Do you mean your using jacks for your soil grows and your coco grows or, do you mean you use a soil and coco blend? Just curious because I’m in pure coco and thinking of switching to jacks.
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Hey @SeymourGreen… What up? 
I like what your doing… 50/50 huh?.. hmm. Got me thinking… I would say anything under 100 ppm would be considered “perfect”…
I was growing in a residence(20 years ago) with 85 ppm “tap” … Beautiful.
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Hello @CLOSETGROWTH. My starting tap varies from about 155 to around 182. After I blend the Ro and tap I add 1 ml per gal of armour Si which gets me around 90 ppm. I’m really considering switching to jacks from the maxi series because I keep getting mag deficiencies in veg and K deficiencies in flower. 
I am using super shitty walmart coco though so, that could be part of my problem lol! Peace.
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I had the same thing happen to me when I ran the maxi… Swear to God! …
I think you’ll love the Jack’s… Its the full meal deal. You wont regret it my friend. 
Have a nice evening
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I have a mix of stuff going on… I try to feed the pure coco at 5.8-6.0 and pure soil at 6.4-6.6. It seems like the soil plants slowly develop chlorosis. Since part A is buffered to 5.8, I’m wondering if the pH UP required to get it to 6.4 is locking up some of the nutes and causing the problems.
I’ve also tried varying the ratios 3-2-1, 2-2-1, 2-2-2, etc but haven’t found a sweet spot yet.
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A bit of a game changer…instead of jacks or miracle grow i choose www.advancednutrients.com.
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I might choose www.remonutrients.com next time.
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I haven’t tried Remo, but I’ll take a look at their lineup.
Thought about Blue Planet Nutrients organic line… good reviews from Medgrower1 & Mr. Tight 
I’ve had my best results from Nectar for the Gods, but I’ve been exploring dry mix nutes and considering other options. Haven’t been able to get Jack’s to perform like NFTG.
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I don’t grow soil. I had some veggies outside I used Jack’s on and they grew, but didn’t look great. Had lots of blossom end rot. Either not enough Ca or too much other nutrients competing for uptake with Ca
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Ok back on topic…
I’ve been holding off on putting the seedlings into my media since I’m still having pH rise. My RO comes out pretty high on the scale and I adjusted down to 5.8 but I’ve been rising 0.1 or so an hour – it stabilized around 6.5 by the time I woke up today. I dropped it back down a bit and I’m still watching, but I don’t want to keep dumping pH down in the res if I can help it.
So I have ~35 gallons of RO water (0ppm), I added Jacks 321 (3.6/2.4/1.2 per gallon), and I ended up with 7.4 as my pH. Dropped the pH and now after ~48 hours I’m still seeing a rise. I am hoping this is just my media being out of whack and over time I can adjust it down, but what does every else’s pH look like after mixing?
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Mine goes from 10.3pH to 6.1pH at 2.4/1.6/0.8 grams per gal. I suspect if I added more I’d have a lower pH.
It’s weird that your pH rises.
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Odd result. You know what my water is like - even with zero nutes, the PH rises after I add PH down. In my case, Im certain its the carbonates in my water. Also, when I draw RO water, it behaves the same exact way, so RO doesnt remove the carbonates - at least in my case.
You should be able to run a test to see if its the water or the media. Just make up another small batch of nutes, PH it down, and then aerate it but do not use any media. If the PH continues to rise, then you know its the water. If it doesnt, then its the media or some other source of up potential. You could also set aside a small batch of media in just water, PH it down and see what it does.
Might help narrow down the cause.
Ive also read of people needing to PH new hydroton waaaaaay down for a period to get it to stop doing exactly this. IIRC, they were dropping the PH to 3 something and letting the hydroton sit for 24 hours soaking like that. Then flush like crazy and try again.
Jacks seems to have a crap ton of buffer capacity based on how its working for me. It is far far more PH stable than Advanced Nutes PH Perfect + MES buffer, so you must have a significant source of something that is pushing the PH up.
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I’m pretty sure it was just the media. I realized once I started adding nutes that the water I presoaked with was straight RO, which is always really high pH here. I reuse my media but with the new system I bought all new hydroton and totally forgot about this step. 
The system has been cycling for quite a while now and seems to have stabilized. Good thing too, since my seedlings took off so fast that multiple had already shed their shells and were already looking for light. They’re been moved into the grow beds and are now getting full strength Jacks. We’ll see how they like it.
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12 days after I mixed my first res and it’s still totally clear even after hundreds of cycles though. The pH has stabilized at 6.0 and other than some RO top-offs I haven’t done any reservoir maintenance.
I will be doing my first 5 gallon top-off with nutes later this week, but I will need to lower the EC a bit. I was hoping to get away from what seemed like constant res changes and so far things are looking good.
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This sounds very interesting, I m currently just growing in soil. I can’t wait to learn more! I would love to try this, but I’m scared because monitoring the ph seems hard for me.
I will be stalking your thread to learn
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I made the mistake of chasing pH with Jacks 321, but it was really a faulty pH pen. Everything I’ve heard about Jacks 321 references its amazing buffering ability. Unless your water supply changes drastically throughout the year (municipalities often switch reservoirs seasonally), you should be able to test a few times for confirmation and then trust until you see a potential nutrient uptake issue.
Good luck!
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I haven’t tried it… but a roll of litmus tape might be better than nothing…
and way better than having the pH in the rhizosphere getting crazy low or high…
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Monitoring PH isnt difficult, but you really should not go too cheap. You can get by with PH test drops or strips, but they are not that accurate. The big plus is its inexpensive.
If you go digital with a PH pen of some type, do NOT go with the cheap pens. They are a waste of time and money and will screw you up.
You are going to need to spend closer to $50 for a decent PH pen. You will also need calibration solutions to keep it accurate. No ph pen stays accurate over time.
That may sound complicated, but its not that difficult to get it figured out. If you are going to do hydro of any type, a reliable way to measure PH really a must have.
The least expensive pen that I know of that also works very well, has good reviews, good service from the company, etc is this Apera PH 20 kit.
That $45 kit comes with calibration solutions, and a n ice storage box.
You really should also have some KCL storage solution, but tap water will work in a pinch.
Or, you can get the $78 kit (see first link above) which has more than everything you will need.
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Thanks! I’m putting all links in my favorite places. Right now I want to get a few grows using soil. This way I have an idea on what I’m doing. So far I been successful in my eyes. My girls are still alive… so hopefully after I learn how to harvest. I will be able to start growing in water. It seems from some threads that I read. That the yields are bigger when using water as a medium. I will get there soon! Thanks for the information. This “noob” appreciates it!
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