nutes going cloudy + desired runoff ph?

[Grenouille]

i'm hand watering and mix new nutes every day at the moment - if i leave the mixed nutes for more than a day they go a bit cloudy which cant be good, im not sure why it happens.

my run off is about 7, is this bad?
i water between 5.5 and 6, i use apple cider vinegar for my ph down.
the apple cider works fine for ph down, but it doesnt spike it down for more than 6 hours, then it starts to drift up again,
i have some nitric acid so i might try and mix a bigger batch with that,
maybe that will mean the run off is at a lower ph.. it being more stable?
but i still dont know why the cloudiness happens.

one last thing - when mixing nutes when is the best time to add the enzymes? after adjusting ph + adding nutes?

cheers.

 

[Neptune]

can you not buy some GH PH down orange bottle?

it is cheap, and it ships to your door... works much better ime. I have tried various vinegars...GH PH down is also buffered.

 

[Grenouille]

no, i havent seen it here in the uk,
im going to switch to nitric acid which i already have, i just didnt want to use it if it wasn't really necessary (which it will be if i want to mix nutes for days in advance)
but i dont know why the cloudiness happens,
i'm using tap water and canna coco a+b

 

[Guest]

I'm using the same system myself, hand feeding canna nutes etc.

I mix in 25L buckets, changing, and cleaning the buckets at each mix.
I use food grade buckets. (from the local DIY wine shop) a tad more expensive, but cheap plastic buckets absorb the nutes which could lead to leaching imho.

I also use nitric acid
and an air stone, and never had a clouding problem.... That is until this last grow.

Using Canna Boost at full strength, and an air stone, whips up a froth on the mix, and make topping the bucket up impossible, and the bucket definitely needs changing.
So now it's a fresh clean bucket every mix; the air stone only run half an hour before feeding,
and the world is a happy place again.

I hope this info helps.

PS I always do the PH after adding everything else.

Mike.

 

[Guest]

Don't know if this is true in your case but you may be experiencing a "biological bloom." This phenomenon occurs when microbial life introduced into water multiplies at an exponential rate. People with fish tanks may run into it every once in a while when the chlorine in their change water has first gassed off. The microbes from the fish feces in the gravel that wasn't killed by the chlorine "blooms."

Are microbes a part of anything you're feeding to them? Could be the vinegar if it's organic and unpasteurized. If it's unpasteurized, you'll be able to see a cloudy sediment in the bottom of the vinegar bottle.

Just an outside-of-the-box thought.

Peace

Edited:
To test to see if the vinegar's the culprit you might try this. The microbes from the vinegar would be acidophilic so as the pH climbs out of their range of tolerability, the bloom would fade away. Just let a batch sit for a couple of days and see if it disappears. If it is biological bloom, it's harmless to the plants.

 

[Grenouille]

thanks for the replies,
the problem with clouding seems to have dissapeared since i started using nitric acid,
but im still noticing the ph rise quite fast (not as fast as with the vinegar however)
but it's fast enough that i dont think i could mix a batch for even 3 days in advance or it'd have risen up too much by the third day.

is all nitric acid buffered? shouldnt it be more stable than that.

 

[Guest]

Only thing I can think of at this point is maybe you've got a lot of evaporation. If you're aerating the tank by bubbling, stop. You don't need to do that as the coco is really efficient at getting O2 to the roots, and I've heard that it does cause a rise in pH. Besides, the water catches some "hang time" on its way from the dripper to the coco, right? lol.

Peace