I have a waterfarm and I can't get the pH to stay stable in the ressy. I have rinsed the hydroton at least 10 - 15 times and it's still messing up the pH. Any help would be appreciated. Also a suggestion for a seed starting medium that would transition to the hydroton well would be helpful. Thanks
mistical
hydroton? clay pebbles ye? rinsing is good to get rid of the dust mate, you really need to soak them pebbles in ph adjusted water for a few days prior to use, should sort your problems out
rockwool cubes seem to work ok for the transition mate
greenkitty
Hydroton is an inert medium. Do you have rockwool in there too? If not pretreated it can mess up the PH. There are several things that came make your PH move on you. How much drift are you getting in how much time? How big is the ressy and how many plants do you have? How much air do you have going through the ressy> What type ferts are you useing? Additives? The PH and PPM's will drift with water evaporation and water useage by the plants- Nutrients used by the plants and things like that. How far along are your plants? As plants mature they use alot more P and K. The K changes your PH alot more than N or P. Hydroton is all that i have used for some time. At the present time i have a 40 inch by 40 inch flood and drain table with 18 plants and have an 18 gallon ressy. I set the PH at 5.6 and over the coarse of a week and not adding any water or anything it will drift up to 6.0. They are in there third week of flower. In another week or so i will have to start adding a 30% nutrient solution every couple days to keep the ph from driffting to far. I really think you need to be looking at the other conditions rather than the hydroton. When starting from seed i usually use 1 inch rockwool cubes or peat pellets. When useing rockwool cubes you need to soak for 24 hours in 5.5 ph water to stablize the cubes. Hope this helps. I'm sure that someone may have some different opinions on this but it has worked for me rather well.
mickfoster
Thanks for the input. I have 2 waterfarms - 1 plant in each - 2 gal. reservoir. Seeds were germinated in rockwool and it was conditioned. Transfered plants to hydroton 3 days ago - plants are 1-1/2" Using 1/2 strength Fox Farm. pH is drifting from 5.5 to 7.3 in 8 hrs. When I transfered the root was just starting to come out the bottom of the rockwool - do you think I can temporarily remove it from the hydroton so I can condition the hydroton? Thanks for all your help.
Useless
GK already said it bro, hydroton is inert! It will not cause PH fluctuations. She also hit the nail on the head when she said to look at other factors. Are you using tap water? Are you letting it sit for 12-24 hours to allow chlorine and ammonia to evaporate? After you mix your nutrients, are you letting that stabilize for at least a 4 hours prior to adjusting your PH? A little patience goes a long way. Could also be your nutes. I never had much luck with FF, if the above recommendations don't help, you might try a nutrient solution like GH or something that contains PH buffers. Another nice trick, try adding in Hygrozyme to your current solution, and not using any PH down. It will adjust you PH to 5.5-6.2 everytime (at least it does with GH 3 part and B'Cuzz A/B nutrients), and hold it stable. (Use above recommendations too)
goldbud
mick, goto gardens of may 2005, click my little closet. im using the same type of ebb and flow. i take it your using the water farm ebb and flow with the seperate buckets , i hope im right. but i rinsed my hydrotron til all the rusty water stopped, it didnt effect my ph too much as in my experience as did the temp of the water in the res.once i got that stable as to my grow area is large and 8 1000 sunlights kicking the heat is unbelievable,but some motel six a/c units i came up on keep it nice. so try keeping the res temp and the room temp the same as much as possible. and try only changing or adding fresh water right after last feeding so the res has some time for that fresh cold water to adjust to the temp.i dont give alot of advice but i been reading these forums and many books for quite awhile like every day and with my experience and all from the forums my grows are far from perfect but never dissapointing.
