what pH do you use for vegging and flowering in your hydro system and what kind of hydro system is it?

just interested

Used to be a passive hydro set up and all the nutes were added at a pH of 5.5

nft, i add new water at 5.5 but it soon rises above 6 then i just add a bucket of 5.5 to control it a little before the next water change.

hi I always stick to a ph of 7 woz told many moons ago that you have better chance of getting female plants if you use a lower ph you run the risk of more males this is wot ive been told and this is wot ive used for the past 10 years

I let my Ph vary from 5.5 up to 6.5 through the entire growing cycle using nft top feeder system

I start the res of the Farm at 5.5 during the week I'll let it drift slowly up to about 6.2 then bring it back down with pH adjusted water to about the 5.8 mark, by which time it's usually time to do the weekly flush, and start over again.

The Ideal pH range for Cannabis is 5.5 - 5.8 regardless of system.

However...

Water quality often makes this range inpracticaly narrow

If you have very soft water, i.e. < 0.1 EC, (Manchester water often doesn't register on the truncheon) there are no minerals to buffer pH, and trying to maintain a low range is often futile as the pH can plummet when the buffering capacity is breached a wider range of 5.5 - 6.3 is more practicle.

With hard water i.e. >0.4 EC there is a much greater buffering capacity, and maintaining the correct range for all micro & macro nutrients to be available at all times is much easier to maintain. Indeed, with hard water, the higher the pH, the more chance you will encounter precipitation, especially when using PK booster in conjunction with flowering nutrients.

I am Dormant.

Precipitation is nutrient elements bonding together (like if you mix A+B together straight) and falling out of solution in the res. It can look like sand in the bottom of the res, or white particles floating in solution, but often the first indication is dutrient deficiency in your plants. Followed by very unstable pH.

I have only experianced it with very hard water >EC 0.75 but obviously it depends on the specific elements in area specific tap water. The solution is to use an RO filter on your tap water, and mix that with tap water to get an initial water EC of 0.2 - 0.4 to avoid encouraging bacterial slime (RO encourages the slimy shyte) and give some better buffering capacity at the same time. Or use rainwater

You can do a precipitation test with suspect tap water, mix a high EC flowering nute mix in a glass at a higher pH say over 6.5 and you will see white floaty bits after 24 hours as the nutrient elements bond together, if the water is not suitable for hydro. an extreame example is mixing A+B concentrate together straight, with no water, you will see solids form, same thing happens in the res with shyte water Doing the precipitation test allows you to determine at which pH you will have issues, you can then limit your range to prevent it. Often the addition of PK booster exaserbates the issue, if you're on the limit of water quality.

Dormant.

I've got RO water which is always ph7.0.
I also use bioponic hydrotops which lowers the ph in my res.
When judged right you can get ph5.8 and the required ec without using any or much up and down.
But the ph does rise about 0.4-0.5 over 24hrs so i always balance to 5.8 before the morning feed and let it rise to 6.0 for night feed.