Canna Aqua pH is always high

[photobat]

The thing is I was always feeding them according to the canna aqua grow guide, feeding them at 1.8 ec in veg when they were about 12" tall not Inc roots and between 2.0 - 2.2ec on bloom nutes thereafter, 2 days ago when I did a reservior change and again went with guide which states up 2.4ec (now adjusted back to 1.4ec), but the plants don't look nute burned to me, no tip burn but maybe they are locked out idk, they have always been feeding though!! It was the PH that I could never keep from drifting upto 6.4- 6.5 region. Maybe due to excessive dosage of nutes idk 

[photobat]

Thanks for the chart Flamedodger, only wish I could screen shot it or print it up!! 

 

6 hours ago, Ricardo said:

Are you adding ph down before your nutes? 

Think you should be getting your EC correct before PH . EC first then PH correct.

But like others have said, bin the the air stone. 

 

Hi Ricardo, 

 

See I was thinking add some of the required pH down before nutes, as to not be pouring ph'd down water say 3ph into my reservoir with all the chemical nuts in it and possibly damaging them, so i took my water pH from 8 to 6 before adding nutes then made micro adjustment to pH after they had all mixed thoroughly. Can that be a bad thing idk, would of thought that's better than adding in low ph'd water on top of nutes to lower the overall pH, I could well be wrong as I'm only a relative beginner!! 

 

Air stone usage - I also did a little experiment with 2 buckets of the same reservior mix, 1 bucket I popped the airstone in and blasted it for 1 hour, the other I let sit undisturbed, both buckets measured 6.0ph before and after the hour, so i don't know what to make of the advice that airstones affect pH, like I say I'm trying to learn and will happily stand corrected it's good to discuss and build the knowledge, thanks all 

[Flamedodger]

If you think they are locked out, it’s not too late to give them a little flush for a few days then nute at a better EC and PH value. I highly recommend recording your values,

particularly water levels, if the levels go down and EC and PH stay the same, you’ve got it spot on. If the water levels stay the same ie. not drinking, EC and PH values can go up or down, indicating a problem. 
I’ve changed my res and upped my nutes based on the data recorded. My water levels were going down (plants drinking) EC was falling and PH steady. That says to me that they’re taking more nutes out of the water and could

be hungry.

FTW I use an air stone in my res, it’s common practise in NFT in case the end plants drop roots in the res. I’ve not noticed it pushing PH up quickly.
 

[Ricardo]

1 hour ago, photobat said:

Thanks for the chart Flamedodger, only wish I could screen shot it or print it up!! 

 

 

Hi Ricardo, 

 

See I was thinking add some of the required pH down before nutes, as to not be pouring ph'd down water say 3ph into my reservoir with all the chemical nuts in it and possibly damaging them, so i took my water pH from 8 to 6 before adding nutes then made micro adjustment to pH after they had all mixed thoroughly. Can that be a bad thing idk, would of thought that's better than adding in low ph'd water on top of nutes to lower the overall pH, I could well be wrong as I'm only a relative beginner!! 

 

Air stone usage - I also did a little experiment with 2 buckets of the same reservior mix, 1 bucket I popped the airstone in and blasted it for 1 hour, the other I let sit undisturbed, both buckets measured 6.0ph before and after the hour, so i don't know what to make of the advice that airstones affect pH, like I say I'm trying to learn and will happily stand corrected it's good to discuss and build the knowledge, thanks all 

Keep it simple, no need to ec your res then ph a bucket and add to res, just seems unnecessary to me, to much fannying around. Keep it simple, EC the whole res then ph, bin the air stone and opt for a circulation pump, the pump will keep the nutes mixed and add enough air into you res solution. Theres lots of good advice already been offered on this so it's up to you what you do with it. You could do without the extra stress of things not working out as expected with your condition. Keep it simple, look after yourself and stay safe 

[photobat]

On 19/11/2020 at 8:32 PM, Flamedodger said:

If you think they are locked out, it’s not too late to give them a little flush for a few days then nute at a better EC and PH value. I highly recommend recording your values,

particularly water levels, if the levels go down and EC and PH stay the same, you’ve got it spot on. If the water levels stay the same ie. not drinking, EC and PH values can go up or down, indicating a problem. 
I’ve changed my res and upped my nutes based on the data recorded. My water levels were going down (plants drinking) EC was falling and PH steady. That says to me that they’re taking more nutes out of the water and could

be hungry.

FTW I use an air stone in my res, it’s common practise in NFT in case the end plants drop roots in the res. I’ve not noticed it pushing PH up quickly.
 

Hi Flamedodger,

 

Thank for the advice, I am now taking more notice of how much volume they drinking, I have worked out the 3ft high, 32 days in flower plants are drinking approx 800 - 850ml each a day, not sure if that's about right as I have nothing to compare this grow with!! 

 

EC. and pH have risen about 0.1 every 3 days, which seems a reasonable swing I guess!! 

 

I can see your logic in the water level dropping, pH stable, ec falling scenario and will generally be more mindful of the correlation between these three things, so thanks for that 

 

Am I right in thinking that if all is feeding well as nutrient tank volume drops the ec would get stronger and stronger as the water is getting used up at a faster rate than the nuts, or using the same principle in your scanario that my nutes mix was too strong in this case? 

 

Interesting this is what I found with my airstone but I will test more throughly and monitor moving forward, thanks for your input, much appreciated. 

[photobat]

On 19/11/2020 at 9:45 PM, Ricardo said:

Keep it simple, no need to ec your res then ph a bucket and add to res, just seems unnecessary to me, to much fannying around. Keep it simple, EC the whole res then ph, bin the air stone and opt for a circulation pump, the pump will keep the nutes mixed and add enough air into you res solution. Theres lots of good advice already been offered on this so it's up to you what you do with it. You could do without the extra stress of things not working out as expected with your condition. Keep it simple, look after yourself and stay safe 

 

Hi Ricardo, 

 

I find it quite simple tbh, pH down my plain water somewhat in the res, add nutes, then fine tune the pH with pH down mixed with  water in a bucket instead of dripping pH down straight into my nute mix. 

 

I'm still using my airstone minimally to agitate and aireate my res mix, I can't afford another pump to do as you say atm, I would like to as i would hope its quieter than my air pump, is this called fluming or something similar? 

 

Yes you are right I could do with minimising stress, thanks for the kind words, all the Best 

[Flamedodger]

@photobat my maids are looking great, but EC, is dropping slowly, so I don’t stress too much. They’re just chewing more nutes than water, I’ll nudge the nutes up by 0.1EC in a top up tomorrow and carry on monitoring. You can hit a sweet spot where your EC and PH are stable and water levels drop and you don’t have to do anything to them for days 

[doominik]

@photobat I use RO water and when I add 2/3 of what they recommend on the bottle I get pH spot on 6.0. When I add a bit of calmag and buddhas tree silicon I am sure its 5.9. Now I don't even check pH for first 2 day or even 3 as I'm sure its still in the 5.5-6.5 range. 

Drop your ec first mate 

[Smokey90]

Best thing i can think of is just relax and dont stress about it... if they are looking healthy then dont worry about it just try keep it in the range you want

 

I used aqua farms for years and its a pain filling a bath full to ph them down and it never works properly always high ph for weeks after filling them up but i did veg them to be be monsters so wasnt to fussed... if it had to be so perfect you wouldnt be able to do it outside its only a plant.

 

the times i dont worry about shit like ph is when i do better just dont get lazy thats when you fuck up man 

 

Best of luck

 

[doominik]

I'm just trying them monkey farm nutes (every grow shop try to sell them now) and as with canna aqua+RO water I get pH spot on 6.0, with these its 7.0 and it takes quiet a bit of pH down to drop it. I Give more then I should and go down below 5.o and then add some plant magic silicon and maybe pH up to get 5.5-5.8 and its very stable from that point. 

[NarniaTwins]

I got a similar problem. I’m on day 12 from seed currently in a plantit Aeros twins. Roots where showing through rootit plugs after day 5 so transplanted to clay pebbles which had been rinsed (albeit probably not long enough) and then 3 24 hour soaks. 

 

I filled up the res just below where the plug would be for a few days with some aqua nutes. PH was 5.8 and also hand watering with same EC 1.4. 

 

yesterday I lowered to 2

inches below netpot to encourage roots out (still waiting) and PH was 7.6. So I re adjusted to 5.8 and 24 hours later it’s up to 6.7. 
 

im thinking the clay pebbles are still influencing PH as I’m still hand watering.

 

plants look good so I’m not completely stressing yet. Mate said a res change but I’m still hand watering so I think the same thing is going I happen until I stop watering...

Edited November 30, 2020 by NarniaTwins