hi all me again this time not really 2 big a problem just cant understand why my plants always droop.i have a homemade ebb and flow system feeding ionic grow at ec1.0 and i only flood the table for 5mins 1 hour after lights go on.the reason i dont water more is the clay balls still feel wet 24hr later(i do have good drainage).i have a cover over my flood table also temps 28 lights on.18lights off,rh 45.also have yellow tips i think this is coz i overfed so i dropd ec to 0.9

Watering once is probably your problem. The clay balls might feel wet near the surface where there are no roots, but the roots will have used up a lot of the water from the clay pebbles that they touch.

I water every 3 hours the lights are on.

okay cool thanks for your help so u think i should be watering more often then,i do have a large airstone in res
after i flood the table i find the ph jumps from 5.6 to 6.8ish and i have to add alot of ph down to brink it back down could this be part of underwatering?

nah, ph is always like that in mine too. although mine does tend to stay within the 5.5-6.5 range on its own

Never had that problem, so I can only guess at the problem.

It could be that the nutes werent mixed enough before the flood, and the flood mixed it all up causing the ph to change. Have you tried reflooding without the ph down being added - dont worry, it wont harm the plants? If so, does the ph change even more?

Also, do you leave water/nutes to stand for 24 hours with a bubbler in before adding to the nute tank? This stabilises the solution, and you can then adjust the ph before adding to the tank.

E2A As squiteye says, so long as it stays lower than 6.5, I dont add ph down either

yeah i leave to bubble for 24hours then add nutes wait 1hour and check ph and ec ,but what i am finding is that when i add nutes with an ec of more than 1.0 to 40ltrs off water. the nutes bring the ph of the water down to 4.5/4.9 this is too low,so what will i do when the plants are in flower, and are wanting more feed like ec1.2/1.4 should i use ph up?also do u think i should water more often/ thanks so much for the help what a great site

What brand of nutes are you using, and are they for hard water?

right, ok ive been thinking about this.

when i had a pump failure and no watering occured for about 24 hours the ph went all to hell too. (and they went droopy ) the clay must help stabilize the ph i reckon

i water for two minutes every 3 hours, even when the lights are off

turn the pump on, see how long it takes to flood the entire medium. this is how long you need

so, sort the ph out and water every 3 hours. hopefully this will then stabilize the ph and your plants definately wont be droopy.

okay cool thanks for the help i am using ionic hard water grow nutes for veg and will be using ionic bloom for flowering,it take 2mins 2 fill my tray and 2 to drain so 5mins,i have also tested the ph 5mins after a flood and it shoots up(but im gonna put my pump on every 3 hours 2 see what happens thanks)my backgroung ec is 0.14 if that helps

ok give it a day and report what the ph is then mate

Are you sure you actually have hard water?

Phone the water company if you're not sure (just tell them you are planning on keeping fish)

yeah im sure i have hard water/i got a big fishtank in the house 2 thanks all for the help i will give it a try and report in a days time

so dude, is it sorted now or what?

hi sorry all been working last few days,ok got the drooping leaves sorted(pump on every 3 hours)but still have the ph rising from 5.5 to 6.9 in 24 hours,also got yellow tips on plants but i dont think i am overfeeding as i am only feeding at an ec of 0.94 as i dropped it from 1.04 as i thought that yellow tips was a sign of everfeeding?maybe the yellow tips could be a result of ph swings?heres a pic for u all

also my tapwater has an ec of 0.14 and ph 7.1 i have hardwater nutes could that be the problem?

mucka clay balls fuck up the ph BAD if you dont wash em off 1st i always wash mine at least 3times in the bath then put em to soke for 48hr in a bin ph'd at 5.8 b4 i use em i test the ph of the water if it's crept up ill get it back to 5.8 an leve it another 24 hrs an ill do this as often as needed till they sit at 5.8 other wise your pissing into the wind

[quote name='leepy' date='Mar 28 2009, 04:53 PM' post='1697697']
mucka clay balls fuck up the ph BAD if you dont wash em off 1st i always wash mine at least 3times in the bath then put em to soke for 48hr in a bin ph'd at 5.8 b4 i use em i test the ph of the water if it's crept up ill get it back to 5.8 an leve it another 24 hrs an ill do this as often as needed till they sit at 5.8 other wise your pissing into the wind
thanks for the info m8 yeah i washed them like 10 times in the bath then left them for 24 hrs,i read sum threads on here about people havn ph problems mostly because they didnt wash em proper (so i made sure i washed em best i could)

mate, the only other thing i can think of trying is changing the nutes. the ec level of your water suggests that it isnt THAT hard. i'd reccomend canna aqua simply because its what i use.

keep us informed

hi m8,
i think you might try fooding and draining for a bit longer than 5mins assuming you have an overflow in your homemade system,say 15min flood 3times a daylight cycle simply to let all the old nutes in your medium desolve and mix into your resovior and get a fully renewed nutes to your rootes. may help stabolise your ph to.with a quick flood some of the old nutes will stay in your medium and may cause a problem over time as they build up
hope this helps h,h

okay cool thanks for the info m8 light dont go on til 9 and table gets flooded at10 so ill test it then

hi all me again rite didnt fix the ph problem tryed evrything new nutes,new ph down the only thing i can come up with is i didnt soak the clay ball for long enough,also used shit ph down to soak the clay balls in,i only know this now as i have got a new bottle of ph down and u only need like 3 drops to lower it to 5.5(the other bottle was 12/15 drops)the problem now is i have these weird looking leaves,thinks it could be part of the ph problem(i am one week in flower and things aint looking to great was feeding them on an ec of 1.0 ionic nutes

can we have this thread pinned??

hb

cant really make the leaf problem out properly cuz of the lighting

but it is probably ph/nute lockout related

just as a note here, i wash my pebbles with just tapwater. i dont soak and all the rest but i dont have messed up ph values.

this has stumped me matey, good and proper.

if you have the time could you list out your exact system, every detail of it?

okay cool ill start of with my system ebb and flow.25ltr flood table with 40ltr res(home made system)i have a pond pump onto a 13mm pipe for flooding system and a 19mm pipe as the overflow.i flood every 3 hours for 7 mins during lights on,using ionic nutes at 1.2ec and ph 5.5(ph goes up to 6.9 in 24hours)also using 3"rockwool blocks(soaked in ph balanced water for 24hrs)and clay pebbles washed and soaked aswell,lighting system is a 400w hps with a cooltube fitted,extraction is rvk125mm with carbon filter passive intake x5 5" holes with light baffle 10" desktop fan (not blowing direct on plants)temps are 26.7 lights on and 17.8 lights off.humidity is 52 lights on 61 lights off.one week into 12/12 vegged for 5 weeks.strain is mazar from dp and blueberry from dp fem seeds x4,okay hope this can help u all

after reading through your system and you feeding regime i cant see any problem,so can only put your ph swings down to the clay balls,i have had ph issues before with clay balls i have washed,but not thoroughly enough.Could well be something else though,maybe try a change of foods and see how you go,not an answer just an idea,good luck with your problem and hope you sort it

okay cool just want to say thanks to u all for the help,next grow i thnk im gonna try canna,just hope i can get to the end of flower without to many problems

aye, and good luck to ya. spend some extra time adjusting that ph and your crop should turn out ok

might be interesting to see what happens to the ph when you are flushing might i add.