So I bought a dwc system had some plants in soil and transferred them to the system and having a hard time keeping ph where I want it, am using gh nutes. They seem to like it but the ph in less than 24 hours is back up. Using fox farm down.I washed all the dirt off before putting in. I put water in and air let chlorine dissipate than nutes than ph to 5.5
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I have found that you’re usually going to have fairly large pH swings in hydro. Especially when starting a new system. That’s why it important to do daily pH checks to monitor and adjust when needed. After a few weeks it should stabilize more. Especially since you can kinda predict the proper corrections in advance.
I wouldn’t worry that much. Just monitor it well and you’ll be fine. Good luck!
Full disclosure: I’m a DWC noob. So hopefully some other more experienced growers can chime in.
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Chlorine will disapate in time with aeration, chloramine will not.
Did you make sure to rinse the clay pebbles well with phed water?
Ph will rise when the nutrients are consumed. How much of a ph swing are you talking?
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The plant sure looks happy.
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hydrocorrles can suck like hell. they will always put the ph to places you don´t want it for the first week or so you can minimize this effect with 2 steps from my expirience.
- flush the hell out of them till the dirt stops coming out (you did)
2.before you use the corrles put them in ph balanced water at around 4.8 ph and let them soak for 24 h
in most cases 24 h later the ph will be arround 5.5 -5.8 ( for me that works)
anyone else doing it like this ?
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What is the PPM/EC doing in the time that the ph is rising?
Hydroton and other clay pebbles can raise the ph if not presoaked in a proper (5.8) solution before use.
If it’s not that and PH is spiking up, like a point+ in ~24hrs, I’d suspect some kinda of bacterial growth. Could try using beneficial bacteria like hydroguard or something, or go sterile like I do with calcium hypochlorite. You’d know by the water smelling bad, and/or the roots smelling bad(should smell like carrots or veggies), and/or slime development.
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I agree with everyone else, in DWC I would check my ph each night and morning but at least once a day. In my experience you will have to adjust at least once a day, because as the plants eat nutrients from the water the ph of the nutrient solution will adjust constantly based on how nutrient concentrations change depending on plant uptake.
In my opinion with Hydro you’re just trading watering with maintenance of your system. 
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Getting the right ppm level of the nutrients will stop the swing. If the pH is swinging upwards you can feed them higher ppm. If its going downwards you need to back off with the nutrients. Plants require a slight swing between 5.6 and 6.2ph so every element is available to the plant. Having it sat stable sounds like a good idea but in all honestly it will just slow the growth down.
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I have a test bucket with nothing in it and it is doing the same thing. I did not rinse clay ppm is 800 to 900
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Maybe a stupid suggestion but do you have another ph meter for a comparison??
When I ran full rdwc I had a similar issue and ended causing a lockout as I was chasing it for quite a long time. It ended up my that meter needed cleaned and reconfigured. I now clean and configure my meters weekly to avoid this kind of issue.
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Gonna have more issues with RDWC, if you use individual buckets it’s more labor but you will see more consistency
Some great information from all of you. Thanks!
@wny61, you wanna answer some of these questions? Help a brother out, lol
@m0sirys, wth is hydrocorrles? The clay pebbles?
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I thought I did answer I have to ph pens and they read the same
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yep they are clay pebbles couldn´t find the right word in english 
but hydrocorrels sounds english for me lol.
sorry for that! need to refresh my vocabulary
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Hydroton is the correct word.
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Also called hydroton. Close enough!
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i´ll sure remeber that one 
Exactly.
This is also why I switched to RDWC when growing hydro. The larger the volume of nutrient solution the more forgiving it is with any fluctuations.
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I found the exact opposite in my experiences. 
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