Three types of hydro in a small tent on one airpump?

anon32470837 · June 18, 2018, 8:00am

Time for an up-date.

Its the end of week 7 of flower. The trichomes are about 50% cloudy with almost no amber showing. I still have no idea how much longer this will take. On-line descriptions of this strain say if takes anywhere from 7-9 weeks, 8 to 10 weeks or 12-14 weeks, depending on who you want to believe. All I know for sure is its not done - yet

I am for sure making seeds on most of the bud sites. I cut open one of the pods on one bud and it has seeds in it for sure. On the plus side, there is lots of frosting, so I will get something when I make the RSO.

The stupid extra clones in my stupid cheapo hempy buckets continue to look stupidly healthy despite all my neglect. I made the mistake of putting them in the kitchen under the skylight for a few hours the other day when I took a shower and then forgot them. They grew like 3" in just a few hours!!

All three clones continue to look good in the tent. I cant tell much if any difference between them now.

I have been hunting for the sweet spot as far as nute concentration for weeks. I started out pretty hi at an EC of about 2.2 - 2.3 mS. The PH and the EC were constantly rising as the plants drank, so Ive been adjusting it down with each rez change and top off. I thought I had it nailed at 1n EC of 1.3, but then all of a sudden, my PH started climbing - a lot.

That was about the time a was doing the copper test in the NFT tote to control roots, so I thought maybe that was causing the PH to go up. I removed the copper and did a rez change but it still just kept going up.

Turns out that the culprit was the NFT tote, but Im not sure why its happening now when it didnt before. I dont think it was the copper. I did some other tests and the copper never raised the PH in any ther samples, so I think its not the cause.

In any case, I can sample the water draining from the NFT tote and it is a full .1 to .2 higher in PH than the water from the other two totes or the rez. The other two totes match the rez.

I did another res change and spent extra time flushing out the root zone in the NFT tote and added extra Hydro Guard and increased the water flow to that tote. That seems to have helped a lot, but its still discharging water at a slightly higher PH than the others.

This is making me wonder if maybe different hydro techniques require different EC ranges? Maybe Im over feeding that tote while the other two are happy with higher EC levels?

Im not going to worry about it too much as nothing gets to far out of range before I can adjust it again. More importantly, the plants dont seem to be bothered.

On other fronts - Ive continued to have meter problems so Im returning my meter. The company has agreed to give me a full refund, so thats good.

I found an EC meter that I like a whole lot. Its fast, accurate, super easy to use and maintain. A huge improvement over the old mid range meter I had. The only limitation is that it wont read very low or very hi concentrations, so you can use it to test your RO water or concentrations over 3.0mS. It goes from .2 to 3.6 mS and reads to the nearest .1mS. Thats more than close enough for our purposes as far as rez concentrations go.

Im really likeing this EC meter - a lot.

My other meter needed to have the probe replaced at least once a year, plus the cost of KCL storage solution, and calibration solutions. That was going to cost me around $100/year minimum.

I bought a cheapo PH meter which is working more or less, but I still need to find a decent, cheap PH meter. The reviews for the better meters are not that good when compared to the cheep ones though. The common thread - which is my complaint - is the cost of supplies and probes goign bad and not staying calibrated.

anon32470837 · June 18, 2018, 8:03am

Some pics…

Northern_Loki · June 18, 2018, 2:40pm

Bluelabs, good choice. They are well reviewed. I have their PH and EC probes (not the truncheon). Work well.

0.1-0.2 doesn’t “seem” to be a huge discrepancy to me. But, how fast is it changing?
Could be that the plants in the NFT are taking up different nutrient ratios at this stage in their life-cycle?
Or, any chance that there is an infection in there somewhere? Whether good stuff or bad stuff? Oh, re-read, it appears you’re injecting hydroguard.
Or, perhaps your copper test is still running in the plants? Hmmmm.

anon32470837 · June 19, 2018, 6:21am

I just spent the last several hours looking closely at various PH meters and I dont like any of them.

The reviews on the Apera meter I have were just as good and maybe even a hair better than for the BlueLab.

The bad reviews for the Apera and BlueLab PH meters are very similar. They mostly have to do with unstable, variable, drifting readings and probes that dont last and will not hold calibration or wont calibrate at all. Those are my exact issues with the three Apera meters I have tried.

It mostly seems to be a probe issue with both brands and both have the pretty much the same problems. The majority of reviews are good, but about 20% have major issues - just like mine.

What I dont like is that the probes are only good for maybe a year at most, so that makes them $$ consumable items. Plus you have to spend a good bit on calibration and storage solutions on top of that.

Both brands have less expensive pen types, but they dont have replaceable probes, and have the same bad review issues. That makes them throw away after a year or so at most for anywhere from $40 and up.

The BlueLab I like the best (best reviews) is $143 and the replacement probe is $47. The Apera that looks like the best deal is $78 with a $34 probe, so its a lot cheaper, but has more reported issues.

I have 3 of the cheapo pens, but you almost have to calibrate them every time you use one, and they are not good for a wide range. If I calibrate one to around PH 5.5, its off a bunch at PH6.5. One day you have to turn the screw left to calibrate it and the next day you have to turn it right twice as far to get the same exact reading in the same calibration solution.

I wish they had a PH meter like the truncheon style EC meter I just got. It reads almost instantly, stays calibrated (they claim it will never need calibration) and there is almost no maintenance. It has very good reviews and I can see why. Its not going to work for everyone, but for me its perfect.

Ive only got a week or two left on this grow I think, so Im going to tough it out with the cheapo pens. AS long as I can stay somewhere vaguely in the neighborhood of PH 6, I will be fine. Its going to be too hot for me to grow this summer, so I will wait till this fall and look at meters again. Maybe someone will come up with something new

anon32470837 · June 19, 2018, 6:37am

It may not sound like much if the water was static in the root zone, but its not. Thats the drop in PH after the nute water just passes through that tote. The flow rate is roughly 15 oz / minute or about 7 gals/hr in that tote. Thats the volume that is passing through about 1 sq ft of fabric that is maybe 3/8" thick with roots in the bottom of the tote. So the PH is coming in a say 5.8 and coming out at 5.6 to 5.7 after it travels about 1 ft through the root zone. Looking at it that way, it seems pretty drastic to me.

I just did another rez change and this time I let the plain water circulate for a while at a PH of 6.8 before adding nutes or PHing down again. I also dropped the EC down to 900uS (450PPM on the .5 scale) this time. Thats the lowest Ive gone so far. I’ll monitor EC and PH and see how they do. Hopefully both will now be stable. That seems like an awefuly low EC, but Im near the end of flower, so maybe they dont need as much feed? We will see…

On the copper - it has been out for a week at least, but I wonder if maybe it did some damage to the roots? I cant think of any way to test that though.

Northern_Loki · June 19, 2018, 2:43pm

So pretty much instantaneous. Some salt build-up somewhere, then? Did the EC of the effluent change significantly, too?

If the copper was causing PH fluctuations earlier, perhaps there are still some moderately soluble copper salts hanging around in the system somewhere.

anon32470837 · June 19, 2018, 3:37pm

AArrgghh! I didnt think to check if the EC changed!! I will do that and let you know.

anon32470837 · June 19, 2018, 4:42pm

No difference in EC between whats going into and coming out of the NFT tote. But this morning the rez was at 5.3 and the NFT tote was putting out water at 5.1. Last night the rez was at 5.8, so thats a drop of .5 in the rez in about 8 hours.

Ive done what I thought was a decent rince/flush with tap water on each of the last several rez changes and a much longer one this last time, so I dont think its built up salts.

I think it has to be something wrong going on in the roots or that tote just doesnt like the EC in the same range the other two like. I am thinking its more likely there is an issue with the roots.

So far, I had the least issues with PH changes when the EC was up around 1.2-1.3. Im going to see how this does over the next 12 hours or so then decide whether to lower the EC some more or raise it back up to 1.2 and just shrug my shoulders.

ReikoX · June 19, 2018, 6:55pm

If I had to guess, I would say some roots are dying and decomposing. This would cause the pH rise you are seeing. It may or may not be related to the copper.

Skiball · June 19, 2018, 7:39pm

What’s happening is the plants used up their nutes. Hydro nutes has 2 forms of nutes avil for plants. One is a positive in the other negative. When one ion is used it’s replaced with the opposite. So now that your nutes are running low it’s using up the positive charged ions and raising your pH. I might have that mixed up along the line but the general idea is solid. Check out Everest on youtube he explains it a lot better.

Northern_Loki · June 20, 2018, 2:08am

Hey Larry, I’m curious do you use the hydroguard in your other systems?

anon32470837 · June 20, 2018, 6:33am

Unfortunately, I think you have hit the nail on the head. This is the only thing that really makes sense.

Plus, I just found some more nasty looking mold/fungus in the Membrane tote.

I have been worried about my roots almost from the start. They were slow growing after the neem debacle but never have looked really good. However, I think the main problem is how far I forced the roots to travel to get to the water in all the totes, but especially in the NFT and Membrane totes. Add in that a lot of the root volume in those two totes is still up in the air and not staying wet. Those dry roots are all turning brown and black and the brown is spreading into the wet areas.

I dont know if the copper made things worse or not. The roots had all these issues before I did the copper test, so it could just be a coincidence on the timing. I doubt if it helped though.

I raised the EC, but the rate of PH drop in the NFT tote just keeps getting worse, so its NOT an EC issue. It has to be the roots dying or at least getting worse - and is escalating rapidly.

Thats something I havent heard before. I’ll have to check that out, but I warn you I may not watch all of the video. I have a low tolerance for crappy videos that waste a lot of time on BS and things that dont have anything to do with the specific topic. “Welcome to my grow room where you can see my cat wandering around in the background. Her name is…and on and on…”

I actually hate "educational’ videos for the most part. I much prefer a written presentation with some pics, drawings, charts, if needed. I can scan a document very rapidly for the essential things I need and quickly go back to a point to reference something I missed. You cant do that with a video. You have to sit through the whole boring mess and then it takes forever so go back a search for that one tid bit of actual data they gave you 13 minutes ago…

Ok, sorry about that rant. Hope that didnt come across the wrong way!! I really do want to thank you for the help and the tip. I will at least give the video a chance

This is the first time Ive ever used it - and my first ever hydro grow If you meant are all three totes using hydro guard, then yes. All three totes are running off the same rez, so all three get the same treatment at all times.

The question now is what to do. I just gave the rez and extra boost of Hydro Guard, but I doubt that will make a huge difference.

If it doesnt, then I have to decide whether to just let it go and hope the plants last long enough to harvest or maybe try a bleach treatment or?

Im leaning towards letting it go and hoping for the best. I think Im close to harvest - maybe a week or two if I harvest a little early - which Im wanting to do anyway. Maybe I could just harvest that tote and let the other two run longer.

Im not liking the option of treating with bleach. I know lots of people swear by running “clean rez” with bleach, but Ive read a couple of papers that state the the bleach does pretty much nothing to kill established pathogens if its at safe concentrations. Once you get it strong enough to kill the bad crap, it also seriously damages the plant itself. I can believe that maybe it works to keep a clean rez clean though as long as the bad shit isnt already out of control - which I think mine is.

Skiball · June 20, 2018, 9:14am

Here’s the link https://youtu.be/Ayk_t62q98s
Edit: my bad wrong one here it is https://youtu.be/VW6R_DZAwNc

anon32470837 · June 20, 2018, 9:36am

Speaking of Hydro Guard, I just got a hot tip on another forum about a different brand that is waaaaaaaaaaay more concentrated and works out to be much cheaper than Hydro Guard.

Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide

They both have the sam exact fungicide, but Hydro Guard has a concentration of 0.038% by volume and 1x10^4 colony forming units per ml

Souther Ag has a concentration of 98.56% or roughly 2500 times as concentrated. It has 1 x10^10 colony forming units, so about 1 million more

Just ordered some. In the mean time, Im going to dump the rest of my Hydro Guard in the rez and see…

Northern_Loki · June 21, 2018, 1:07am

I’ve watched Everest’s videos. His video are pretty good, short, and to the point. He doesn’t dig down into the intimate details but he does provide ideas on areas to look into.

As @Skiball was noting, the nitrogen in solution can be in two general forms being NO3- and NH4+, nitrate and ammonium respectively. If a plant uptakes ammonium, H+ is released into solution. If a plant uptakes nitrate, HCO3- is released into solution. Various factors in the system including microbes (which consume nitrogen) can effect the amount of overall ammonium as the nitrate can be converted to the ammonium form. As ammonium uptake increases, the PH drops as more H+ is released into solution (more acidic). Likewise, as nitrate uptake increases, the PH rises (more basic).

Here’s a better explanation than I can write (How the Ammonium-nitrate ratio affects your plants):

The electrical balance in the root cells must be maintained, so for each positively charged ion that is taken up, a positively charged ion is released into the soil and the same is true for negatively charged ions. This means that when the plant takes up ammonium (NH4+), it releases a proton (H+) to the soil solution. An increase of the proton concentration around the roots decreases the pH around the roots (more acidic).

Similarly, when the plant takes up Nitrate (NO3-) it releases bicarbonate (HCO3-), which increases the pH around the roots (more alkaline).

The effect of ammonium and nitrate uptake is especially important in soil-less media, where the roots can affect the pH of the medium more quickly because their volume is relatively large compared with the volume of the medium. To prevent the pH of the medium from changing too rapidly, an appropriate ammonium/nitrate ratio and substrate temperature are essential, according to the plants growth stage.

For this situation where the PH changes seem to occur very rapidly, I don’t know if this process works so quickly to cause such a large variation in a short period. Would love to know how fast the plant exchange is. I have also heard that certain microbes can cause what amounts to an instant conversion from nitrate to ammonium but I haven’t really read enough about that to understand what “instant” means in context.

Northern_Loki · June 20, 2018, 1:03pm

Nice find. Inexpensive. Claims 10 billion CFU per ML. Wow, that’s concentrated.

Pedro_Bann · June 20, 2018, 1:06pm

I just have 2 of the 10 dollar eBay yellow ones and just buy a new one when one craps out on me which could be between 1 and 12 months

anon32470837 · June 21, 2018, 4:17am

Thats one of the reasons I think @ReikoX is correct about the root rot - plus I can see the roots dont look good.

The process has been speeding up the last few days, but I dumped the last of my Hydro Guard in the rez late last night and it has slowed down some, but it still dropping pretty fast. The GARDEN FRIENDLY FUNGICIDE will be ere tomorrow so I plan to give it and emergency dose and see if that helps. Even if it just slows things down a bit that will be a plus.

Im going to stick with my Amazon version of the same pen for now too. The first one they sent me had dead batteries. They sent me a new one, so now I have a backup. These both seem to need to be recalibrated about every other day.

I decided to order some PH6 buffer solution powder. Its cheap and will help get the meter reading closer to accurate in the zone it needs to be accurate in. I dont really need to know the PH out to 5 decimals and I dont care if its 6.45 or 6.35. I just need to know its reading close to accurate between about 5.5 and 6.5. A buffer solution of 6 will work a lot better than a 4 or a 7.

G-paS · June 22, 2018, 1:30am

Lovely Larry!!

anon32470837 · June 22, 2018, 5:51am

Thank you! I cant help thinking they would be doing much better if I hadn’t messed up my design for the NFT and Membrane totes.

Im pretty sure the hermie issue is due to this root thing.The roots have been an issue almost from day one. They started out (after the neem thing) growing very slowly at first and then drying out in places and dying. I think that led to the fungus I saw in the totes early on - which would have easily spread to all the totes because of the common rez.

Now Im wondering if the sudden down turn when I was doing the copper test was because the copper damaged the roots - or did it maybe kill off my HydroGuard bacteria?

Or - Im also now wondering of I got a dud bottle of Hydro Guard. The Hydro Guard was crystal clear in the bottle and looked just like pure water. Not even a hint of color.

This new stuff from Southern Ag is dark orangy brown, and very thick - almost a gel - with lots of obvious solids and semi solids in it. It makes a serious cloud when you add a few drops to the rez.

More importantly - it seems to be helping already! I put some in around 3PM today and the PH was 6.2. Tonight its 6.1 flickering to 6.2. Normally after 6 hours it would have dropped more like .2 at least. Thats the slowest drop in several days. The day before it was dropping .2 points every 3 hours, so this is a big improvement.

Also, it looks to me like at least some of the dark areas in the root zones are looking a little whiter than they did yesterday!! Unfortunately, I didnt take any pics of the roots in several days, so I will need to let it go longer to be sure.

Im encouraged so far.

Im also very happy with the 6.0 buffer solution that came today. It mixed up just fine and read 5.99 on my expensive PH meter - which Im sending back tomorrow. After adjusting the cheepoo meter to read exactly 6 in the buffer, it agreed (close enough) with the other meter on solutions ranging from 5.3 to 6.7before it got too far off - .2 or greater. Its actually almost perfect between 5.7 and 6.3, which is the main range you want to test in hydro.

This is much simpler than trying to calibrate it with 4.0 and 7.0 solutions. I would put it in the 7.0 and turn the screw until it read 7. Then rinse, dry and put it in the 4 solution and turn the screw again. Now, rinse and dry again so you dont contaminate the test solution, then go back and check the 7 solution only to find its off. Then you have to do a series of going half way on the screw each time until you have the same error margin at 7 as you do at 4 - and hoping its close in the middle where you need it to be right on.

I also got a lot more than I thought I was getting. I thought I was getting 5 packets that would do 100ml each. I actually got 5 containers of 10 packets each, so 50 packets. So I can make 5 liters of the solution. That should last me at least a year if Im careful not to contaminate it too fast. They are actually little capsules that are a little tough to open, but no biggie.

Im giving this 6.0 buffer stuff a thumbs up as well.