Click to view attachmentHi all,i'm a bit confused as to what is happening with my levels.

The tap/ro water mix background is ec 0.2...brought up to 1.00 with 2-part nutes sensi-grow,and now vita-link(which is creeping up daily 1.03,1.06 ect) they're not looking there best,with some leaf margins looking as though they have nute burn and a bit of claw...and others as though they are defficient including purple stems.
The plants are cheese(as far as I know,or something very similar) and the EC seems incredibly low at 0.8

Now I thought i'd do a run through of weak solution (0.53 including background) to clear any salts in the system and left overnight.
Today the EC was 0.59.
So what is happening here? surely,even if the system bled some salts back,the plants would still be grabbing more than nutes had been put back...I was fully expecting the level to have dropped
Any ideas?

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They look like they have been overfed some nutrients, and they are now trying to dump them, hence the EC rises in a circulating hydro system.

You need to reverse this state, giving them a very weak feed or even a flush for 2-3 days will help this. After a few days start feeding them again at 1.0EC

If your using a mix of RO and tapwater, I suggest using formulex instead of tapwater to raise the background from 0.0EC to 0.4EC, then add the vita link veg nutes upto 1.0EC, and also set your ph to 5.5 and lower it when it reaches 6.0, keep it within this range to help stop locking out certain nutrients like calcium and magnesium.

Thanks mate...does this mean I should change for soft water vitalink instead?

Hell yeah ! If you use hardwater nutes in RO you'll constantly be trying to keep the ph up^, been there done that.

e2a: changed 'down' to 'up'^

Because I have ph 7.2-7.4 and ec 0.3-0.5 straight out of the tap,I sort of had the theory that I could balance the tap,ro,hw nutes to the correct level without ever having to add ph up or down except when the plants had fed,which would cause the ph rise you mentioned earlier.

Would you recomend 100% ro+ formulex over any sort of tap mix? (All filters neen changing on the ro btw,ec coming out about 0.1)...will this have any concequence? As always,lack of time and money!

Thanks

HW nutes lower the ph, so if you use HW nutes in RO water you cant put a lot of nutes in before the ph falls very low. If I remember righlty I think as soon as you get your EC upto 1.2 the ph will have dropped to under 5.8.

0.1EC from your RO product pipe is ok mate.

I used to get 0.0EC from mine, then add the formulex upto 0.4, then top up with vitalink maxicrop veg or bloom to the required EC.

If you use so softwater nutes in RO/Formulex mix, the ph wont drop as much, allowing you to get an EC of about 2.0 before the ph drops to low.

You mentioned Maxicrop...is this a reference to the newly labeled vitalink range Easy or Max?

Also if i'm popping to the grow shop,would you deffo recomend vitalink sw,to sensi-grow,which they have been brought up on....ie what would be a better starting point,buffered sw nutes,or ph adjustment acid? I seem to remember reading once that Sensi 2-part was designed for RO.If this is the case, then will this give me 5.5 when used with RO? (dont have any left to check with-just in case you know)

Or put another way- Which nutes are best to be used with RO water/Formulex?

Sorry i meant the max range.

I can only say that i have not used the sensi nutes with RO. But I have had great results (my best) using RO with formulex background to 0.4, and the vita link SW max range veg and bloom, and the vita link buddy for weeks 4-5-6-7 of bloom. Flush for last week with weakened feed at 0.8.

Even using SW nutes you will need to add a very small amount (just a few drops usually)of ph down to lower the ph to 5.5, dont let it rise above 6.0 if you can help it. Dont be afraid of using ph down.

I also grow the cheese.

Thank You

hi, i thought id add to this as im also a ro cheese grower my advice to you is to use silicon as a ph up, look into it if you havent already, it is needed by the plant to help improve cell wall strength and increase pest and fungus resistance. i bought some because i didnt like addin ph up, and ive never had better crops, also it alows you to push the e.c as high as you want because the silicon can deal with the drop. i use gh 3 part nutes which have a very informative website that you should check out. This is my first crop of the cheese and am having problems with purple stems and i have pale grow tips and stripey lookin paleness in sum of the leaves but i have had them in a small tank and the fuckin ph was goin throught the floor, from 6.3 to 4.8 in 12 hours but got that sorted and there lookin ok but i might be on here lookin for advice from you guys

Right people I need further help here please.
After 3 whole days of RO water (0.02) made up to 0.4 with Formulex,there seems to be no change except ph!
Now the rising ph would tend to indicate they're feeding (rising from 5.50 to 5.85 during the course of 24 hrs) But how much? The res has wavered from 0.40 to 0.39 a couple of times(and the run off returning to the tank the same. I'm using 2 of the pods on a wilma8 with the res tank half full...a lot of water for just 2 plants,so fluctuations will be slow,but this is scarily low.
If I feed 0.8 nutes on top of the ro+formulex,and they don't take it,then they're gonna burn for sure(they already look like they have more 'claw' than 3 days ago,despite being at 1.0 (including background of 0.2) for 9 days prior to that)
I don't understand what is happening here
Please help

Bump