Quick up-date then I have to run again. The combination of extra chlorine shock and MES is working!
The MES alone was able to keep the nozzle PH at 5.9 while the rez was at 5.5. Lowering the PH in the rez to 5.3 dropped the nozzle PH to 5.7 and its stayed at 5.7 for the last 12 hours or so. Woo hoo!
Ive been slowly lowering the concentration of MES in my system for the last week or so. I started at 5mM, then 2mM and now Im at or just under 1mM.
Its very obvious how well it works. It is taking far less PH Up or Down to change PH as the concentration gets lower.
I am very impressed with how well this stuff works. Thanks again to @Northern_Loki for all the research, detailed testing and educational posts!!!
Under some situations, I think this would make a viable option for someone with a nasty PH issue that needs short term handling. For long term, I still think it would be better to fix the source or what ever is causing the PH changes.
In my case, I think any treatment that killed the algae for good would kill the plant first, so the MES has saved my grow.
Oh, you are quite welcome. Iām glad it was useful. Trying it in practice means you are a key contributor to this experiment. Thank you.
Iāve learned a great deal in trying this. And, itās fun, too.
Yes, definitely better to try to figure out the source of any problems.
Though, I do believe that the use of a buffer can also be a helpful tools in situations even when the swings are less extreme and less pronounced. Particularly for systems where the media is a fluid and there is a significant amount of manipulation going on, RDWC, etc.
I still have several buffers/buffer combinations to try out to expand the reference information.
Amazing work, wow 
How did we never see this until now? 
There has been some interest in looking at the Jackās nutrient line buffering capacity so I ordered up the most recent version of the Jack 321 and RO base formulations from a local supply house.
33-103020 Jacks Nutrients 10-30-20 Bloom FeED
33-12416 Jacks Nutrients 12-4-16 Hydro FeED RO
33-15617 Jacks Nutrients 15-6-17 Clone FeED
33-51226 Jacks Nutrients 5-12-26 Part A FeED
33-55018 Jacks Nutrients 5-50-18 FeED UltraViolet
33-71530 Jacks Nutrients 7-15-30 Finish FeED
Already stocked:
Part B: PLANTEX Calcium Nitrate Purecal 10033
Part C: Dr. Teals Epsom Salt
Weāll be looking at the inherent buffering of the 321 formulation to compare with previous trials. Also, will look at the RO specific version of this once received.
For the part B and C, Iāll be utilizing the stock of Calcium Nitrate and Magnesium Sulfate that I already have on hand. Iām assuming that the B and C are pure, which I believe is the case, and do not have anything else to change the alkalinity. Such as bicarbonates.
For 321, weāll be using the Part A along with any needed Part B out of my stock (Calcium Nitrate). Part C, if added, will simply be Epsom Salts. Target will be adjusted such that the EC is 1.7 in order to favorably match the salt concentrations of previous trials.
The remaining ingredients are for a trial grow and probably not evaluated here.
Back-linked thread to an example of using the 321 successfully that has spurred this evaluation:
Im looking forward to this series of tests.
Just to put all the notes in one place: Many people, including me, have noted that the Jacks seems to have a high buffer capacity relative to other brands of nutes. In other words, its much more PH stable than the other nutes.
In my case, I am comparing Jacks 321 hydro to past grows with Mega Crop (v1, v2, and v3) Advanced Nutes PH Perfect line, and Fox Farms nutes. Ive even added extra buffers in the form of MES to both Mega Crop and Advanced Nutes and the Jacks is still far superior in its ability to hold PH stable in my system.
You and I both suspect that a large portion of Jacks perceived extra PH ābuffer capacityā is actually due to Jacks NOT having organics in it that can feed algae/bacterial growth. The theory being that the rise in PH in many systems is due to algae/bacteria feeding on the organics, which then drives up the PH.
I am very curious to see how this testing goes.
Once again - thanks for doing this for the community!!!
Very excited to see what the results are with this. Iām on week 3 with this reservoir and still sitting at 5.9 ā but I believe a good part of that is the Torus Hydro keeping me in check.
Iād also be interested in seeing what the buffering looks like at a lower EC, as well. I found that the 1.8 recommended is a lot higher than what my system needs so Iāve slowly been dropping the EC to make them happy. (Down to 1.5 now, but I suspect that 1.0 is prob closer to what I actually needed.)
This is great stuff to see, love having more data! 
I am interested in this also. I have historically run 1.4 EC from start to finish with satisfactory results, and only somewhat recently have been running at the higher 1.8, not long enough to come to any solid conclusions. My pH discipline has never been great, so I donāt have any first hand data recorded from before.
Bare with me, here as I explain why 1.7 as the target EC.
An EC of 1.7 is for comparison purposes on the buffering capacity since the other trials were run at 1.7. This EC, which is relatively high, was chosen as weāll be able to see the buffering regions ābetterā as the solution will have an elevated capacity.
One wouldnāt want to run a grow specifically at the ECs presented here. Youād rather use an EC that is sensible. We are simply determining how well a buffer works in relation to other buffers. Or, in this specific case, determining if there is some significant difference in the inherent buffering across several base nutrient formulations.
If the buffering capacity at an EC of 1.7 were to appear better than MC (with a similar EC), it would remain better if we were to lower the ECs for both of them and re-ran the measurements. As long as any buffers in a formula is homogeneous, the buffering capacity decreases along with decreasing EC and; likewise, different formulas will be relative to each other.
We can see this effect in the plots previously presented when adding buffers. The curves at various concentrations appear the same but they show less capacity when we reduce the concentration. The same thing should occur with the base nutrients since we are treating them as though they were a buffers (titration).
A buffer with poor capacity can actually be perfectly acceptable if there is little unbalanced H+/OH- exchange occurring. Buffers handle any unbalance in the biological exchange. The greater the unbalance, the more buffer capacity may be needed.
Without knowing the rate of H+ / OH- exchange that actual occurs, the plots actually tells us nothing about time. It does tell us that higher concentrations of buffering components can buffer more H+ / OH-. It also tells how much ābetterā one buffer is compared to another.
For instance, if you were to build a buffer solution, you could use much less MES relative to a citrate buffer. Or, for that matter, much more of a phosphate buffer to achieve the same effect. But, we could only guess how much would be useful for any particular situation since we donāt know anything about the unbalanced exchange (fwiw, this can theoretically be calculated but letās not because itās hard and has hundreds of possible variables).
For comparing two base formulations, what weāll get thatāll be useful is simply that one has more (or less) buffering capacity or differing regions than the other. Along with previous experiments and the hands-on experience, weāll possibly glean some additional hints on how PH behaves at a basic solution level thatāll be useful in the future and, perhaps, help untangle some of the current theories.
This may sound confusing or argumentative but was not the intent. Just trying to explain the line of thinking. Which is sort-of stream of consciousness, squirrel!
Well put, and makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for being willing to do the work and share the results. I love this stuff!
Trying to read all this makes my head hurt.
Thanks for putting in the work!
There has been a lot going on here over time.
Key issues:
Summary points to date:
Newer things:
If youāre see something ah-ha in the list of key issues, itās probably worth trying to decode some of the ramblings. Otherwise, I agree, itās a bit much to worry about.
Received āmostā of the Jackās order this morning (these greenhouse folk are early risers). The local distributor sent me two āfinishā, I assume by accident, and missed the bloom but thatāll have nothing to do with the titration.
Iāll likely be able to get to testing the buffering on the 1-2-3 sometime within the next week or so.
edit: err, 3-2-1
edit: measurement error, see correction in subsequent post.
Did a quick titration of the Jackās 3-2-1 at 1.7EC in RO water being stirred.
The components were prepared for 1 gallon using:
500ml was adjusted by dilution to the target 1.7EC. The solution is clear up until around a PH of 7.5 after which it starts to turn cloudy. You can see the slope change slightly as precipitation occurs. The titration captured starts from ~5.8:
edit: measurement error, see correction in subsequent post.
This is due to to rather slow but significant drift before becoming more or less stable at 5.8:
edit: measurement error, see correction in subsequent post.
The drift caught me off-guard. Iāll need to verify the drift against how the RO water was stored (in gamma lid buckets), perhaps, allowing any gases to equalize to the ambient for a period of time (to ensure there isnāt a whole lot of dissolved gas).
Currently, it appears that the actual buffering between the area of interest (5.6 to 6.5) is on par with MC v1. Or, in this case 5.8-6.5 due to the drift. Practically equivalent other than the PH offset but perhaps slightly improved at the lower PH.
The two together:
edit: measurement error, see correction in subsequent post.
Very interesting - and a little surprising - result!
I need more coffee before I can digest this fully, but I have one question right off the bat. What does that last graph look like if you offset the values so they both start at the same PH - 5.8ish? Is that even a valid thing to do in this case? Im curious to see what the two look like over the same PH range.
I need more coffeeā¦
edit: measurement error, see correction in subsequent post.
It would look something like:
Overlaying it invalidates the y-axis ,though.
The slopes of two linear equations illustrates the similarity in the target PH range. 3.02 vs 2.99. Drift from alkalinity is possible.
There are a bunch of little details Id like to discuss, and that drift might change things some, but the elephant in the room is that Mega Crop has virtually identical buffering compared to Jacks. It may even have a slightly better/flatter curve in the key range.
To me that strongly suggests that the organics (or something) in Mega Crop are a key factor in the differences in the PH stability many people see between the two. It looks to me like the reason is not due to any buffering magic, but rather to bacteria liking to eat Mega Crop and not liking to eat Jacks.
edit: measurement error, see correction in subsequent post.
It does appear more flat at lower PH but Iād say equivalent at the moment. There is a some uncertainty in the measurement and weāre talking about a small difference.
Iām suspecting that is one likely scenario and it lines up with some of your experience. Also, occasionally, weāve seen precipitants in the MC. We havenāt had a good identification of whatās precipitating (and why) but it could also cause PH shift. Manufacturer has noted that precipitants are likely organic in nature.
The drift on the Jackās stands out here. If this is typical, itāll throw people off. Something with alkalinity, perhaps. Something else we havenāt figured out. Or, something wrong with my method.
edit: I donāt think the offset was quite right, this is a better view as overlayed and zoomed in (starting at 5.8)
Similarly, did a quick titration of the Jackās RO formulation at 1.7EC in RO water being stirred.
The components were prepared for 1 gallon using:
500ml was adjusted by dilution to the target 1.7EC. The solution is transluscent green-blue up until around a PH of 7.5 after which it starts to turn cloudy. You can see the slope change slightly as precipitation occurs.
The RO formulation show minimal drift with a low starting PH. Since drift was low (about 3/100 of a PH after an hour), I terminated collecting data early:
Buffering comparison against MC:
By the way, this stuff smells like dirty socks.
