First let me say it's good to see you back arround. The guru is back. The hydro section has been lacking since you have been gone. My question to you is about starting out with a very high ph water. Me and my grow buddy are both in Flood and drain. My water here settles out at 6.3 before i mix my ferts. My buddies water settles out in the mid 8's and he is on well water. He has to use alot of ph down and i mean alot to get to the pefered #. I don't think it is moving alot but he is in the first week of flower so i'm thinking it's going to be a real problem soon. I supply him with clones from my systems and am wondering what kind of problems he might be going to run into with this situation. We both use the same ferts same everything except for the water. Here is what we use. H2O2 Holland secret 3 part super B+ Hydro guard hygrozyme Doc's Liquid Carbon and the other holland secret enhancers as plants mature. I'm thinking he is going to be better off hauling water from here instead of triing to use his well water. What would be your take on this? Am i thinking right on this one? Thanx in advance for your imput.
Useless
Thanks GK! I haven't seen many trolls here in this forum so I peruse it more frequently as of late. Well, high Ph water eh? OK. I don't think it will be too much of an issue. But, let me first clarify a few things with ya :) 1) What is his EC/TDS from the well? 2) What does the Ph settle out to after you mix the nutes? 3) What exactly do you mean by "a lot" of Ph down? 4) What kind (brand) of PH down are you using?
So, I will start by saying that I have previously used tap water running about 8.5-9.0 and up PH. EC/TDS was .75/510 I have also used well water with a PH of around 7.5-8.0, EC/TDS was .20/130 and of course R.O. Both have provided excellent results, although changes to the nutrients/additves were required. I.e. GH hardwater micro had to be used in the tap water set-up due to high calcium which effects Mg uptake. (Hardwater micro has 1/5 of the calcium of the normal formula). I think, and this is just my opinion based on experience, that high ph water won't effect you as much as high ec/tds. Now, I don't know if your nutrients have ph buffers or not. The best combo I have used was GH 3 part with hygrozyme and hydroplex, with M.O.A.B. (Mother Of All Blooms, its like pk 13/14) for that final push, and I didn't have to add PH down at all. That was in the tap water system and I posted a pic of one of the nuggets in the pot shots forum. Worked absolutely fabulous! Now, a long time ago I used Super natural brand nutes (in the tap water system), and had to adjust Ph using about 100-150 ml per 30-35 gallons to drop down to 5.2. It would then rise through the course of the week to about 6.5. Again, I had no problems with the system or water aside from the previously mentioned high calcium. The well water system was similar, ph would rise from 5.2 to about a 6.0 over the course of a week. I used about 150 ml per 50 gallons. R.O. - The best results, end of discussion!
I have also found it is good to let your nutrient solution stabilize for at least 4 hours before adjusting PH. I usually waited overnight. Ultimately I think what I am getting at is that you have to adapt your techniques to the environment at hand to get the best results. That's my $0.02 and I hope it helps you make your decision. Now, if you want to know what I would do? I would give the well water a go. If your water has lower TDS and PH, and you could actually haul the water into and out of your respective grow houses without it being a scene, then I would consider it as an option, but I don't think you should have a problem with the well water, depending on EC/TDS. So, I have been babbling on here, but I hope that helps you. Feel free to fire your questions away! Happy to answer what I can or at least give you as much info as I know.
starfleetcommand
Hey Useless, great info there My TDS is like 370. Is that to hard? I don't have an ecm meter, but I plan on getting one before I attemt DWC buckets.
GhostDog
my tds of RO water was usually around 10. reverse osmosis is the best option here. makes adjusting nute strenth much easier
greenkitty
Thanx useless. The TDS of the water mentioned i believe is arround 270 ppm's. We change out nutrients on sat. and will have More info then.
Useless
SFC - I don't see it as a problem. As I stated, I have used tap water that ran 510+ . If, when you start to flower you get signs of an Mg deficiency, it'll be because you have too much Calcium (Ca locks out Mg) so keep an ye out for that. GK - this also applies to you, although I don't think you will have any problems with 270 TDS. GD - Right on the money. R.O. is the way to go. Adjusting nutes is indeed much easier, and you if your nutrient brand is good you don't have to worry too much about deficiencies and lock-out due to a mineral imbalance (e.g. Mg won't lock out because of high Ca. etc..) GK - let me know what your nute solution balances out to PH wise, also throw in an EC/TDS reading for me :) The only other thing I can think of right now is that when I used the tap water set-up I HAD to flush every week or the quality of the final product went down a bit and it seemed I was fighting deficiencies and/or lock-out the whole time. Flush every week, or even every 5 days if you can keep track for best results with high EC/TDS tap water. When the well water system was running, I could go two weeks between flushes with little or no signs of def. or lock-out. Same with R.O. you can go 2 weeks with out a flush. Just top off ressy with plain water as needed. I should say however that no matter what water quality you have I advocate a flush once a week for optimum results. Well, I'm gonna smoke some O.G. Kush now...
BelowMe
tap water sucks, i now use purified drinking water. my DWC luvs it. its RO, DI, and as close to zero ppm as you can get. i change ressy every 7 to 10 days to keep leaves lush and green, and dont have to flush with a leaching formula. got no build up from tap crap or nutes anymore either. ive actually noticed a phenominal growth rate increase with just using the right water.
(Edited by BelowMe at 1:19 pm on Jan. 30, 2006)
mistical
would be nice BM sure gonna be hard humping 130ltr,s of drinking water up to my flat every week though
Useless
@ misti. I could just see your punk ass huffing up some stairs with a 20L bottle of water...talking to yourself about how you "need to smoke a joint" and "fuck belowme for suggesting this"...and then realizing you only have 5 more bottles to go!
But seriously folks! LOL They make an R.O. kit that you hook up to your faucet. Problem is it they usually only pump about 90-150 gallons in a day. So you have to have a seperate ressy that you can put a float level switch on just to store the water. Otherwise you're hanging out in your garden for like 8-10 hours to fill a 50 gallon ressy.
BelowMe
humping that much water would suck. the water guy usually humps it for you, unless you were a dick somehow and pissed him off. lol the RO unit is a great idea, and they sell here for about 150usd. the prob is like useles said, the storage tank,,,as it would be installed away from the grow. and personally i like to hang in the growroom.
