Not sure, I have a tester but I believe it is not that accurate as I used to thinkā¦perhaps I need some alternatives too
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My main res holds ~10gall. I check ph on refil and 24hr later. on nutes mix Iām usually at ph 5.7-5.9. a day later its ph 6 -6.1. I seldom go a week w/out refilling the rez. right now, Iām refiling every 3 days and it sucks.
water from mid december is 50+ days old. who knows whats going on in there.
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Got me thinking hard about go no-go paper. I like the idea of this one where green means go 
and purple meansā¦ nurple 
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Aināt nothin good
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I definitely wish the colors were more discrete. I have the 4.5-8.5 spool but itās a guessing game the shade of green it turns. If you let it sit for a few seconds it changes and makes you second and triple guess
That 5.6-6.8 looks useful though, wish I had seen that one. Maybe Iāll pick it up.
I wonder if eventually I could design one. I donāt care what the colors are as long as they are contrasting.
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Every morning, test strip disco 
šŖ©
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This AM all 3 were back up 
Fran 
6.5
Mug1 6.75
Mug2 6.5
I added some ph down 
to each šŖ£ to get them all around 6.0
Weāll see how it do 
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https://scienceinhydroponics.com/category/ph
Iāve been trawling through here slowly reading things. I always thought it was just a youtube channel but his website has fantastic text articles.
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Thank you for the link 
Iāll be reading it (much more slowly lol)
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Not sure if you saw my latest but keep an eye on those roots.
Have a great one
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Keep it up!..Iām along for the ride and lovin itā¦
You got this, really like what your doing
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Day 81
Gonna start tracking ph better.
Been checking every day and adjusting every couple days.
Usually read at 6.5 but sometimes 6.75. Iāve read that higher ppm correlates with less ph flux?
Since feed uptake depletes the acids, and more food=more acid=longer time to feed=longer before it becomes alkalineā¦ but as per usual, an apparently primal fear of mine is overfeeding my weed plants. I look at all those burned tips and my brain says too much
So instead of doing the right thing, i did the fear based response and mixed lower than previous batch, at 475 ppm now. Which, if im following along correctly, means im more likely to flux now than before. Yay 
Im just about due for my patented Overcorrection WhiplashĀ®, so weāll see what happens when i have the old lady swallow the ppmš·ļø to catch the phšŖ°.
Res today= 6.0 even.
Noticed something odd when i looked in there. Hoping this silent hill looking brown drip thing is normal when GFF is in there doing its thing? Never seen this before but it looksā¦. Natural? Organic?
Fridge view
Fran (Frankenstein)
Dry 
6.0
Honestly impressed at how she is trucking along, despite the wacky bullshit iāve been putting her through. Since this past week a lot less new shitty leaves , and a bunch more well-meaning greening. Still trimming the bad off of all of these as i go, but showing before and after so i can track any new curly fries.
Mugs (Ketosis x Ice cream cake 98)
Mug1 
6.75 brought down to 6.0/6.1 today
Tiny survivor mode.
Mug2 
F13 FW2
6.5 brought down to 6.0 today
Biggest turnaround award, again goes to mug2 
Snapped a branch the other day, rigged up a little support wire, healed like a champ in two days.
After trim and some extra pulldowns
She seems much happier after her bucket spa treatment last week.
Notice iām using her preferred pronoun (she/her)ā¦
A pleasant surprise
Joe 
(Scarlet Grapes auto)
Trying to figure out what flower week shes in. When do you start the count? From first pistils appearing or when they really get going?
Buds are getting all frosty like. Smell is sweet and fruity, sometimes air freshenerish, sometimes sherbety. And stickiness is sticky sticky. Very excited to run this again, āsmarterā (just means differently, and possibly better
)
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Thanks friendo! Sometimes i need the pep talk to turn 
into 
.
Mucho appreciado 
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Day 88
Been keeping tabs on ph, but only brought them down once this week (6.5 average across the board, brought down to 5.9-6.1). Though, i think weāre starting to turn a corner in the fridge since i decided to feed the bunny some more:
Increased the ppm in the feed mix by sprinkling some more 20-20-20 until it got to <a number i wrote down, moved to where i am sitting sometime earlier today, and now cant find 
>. Somewhere close to 600 ppm, from 475ish. Noticeably happier fridge plants this week (sameish ph flux though). Iāll take obvious plant health over some less than ideal numbers any day šŖ“
Also took a T break with the Missus this week- one that ends today. Been a looong while. My smoke tolerance is always low but i like the gummies i make to last a while when taken daily. They were losing effect on her unless weād take 3, and 3-6 a day adds up quick!
Some crazy dreams this week, and a little tough to fall/stay asleep (why we take em), but we made it 1 had its intended impact again (maybe a little less than 5mg) so 1-3 will probably be the burndown rate for a bit 
Rez
Ph 6.1 been staying solid last few days.
This shtuff looks to me like the nute stain i get on my 1gal milk jugs when id let them sit for a while. Brown, not green, and iām currently less scared of it than the algae lookin junk last time. So, thereās that
Scrubbed down with vinegar and filled to 5gal with straight tap; leaving the cap off overnight to offgass any chlorine before mixing more feed tomorrow.
Target will be 625 ppm 20-20-20, to bring them all up just a touch since the last bump seems to have turned some frowns upside down
Meanwhile, in the Not-Fridge-
Still seeing some shoddy leaf 
action, but less than before. Actually starting to take some healthy ones off for blocking bud sites/growing into each other, instead of them being totally burnt the fuck upā¦. Progress in the right direction!
Fran (Frankenstein)
New nutes, new shoots šŖ“
To this i say fuck yeah. Donāt know why iām so prone to underfeeding, watching them suffer, and not seeing the signs for what they are. Mixing next feed tomorrow, high hopes for some rapid, healthful boogie out of this monster masher. Iād like to flip these two soon, but donāt want to rush Too much.
Haircut
Mugs (Ketosis x Ice cream cake 98)
Mug1
Biggest turnaround award this week goes to Mug1
After trimming only good looking (but crowdy Roddy Pipers) leaves 
When it would just sit there and cry i started thinking it might not be so bad if it were male so i could just pull it and be done with it, but now that weāre all cried out, iām back to hoping for a lady
Mug2 F20 FW3
Flowering (slowly), encrispening (less slowly), weāll see with this one, in time.
Joe (Scarlet Grapes auto) F59 FW9
Decided to start counting flowering when i saw my first pistils on 12/22.
Time flies when you donāt decide when sheās gonna flip!
I havenāt been feeding her jacks 5-12-26 yet but iāll bring that in starting tomorrow. Reminder, this is my first auto, so my timing/doing part of my brain 
is still a little green in this arena 
.
Seeing the tiniest bits of purple creeping in, though it doesnt seem to show in pics 
Iāve decided to cut myself as much slack as iād
give anybody else (read: All the damn slack) and just try to do no worse going forward. Though the slack will still be there in case i do. If i donāt have my own back, how the hell can i have anybody elseās?
(Can i get an amen?) 
6 Likes
Day 95
I think the wheels are falling off.
Starting to rethink everything. Next time, i donāt know. Maybe ill take a break after this run, and grow tomatoes 
again till i feel less like an angel of plant death.
Maybe iāll just run One plant, and really listen right. Maybe im just in a weird mental place, and once iām out of it iāll do right and my plants will grow happy like iām used to seeing. Maybe octos arenāt my path forward, and its back to basics. Maybe i just made one wrong turn and i just wont make it again.
Lot of maybes.
Fridge view
**Fran (**Frankenstein)
Sad sack again.
Flipping next week, but id prefer she looked a little more alive first.
Lowered the lights yesterday. Maybe part of my problem is not enough photon bombardment?
āBring out ye deadā
Mugs (Ketosis x Ice cream cake 98)
Mug1
Surprisingly flourishing.
Happiest by far out of them all. Flipping next week.
My luck sees it being a male 
Mug2 FD 27, FW 4
Yikes. Flowering seems to be slowed, had some issue where her rez ppms went Way up but still wasnt drinking. Dumped her bucket and raised feed strength thinking it was this condition.
20-20-20 upped to 625 ppm recently for all but the auto. God help us all š«£
Joe (Scarlet Grapes auto) FD 66 FW 10
May not make it another week. May chop sometime this week and hang, probably a bit early (see trich shots from yesterday), but the Langoliers of plant cannibalism are hot on her heels, and iād like to smoke some of those green bits after this is all said and doneā¦
Changed feed to 600 ppm jacks 5-12-26 from 20-20-20. Way off schedule.
Pretty parts are Very Very pretty.
Trichs not quite there yet
All in all, confidence is in the shitter. Wish i had a handle on wtf is wrong so i can at least not end up here again anytime soon. New Apera ph pen might have some answers. Ive been using strips, which ive been ok with but still leaves you guessing (just ran out of them and are now back ordered for weeks), drops which i used in soil before but dont seem to line up with apera pen after calibration (looks like 5.0 on drops but read 6.0 on pen), and a fancy pen now that i should feel good about but i dont trust yet. Could just be me projecting that lack of trust.
Ah well, ah so. This too shall pass. Looking forward to the next run, less variables, better focus, cleaner execution, straighter throughline of action to effect. And with more tomatoes. 
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Well, sorry to see your trouble. Itās your turn for some positivity! 
You have a beautiful setup carefully thought out and executed. I appreciate the inspiration it provided for my own little grow.
Itās certainly a journey. Tomorrow I will try to take some time to refresh my memory of your journey to this point.
pH is vitally important. Make sure to store your pen with the storage solution in the cap with the electrode always wet. Itās been exceptionally trustworthy for me. Started skeptical as you are, the more I use it the more I wonder why I ever even messed with the strips. Waste of time. You need a small cup of clean water to swish the electrode around in before you take the measurement but itās fucking nice. Recalibrated for the first time today after about 6 weeks it was less than 0.05pH off.
When you are saying 600ppm are you talking about a TDS measurement or elemental ppm? Seems low but Iām not familiar with octos maybe itās normal
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Thanks for the pep, and kind words
Itās a dark tunnel over here for sure.
All ppm numbers are above base. So tap left out overnight in a bucket +1g epsom + 1g gypsum (both per gallon, dissolved in either order, not sure if that matters) = base. Then i add the feed until total-base = target (ex 1000 total - 400 base = 600 feed). Then i ph to 6.0 ish.
I know iāll start doing better with ph. I store upright with that 3m kcl solution covering the electrode. Noticed yesterday i needed more of that kcl stuff and saw it all leaked out of the bottle into the foam insert in the kit case 
ordered a big bottle should be here today. Just under the fill line on the pen cap atm. Hope its enoughā¦
Anyway thanks man. On the free fall section of the ride.
But i bought the ticket 
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Fran + mug1: both ph 7+ this AM per the ph60.
Odd since mug still looks ok. But both topsides are light and nobodyās drinking.
Ph downed buckets šŖ£ on Fran to 6.1 and Mug to 6.2.
Multiple mL of GH pH down to get there in less than a gallon each. Like what?
Keeps nagging at me maybe i calibrated wrong. Who knows. Ive pulled back my expectations of getting any bud at all this run. Fortunately im in a good spot stash wise, and a little goes a Long way for me. Really really lucky there
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I keep the calibration solution sealed up after I calibrate. You can use the vials with lids that came with it. Anyway, if a reading is sus, itās easy to pop the meter back in the 4 and 7 cal solutions and make sure meter is accurate and functional.
I got one of these things but hardly use it anymore. I had a distrust as well, but I stopped using it pretty quick. Itās nice but I wouldnāt buy one again.
I havenāt ever seen it be the meter I donāt think. But itās an easy way to check things out.
I noticed in my Aerogarden with basil it just didnāt grow when pH was high. Didnāt mess with the plant visually it just wasnāt doing anything because it couldnāt get any real sustenance.
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It is a weekend of acceptance, impulsive decisions, and experimentation designed to untie the knot šŖ¢ ive been tightening around this whole operation. At worst, it will be a cautionary taleā¦ more to follow 
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