6 and the tank is still at 5.6 and the nozzles are still at 5.6!!! wooooohooooo!! Looking good so far!!

The snow even stopped the mailman today - no MES and no mail at all. Im glad I bought the small sample of MES. I may not need it now…fingers crossed!!

LOL Ok, your,snow pack, is bigger :smiley:

I admit it. I live in a whimp location as far as snow accumulation, but thats ok. You can have all the snow you want and Im fine with that :slight_smile:

Hot water hasnt been working for me. It does loosen it up, but doesnt seem to kill it or really get it out or off a surface. Using powdered dishwasher detergent helped a bunch for cleaning filters, but I still have to scrub them with a brush.

Im hoping this super shock treatment killed the crap all the way dead this time. Im going to be adding a small amount of bleach every so often - for sure when I top off the rez. Im not sure the UV light kills this crap fast enough when first filling the tank.

The last parts of all my grows so far always seem to be the most stressful and take the most time. I manage to get away for a few days at a time early in the grow, but not late.

Im hoping - if I have finally found the solution to the PH problem - that future grows will be a LOT less stressful.