So actually bottle says that it is made from plants, but they are organic anyway. I never knew that fertilizers has to be different for hydro. Sadly i was not advised about this in local growshop.
I can’t tell but it appears that you are attempting Kratky style of hydro? This works well for some types of plants but is not optimal for cannabis, so it’s a bit of a challenge. You want to ensure that the nutrient solution is properly oxygenated otherwise
- the plant will have difficulty taking in nutrients
- the solution will harbor anerobic bacteria if the dissolved oxygen become deficient, the kind you do not want to have around. While plants will cause PH to increase, the organics, temperature, oxygen encouraging bacterial growth is a possible cause to the rapid PH increase.
As @hush notes, organics in the nutrient solution can lead to the growth of undesirable bacteria. Organics in hydro can be tricky to pull-off particularly if the solution is not oxygenated and the temperature is not managed.
Citric acid can be toxic to plants if you keep having to add it to the solution. I don’t know at what point that would be, though. A dilute sulfuric or phosphorus based acid may be a bit better.
6 Likes
Yes passive hydroponic. Roots should be able to breathe, so to speak, because they are not fully merged into solution. Also i use LED, so there should not be problem with temperature.
Change the water, Add fresh nutes and dont Add the fish emulsion , in about a week or so they should be ok.
1 Like
What is the ppm/ec at?
If the Jiffs are touching the water, they will stay soaked. If the roots stay too wet, they cannot breath. The roots that are in the water will use up the oxygen in the buckets. In short - your not giving them nearly enough oxygen.
Also, you MUST keep the PH in range or the plants will not do well. Citric acid is a bad choice for hydro - its organic based and doesnt last.
As was mentioned before - you are using organic based nutrients, which don work well in hydro. I would change to Jacks or some other NON-organic nutes.
Not true at all. Do you know what the water temps are? You really need to measure it to know.
To sum up:
- Change to NON-organic based nutes. Its probably bacteria eating the organics that is causing the PH t go up so badly.
- Keep the PH in range at all times - use sulfuric acid or Phosphorus based acid. You may need to adjust very often.
- Check water temps. Try to keep it under 70 deg F.
Im not a fan of the kratky method at all. It has very poor oxygenation mainly and just begs to grow bad bacteria.
Good luck!
6 Likes
If you want a super simple method of hydro that does work well for our plants, try Hempy Buckets instead. They are the lowest maintenance type of hydro there is. All you do is water the buckets every few days and deal with the runoff.
Seriously, Id Google Hempy Bucket and see what you think.
You still need to switch away from anything organic in your nutes.
4 Likes
Yeah that’s not true at all, and @anon32470837 already touched on those points so I won’t repeat him. Temperature is always a concern when working around electronics that consume electricity. It’s physics. But more importantly you need to immediately rethink your setup. If you want to go with passive hydroponics, you should go to a top-feed style system, or you should do a hempy bucket. There is a reason why hempy buckets are so ubiquitous in this scene. They work, and they work extremely well. But if you are going to do hydroponics, you need to get rid of your organics. Those two worlds should NEVER be combined until you are highly advanced at both, and even then there is plenty of science that suggests it’s an uphill battle and just not worth the effort (outside of aquaponics, perhaps). So, lose the organics, buy a bag of Maxibloom or Jack’s, and stop reinventing the wheel. Do what is already proven to work.
The other option of course is to keep the organics, and ditch the idea of going hydroponic. I’m not a fan of that option for a multitude of reasons, but primarily because I believe organics are for the ground and hydroponics are for containers. I’m weird like that. Whatever you decide to do, it’s important that you decide. What you’ve setup for yourself is a high probability of failure, and I don’t like seeing that. I like seeing people succeed at this! That’s how we overgrow the world.
6 Likes
Here’s a pretty good video that may be of interest:
5 Likes
I agree with @Foreinger, stabilize your pH by letting the water stand 24-48 hours of you’re not using chemicals to remove the chlorine. Then add your nutes in the proper order.
You should pick up a tds/ec meter too. Some nutes I use have to be 1/2 strength (still takes me to 950ppm) 1/3 or 1/4 strength with little ones like you have there. But might not work with organics … hope you figure it out 
1 Like
I recently discovered that chlorine is acidic and it makes sense that ph would rise as it dissipates.
So obvious I missed it 
The amount of chlorine we use to sterilize our rez water (2-4 PPM) doesnt change the PH to any significant degree. Ive run as hi as 20-50 PPM with no significant change in PH. Most drinking water that is treated is in the same range.
So, chlorine may be acidic at the concentrations inside a bleach bottle, but not in our grows. There isnt enough chlorine to cause a change for us to worry about one way or the other as far as PH. Now toxicity is a different story.
That’s quite interesting. Maybe something else accounts for my rising pH
I think most of its covered by others.
Air, tds meter, test for chlorine hard water to begin would all help. Everything in order to make sure nothing gets locked up.
Looked up biobizz. Sounds like you used a starter kit they sell, did it recommend the fish fertilizer they sell? And the pH down they have is citrus based. Did they sell this as hydro?
I think othes have recommended using a fertilizer specific to hydro to start.
There are several things that can drive PH upwards. In no particular order:
-
Biological action - algae, bacteria, etc can drive the PH up in a rez when they eat the nutes. This is especially a problem when using nutes with any organic components. Nutes like Jacks 321 dont have this problem (or its greatly reduced) because they have no organic components. Advanced Nutes, Mega Crop, Fox Farm all do have it.
-
Alkalinity of the water - alkalinity in your water may drive the PH up all by itself when aerated. My water for example will always go up to around 6.3 when aerated. I add PH Down, then when its aerated, the PH goes back up. Add more PH down, it goes back up. Keep adding PH down, it keeps going back up. Never stops.
-
Interaction with healthy roots can also drive the PH up - or down. This depends on your EC level mainly as far as I can tell.
Depending on your setup, this can be difficult to diagnose.
Hi,
thank you all for your advises.
I have switched to CANNA Aqua Vega fertilizer, which is designed for circular systems. This Kratky´s method is not quite circular, but i suppose it will be all right. I also obtained other option for hydro from CANNA - Coco - for flushing method system as described by vendor.
I have changed solution in all tanks for Canna Aqua Vega. After several days most plants were visibly better, but some were still struggling. For those in worst shape i have decided to go for hempty buckets (about six of them) as advised by you guys.
Buckets contains perlit + vermikulit mix (ratio cca 5:2) and i have used Coco fertilizer on them.
Those placed in buckets never recovered, they did not die, but are in quite bad shape and are not growing. I have been thinking that maybe i did too small holes, or maybe placed holes too high. Jiff is about 5 cm big and two holes are at 7cm, therefore it should prevent plant from drowning, which should be main idea in this.
Plants were placed there with small to none roots, they cant drink much, so i might overwater them even with small amount of water.
Now i think that main reason might be mold Trichoderma as it is bloomed recently.
It is added sometimes to coconut fiber. Perlit is clean, but vermikulit is likely infested with it. I discarded its packaging after usage, so i can not be sure though.
I do not quite know how i should measure pH in hempty bucket in order to do some basic troubleshooting. My tip is that mold changed pH from the very beginning. Or could remains of organics fertilizer started to mildew? At this point i am questioning myself if it is even worth to try to save those in hempty. It is no use, if you compare them with their luckier siblings they are just too way behind. Would you do differently? If so, why?
4 plants, which were also a little bit behind, obtained air pump. I do not see significant acceleration in growth in comparison to plants without air. I am not quite sure if i am using it correctly though - pipe is floating on surface, but maybe it should be attached to bottom, so air would make its way to root underwater? What do you think, please?
Rest of plants (about 65j% of all plants) created nice roots and are thriving quite good.
I will continue with passive hydroponics, as most are thriving, but i realized that it wont be so much passive anymore as plants gets bigger and hungrier.
First plant emptied its bucket and before i realized it, it started to drying up.
I had 25 plants, several examples from altogether 6 different phenotypes. Luckily i have well growing plant from each.
Plants had many stresses from the very beginning causing them to strive.
First they were several hours in plastic sacks during transport after i obtained them and right after then were placed into organic solution and left there for several days. Some were drowning or on the contrary surface of their solution was too low.
Hopefully i wont stress them more, but there are still many things i am not sure about.
I have been wondering about amount of fertilizer. I follow instructions - Aqua Vega - i am using two bottles, same for growth and bloom. Both should be mixed with water in ratio 20 mL / 10 L.
Tap water, i am using, has about 7pH, so i add a little bit less to achieve around 5,5pH. I think that is correct as pH is rising only slowly and plants seems to be alright.
Next i want to install fans and net, both to boost plants endurance, so they do not break down under weight of ripe flowers.
1 Like
For the Air Pump , did you attach an airstone ?
2 Likes
Is Canna made from any organic components? I cant find any info on their site, but I havent had enough coffe yet 
On the hempy buckets - yes, you should have placed the holes lower down. The perlite and vermiculite both wick water up very well. I would put the holes about 3/4 to 7/8 of the way down from the top of the perlite. Much closer to the bottom than you have it. The roots will be happier with less water.
As far as the air line in the bubble buckets - yes, it needs to go on the bottom of the bucket so the air bubbles up through the water. You want to oxygenate the water - not the roots above the water. The way you have it will just tend to dry out the roots. An air stone will also help a lot by making smaller bubbles. The smaller bubbles will transfer more oxygen to the water.
2 Likes
I grow Dwc and I keep my PH higher in veg 6.3 - no higher than 6.7 and let it drop in flower to 5.8- no higher than 6.3 … 5.5 is a little Acidic for me anyway, and with little to no oxygen to the roots.
Whats the Temperature of the water in the buckets/ rez?
1 Like
Hi, so my plants are looking better now, thank you for advises.
There are still some problems though and i wonder why is it so. Some of plants are loosing leaves and Ph is dropping pretty low (around 4.3).
Others do not have these problems, Ph is stable around 5.5 or rising over 6.0 with some. Temperature is about 23 Celsius in tanks. I am changing water in tanks every three days, some plants are able to drink all water, some have still over 1 liter in tank. I have about six phenotypes so i guess they just like little different setting.
!
I will make two big tanks, each for six plants, as this will help me with maintenance.
1 Like