first attempt at hydro, pH is not my friend!!!

[Greenmopho]

when i first started my hydro project, it was with my cloner. as per someones advice on here, it said that the best way to use the pH down is to add the nutes first and then add the pH down as necessary to get it to the proper pH. and you have to remember i was starting at a pH of 8+!!!

doing that, and then testing the water after "x" amount of days, had me looking at 8.0 again as though i had never added the pH down to begin with.

since that debacle ive had a bucket of water and a rez standing by that i have been testing for a week straight and both of them have tested at exactly 6 - 6.5 every time. even my cloner had tested to 6 - 6.5 for about a week, and thats after i changed the water out, from the first time thinking that the first batch was bad.

what it seems to be is the water, once the nutes are absorbed by teh plants, reverts right back to teh original pH it was before nutes were added. so my problem/mistake started (the first time) because i added the nutes first which brought the pH to 6 -6.5 and THEN i added the pH down to get the water to about 5.5 - 6 which is where i would have wanted it it to stay once the nutes were absorbed. what happend was (the first time with the cloner that had me freaking out) the plants absorbed the nutes which caused the pH to raise again BUT with not enough pH down in it to begin with to properly get the water to a maintained level, it would have seemed as though i never did anything to my water to level the pH at all!!

eureka!! ive found what i did wrong and what i need to do for the future. . . instead of adding the pH down last or after the nutes , i am gonna add the pH down FIRST so that the water is at a stable level to begin with, SO THAT when the plants absorb the nutes it will go back to that stable level.

SOOOOO once i pH my water to say 6 - 6.5 then add my nutes , the nutes should bring it lower a couple points , so i go from 6 -6.5 to 5 -5.5(6), once the plants absorb the nutes from the water they would stop showing new growth and then i will know to add more nutes OR when the plants seemed to have stopped growing for lack of nutes, when i test my water it should be back to the 6 - 6.5 range!!! yes that seems to be it!!

Sorry dude, you need to take a chemistry class, that's not how it works. There is no "going back" to the original pH, unless you are using tap water with pH buffers and all that crap in it, but you don't want to be giving that to your plants, regardless of the pH.

First read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PH

Then:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrate

Nitrate (in your nutes) and other "-ates", Phosphate, etc, are ionic salts that will bond and interact with positive hydrogen atoms, and effectively change your pH. By adding pH up and and down, you are just increasing or re-bonding these hydrogen ions to your salts. Your plants will uptake the salts from the solution, but they usually will absorb liquid at almost the same rate, unless in heavy bloom. A healthy system will usually maintain salt levels (sometimes fluctuate, depending on evaporation), and your pH should tend to drift slowly to neutral, 7.0. If you are on tap water, you have a ton of other salts, metals, and other things present that will bond and interact with everything else you put in your water, nutes, pH correctors, ect. Its all chemistry. Lowering your pH first then putting your nutes will not make a difference, except lower your pH even further when you add your nutes, then you'll need pH up to correct it, again, and by then you've neutralized 1/4 of your nutes, and pushed your salts up needlessly. Nutes will lower the pH on their own, but not usually enough if your water coming in is above 7.2-7.3, which is why you add the pH down AFTER mixing your nutes, let the nutes do the initial pH correction, and then depending on your water, you have to fix the rest.

I would:
1. Use good clean water, filtered, store-bought, whatever.
2. Use some kind of hydro water conditioner, i.e. AquaShield, Hygrozyme, HydroGuard, ect., they have helped me tremendously with stabilizing pH and keeping pathogens at bay!
3. After mixing your nutes and correcting pH, you MUST check on it 24 hours later, after things have stabilized. 90% of the time, you will have to lower the pH again a bit.

Start off around 5.5-5.7 and let it drift up until about 6.1-6.3 before you correct it. You should also know to add very little pH down at a time, its powerful stuff, stronger than the pH up. And pH is a logarithmic scale, so it takes more pH down to go from 6.5 to 6.0 then it does to go from 6.0 to 5.5. If you tap water coming out is around the 8's, you usually will live in a western state where they dissolve chlorinated salts into the water, which is really not good for you or your plants, read up on it! The shit they put in Colorado and California water is disgusting, not to mention factory run off, pharmaceuticals, gasoline additives, FLOURIDE!

Thats about the best advice I can give right now!

 

[tjo]

friendindeed i glad for you man. hydro is more easier then
you thought.listen to your self and you will find the way.

and i wanna show you my roots from my buble cloner.
i have the same water 1 month now and is only 5 litres.
just top off every other day and i keep my ppms very low.-150-200-
nothing special,nothing unique.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

friendindeed i glad for you man. hydro is more easier then
you thought.listen to your self and you will find the way.

and i wanna show you my roots from my buble cloner.
i have the same water 1 month now and is only 5 litres.
just top off every other day and i keep my ppms very low.-150-200-
nothing special,nothing unique.

yeah brother, your right, and thats what im starting to learn slowly and surely. i was able to take some pics with my phone, since it miraculously started working again, of the roots and as i said they are going friggin crazy!!! i will be posting them up for sure tomorrow. ppm is not something im going to measure though. im just gonna look at the plants and measure pH once in the beginning

and same here as far as topping off, i just top off with the water in the main rez and ive seen no more problems at all.

teh 18/6 light sched also seems to be givng the plants some well needed exercise so i added some GHmicro/flora to the water. it was just 5cc of each one so its no biggy and wont cause that much of a pH downing, but im sure sill be absorbed quickly. . . . im doing it that way because i want to see how greedy these plants are/can be.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

PICS AS PROMISED

PICS AS PROMISED

things are going all to well, i am gonna be setting things up for the plants this wknd, lets start with the monstrosity that i am gonna be giving its own home very soon. . .

and here is an overall health shot to see what the plants look like. ..

and rootporn for the masses. . .

heres the SSH that i have going, and the seeds that im waiting on to pop. .

so far all things have rooted, the bad bitch actually seems to be a female!! so thats a good thing, it is some bag seed that turned out to be damned good and a strain that i want to keep around. i'll be setting up the bigger cab this wknd and putting the bad bitch in there aswell. since ive kinda got things figured out, i was gonna go DWC with just that one and put the rest in the drip sys. gonna get some pics up of the main cab once i get that all set up. . .

 

[One Love 731]

First of all cut back the dead/yellow it breeds disease and problems, second get a $130 Reverse Osmosis system off E-bay, Third temps are everything when it comes to cloning, a fish tank heater will bring it to 80f with a little adjustment, Forth, you need GH micro and bloom and GH ph up and down for first time hydro nutes and a combo meter, Hanna makes a good one. if you take care of it right it will last a long time. Hydro ph should be 5.3 -5.8, below 5.2 or above 6.2 is no beauno. Set it at 5.3-5.5 and let it drift up this will cover all nutrient needs. I just skimmed through the thread so if any of this is redundant there's your reason. Karma, One Love

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

First of all cut back the dead/yellow it breeds disease and problems, second get a $130 Reverse Osmosis system off E-bay, Third temps are everything when it comes to cloning, a fish tank heater will bring it to 80f with a little adjustment, Forth, you need GH micro and bloom and GH ph up and down for first time hydro nutes and a combo meter, Hanna makes a good one. if you take care of it right it will last a long time. Hydro ph should be 5.3 -5.8, below 5.2 or above 6.2 is no beauno. Set it at 5.3-5.5 and let it drift up this will cover all nutrient needs. I just skimmed through the thread so if any of this is redundant there's your reason. Karma, One Love

***First of all cut back the dead/yellow it breeds disease and problems, second get a $130 Reverse Osmosis system off E-baydont have the scratch for that right now, budget allowed me to get the basic system setup, nutes, necessary supplies.,

***Third temps are everything when it comes to cloning, a fish tank heater will bring it to 80f with a little adjustment done and done[/B],

***Forth, you need GH micro and bloom and GH ph up and down for first time hydro nutes and ayeah thats in the thread near the beginning, i wanted it to be organic, but for now since its my first run with hydro, i want to play it more safe than sorry[/B]

***combo meter, Hanna makes a good one. if you take care of it right it will last a long timereason im not going the reader route is that, i am following/mimicking other grows where people have either done little to no water replenishment during the length of the grows. i know a hydro-grower first hand, that has grown with little to no water replenishment and have smoked his home grown with him, after so long and so many others opinions potency is there, flavor , aroma, dry/cure, texture of smoke, its all there. if it can work for him and so many others then i know its not that difficult[/B].

***Hydro ph should be 5.3 -5.8, below 5.2 or above 6.2 is no beauno. Set it at 5.3-5.5 and let it drift up this will cover all nutrient needswhere i am now is that, ive been adding pH down and watching the clones reactions. although they are test subject i know enough about hydro as to not kill them completely, so i test with them and have seen them begin to root at about the 6-6.5 range and i consider it a neutral point for growth and tolerance. reason for that being is i want to be able to feed the plants with a little wiggle room since the GH nutes can lower the pH or adjust it by its being added alone. i think what it is for me is that i have tried the way others have grown and from what the standard is, its not working for me and the way i want the grow to function. instead of doing the expert "this", ive gone the route of the unconventional "that" and ive gotten the results im looking for (ie, instead of adding nutes first i added them after i pH'd the water; others mention swings, and i have been monitoring this water for about a month now and aint a thing swing yet)[/B].

***I just skimmed through the thread so if any of this is redundant there's your reason. Karma, One Love [/B]good looking out "one love", my diaries always read more like basic descriptive experimentation logs than the conventional diary's. im one of those that knows growing is not as complicated as all that, and i know others that think/know so as well. im trying to follow with what works in simplicity and learn from the mistakes that theyve made, and what they have noticed to be true of what knowledge/advice is already out there

 

[One Love 731]

good luck

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

good luck

yeah, from your lips to gods ears man (nothing agianst you just feelin bumbed right now)

well, i went into the cab yesterday and saw my leaves were looking a lil droopy and odd, the droop im used to since thats when they need to be fed, but the leaf curling was what thru me off.

just brushed it off since i thought maybe it had to do with being root bound after all this time. decided to water them and do the topping and re potting today. . . . go into the cab today and they are not drooping anymore but the leaf curling is still there. . . . go an check the soil and its frozen solid at the top. . . . decide to top it anyway and repot and found little frozen dirt balls scattered through out the grow bag itself

ok, i go and boil some water cause in thinking heat especially since i just re potted and need to water the mom. . . .go to my main rez to get some water to cool off/add to the hot water and the rez water has in inch thick ice sheet over it. . . . broke that go the water began to water the mom, and look over to some standing water i had off to the side and its frozen dam near solid. . . .. get pissed about the whole temp thing and decide to finish off the roaches i had in my car. .. go get those go blaze in the garage and the fucking water in the bong is fuckin frozen!!

this is not to say that i am going to stop for any reason, but it does mean that i have to turn that garage into a man cave like i said i would when we first bought the house. ive started to hate winter for a while now. grew up in NY all my life but this winter shit is getting old now and im truly tired of it, and now thats its directly affected my grow i cant begin to tell you how pissed i really am. . . . jsut when i get one things figured its something else

well if anything what i may do is just start this whole thread all over again but as a true diary of my first hydro grow and once things are finally squared away i can get this going the way i want to.

ive got more than enough clones to last me through the winter so that when things do get started i can have a descent hydro run of the PD and SSH like i wanted.

but for now, things are definitely on hold

peace and ill c u guys when it warms up

 

[highonmt]

Dude buy an electric heater; take it from an old northcountry grower buy a 1500 watt oiled filled heater from wally world etc for every 400 sqr feet. I always run one on a thermostatic outlet to keep things warm when the girls need it...they'll pay you back.
HM

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

Dude buy an electric heater; take it from an old northcountry grower buy a 1500 watt oiled filled heater from wally world etc for every 400 sqr feet. I always run one on a thermostatic outlet to keep things warm when the girls need it...they'll pay you back.
HM

actually it has got me to thinking about things and i am gonna go ahead and kill various birds with some elbow grease and one stone.

i had a family member over and it was a joy to show him my grow and smoke with him and my brother, but the most embarrassing part of it all was having to smoke in the garage in such cold temps.

weve been trying to find the dutchmasters as of late ever since this asinine ban they have in NY. i was able to muster up some strawberry, honey, and even wine!! when we went to roll up the place was so cold that the dutch's just dried up! now, yeah , we could have just took bong hits but the sharing/rolling/passing is more of a bonding/spiritual thing for us being from the Caribbean and especially smoking together for the first time. so we ended up smoking in my brothers car, dutch's got wasted it was just horrible to me.

well that leads me to my epiphany.. . . its time for a man cave!!! it was something my wife suggested a long time ago when we first bought the house but i didn't really see the need for a man cave, i figured i'd just chill out in the garage and things would be ok and things were ok until this winter hit. . . . its been a bitch of a cold season so far and its just started!!!

reason i kinda ended this thread is because i wanted it to be more of a report of my grow and not of the problems, i think there are enough of those "this is where i am, now what do i do?" threads and i dont want to add to the ranks of those. it just seems as though im hitting one snag after the other, and i was getting into the habit of coming on here and going crazy about it and then figuring things out.

so with all of that said, that is my final solution to all this madness and chaos, just build a friggin man cave and call it a day. its gonna have my cab, some tools that the wife will need (which i dont mind keeping in there) a mini bar, im hoping to find a wood burning stove somewhere, and along the line maybe a tv, but yeah thats what its boiled down too.

the plants need some place to chill and so do i, so thats that. have to put up framing, insulation, run the wiring for power, lighting so its gonna take me a month or some of planning since alot is gonna have to be accounted for as far as power needs space needs and what is ultimately gonna go where

 

[RockyMountainHi]

bra - winter is the time to be golden not frozen!

Lights make heat.

Get bigger lights!.

I'm thinking 3 or 4 1000W systems - should be toasty.

And did I say Golden?


Come spring and summer,,, that's a different problem ,



but with that phat harvest, you could be warm in the winter and chillin in the summer. And smilin year round!


Well - we gotta get ya runnin

Now is a good time to read up some more - find a system that is best suited to what you have and where you are.

water freezing tells me you didn't put much thought or work into it - and ya get out what ya put in. If I can do it anybody can.



.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

bra - winter is the time to be golden not frozen!

Lights make heat.

Get bigger lights!.

I'm thinking 3 or 4 1000W systems - should be toasty.

And did I say Golden?


Come spring and summer,,, that's a different problem ,



but with that phat harvest, you could be warm in the winter and chillin in the summer. And smilin year round!


Well - we gotta get ya runnin

Now is a good time to read up some more - find a system that is best suited to what you have and where you are.

water freezing tells me you didn't put much thought or work into it - and ya get out what ya put in. If I can do it anybody can.



.

nah my dude, you gotta bring that down. . . and i mean WAY down! lol most i wanna deal with is 400 - 800 at a time, 16 plants whether it be hydro or soil. 3-4k!?!?!? nah bruh that aint me, those are big dog numbers your tossin out for sure, i cant touch anything like that at all. . . .ever!

i thought it through, just didnt expect this winter to be this fuckin brutal!! man my first harvest was during the winter, hung em to dry and all that, put a fan on em and everything while in the cold, and they dried to perfection!

same rez and it never froze, these conditions are nastier than when i started and its obvious. all these places all over are reporting record amounts of snow and cold, nah its not me thats for sure, but like i said in teh post above yours, its the reason for the man cave!!! kills two birds with one stone, i'lll have a place to chill and grow with no complaints from anyone, now whats better than that huh?

well anyway, onto the real reason why im on here. . . .

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

DWC RUN, PRAY FOR ME!!!

DWC RUN, PRAY FOR ME!!!

well im going out on a limb with the whole hydro grow overall, but then again this one is being done out of necessity. issue is, the plant got way too big for me to put it in the regular system and the cloner it was in that i plan to setup so its off on its own.

heres the top half/ bottom half

water has been pH'd to 6, no nutes as of yet, i still have to setup the lights which is not a problem. plan is 16/8 of MH for about 2wks, then 12/12 of HPS to finish her off

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

THE TRANSFER

THE TRANSFER

i tried explaining this to a grower friend of mine but it was easier to show than it was to explain, first i cut the net cup in half, put the plug section in the one half of the cup while the roots sit in the water, put the other half of the cup on and then put the cup/plant in the lid, once in place put the hydroton in/around to fill up the gap

and here is the final/finished product

it really wasnt as bad as i thought it would have been, but then again things dont always go according to plan.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

everything was pretty secure in the cup and the lid, the plant actually stood up on its own once i put the other half of the net cup on and placed it all in the lid

but as you can see in the previous pictures and this one that fucking airtube/rod really started to get on my damned nerves, friggin thing wouldnt stay stuck to the bottom

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

so in correcting my small snafu i had to clean the area of the bucket that the suction cup had to adhere to and replace everything back into its original place. . . and it was not easy let me assure you

some of the paint got on the bottom of the bucket and i had to clean it off, small problem, easy fix

 

[tjo]

one more hydro grower..welcome to the club friend.
and good luck with your run

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

so with all of that done i have a multitude of space to put more clones and lord knows i needed that space!!!

really not sure if these moms are going to survive this one, so ive got a myriad of babies that i can keep until things get better weather wise or until i get a space heater for the area . . .(please remember money is not something that grows on trees, so no space heater as of yet)

good lord that was like giving birth or some shit!! whew, but all in all it was well worth it. i always feel like im going out on a limb with hydro, so this would be me teetering on the brink! lol

well time to test teh waters and make sure pH is where it needs to be, i'll be back with updates and pics once things start to progress and new growth has shown.

 

[FRIENDinDEED]

one more hydro grower..welcome to the club friend.
and good luck with your run

yeah brother, believe it or not, you are an inspiration to me, since you are beginning as well as i am.

i checked out your thread and decided to go at it BUT very cautiously and slowly!!! lmao

what im gonna do is get some kinks worked out and start an actual hydro grow diary once things are in order and in place.

as i was telling another hydro grower, i pretty much halted this thread because it just seemed that one thing was happening after another, so it didnt make sense to keep it up as a grow diary.

i want my diary to be a hydro grow diary not a "WTF DO I DO NOW!" type of diary. i know my methods are a lil unconventional but hey , i gotta do what works for me, as so many other growers have experienced. well time for me to go set up these lights and get that things crackin!!

well if anything stay tuned and watch for the switch ups! lol

 

[FRANKENBLUNT420]

THE KID IS BACK!!!

THE KID IS BACK!!!

good look yo