Grow Mediums Autopot tray vs reservoir ph

[cloud10]

I have found a serious discrepancy between my reservoir and autopot tray ph levels. I stir and adjust the res daily and keep between 5.7 and 6.1. I checked the all trays yesterday and found the ph at 6.7. I am embarrassed I’ve missed this but am not sure where to head to now for resolution.

I am struggling on my grows with what seems like the same problem. Start off ok, slow nitrogen deficiency, then leads to what I think resembles a K deficiency and ultimately a stunted plant, damaged leaves, etc, etc. I have managed to harvest 2 plants despite what I’ve been subjecting them.

I purchased some NFTG Hades Down, in an attempt to get more stable ph, but is that a fix????? Am I overlooking something, is it likely my coco?

I did ph adjust to 5.8 combined with low ec water to prep before planting. I have transplanted and used cow pots to lessen the transplant and just drop them in autopots and let biodegrade. OTOH, I believe my first 2 girls grown in OF experienced the same symptoms. Starvation.

Looking for ideas before I flush them.


Autopots
Tap water 170-180ppm 6.8
Canna brick
Power Si
Green Leaf MC 2p (Ranged from 450-1000+ in an attempt to get different results)
Epsom salt
DTE 0-0-50
Recharge (occasionally)
Green leaf Kelp (occasionally)

 

[Bob's Auto's]

The only thing i can't find is what you're growing? Auto or Photo?
If it's Auto then you're feeding it to much. MC 2-part has everything in it the plant needs. Stop adding everything else. Maybe the Recharge once in a while.
Mix the MC according to the feeding schedule, weigh enough powder for 30L, but in stead of adding it to 30L of water, add it to 50L of water. Mix well, measure pH and adjust. You should be with the different feeding schedules at 350, 500 and 550 á 600ppm.
Then put a bubbler inside the tank for 24hours. Next day you check the pH again and adjust. From now on your pH will stay stable for a couple of days. In the beginning check the pH daily, but only adjust if it goes out of it's range.

• Seedling (day 1-14) pH 6.0 - 6.2
• Grow (day 10 - 30) pH 5.8 - 6.0
• Flower (day 24 - † ) pH 6.0 - 6.2

Regards,

B

 

[Bob's Auto's]

Oh and if you have salt build-up in your trays you can disable you're system. Remove the trays and give everything a good clean.

 

[St. Tom]

Just a quick question the pot modules were you can see your feed are you keeping the lids on them so you cant see the floats

 

[cloud10]

The only thing i can't find is what you're growing? Auto or Photo?
If it's Auto then you're feeding it to much. MC 2-part has everything in it the plant needs. Stop adding everything else. Maybe the Recharge once in a while.
Mix the MC according to the feeding schedule, weigh enough powder for 30L, but in stead of adding it to 30L of water, add it to 50L of water. Mix well, measure pH and adjust. You should be with the different feeding schedules at 350, 500 and 550 á 600ppm.
Then put a bubbler inside the tank for 24hours. Next day you check the pH again and adjust. From now on your pH will stay stable for a couple of days. In the beginning check the pH daily, but only adjust if it goes out of it's range.

• Seedling (day 1-14) pH 6.0 - 6.2
• Grow (day 10 - 30) pH 5.8 - 6.0
• Flower (day 24 - † ) pH 6.0 - 6.2

Regards,

B

Growing Autos.
I use recharge once to every other week.
I've fed as low as 450 including my 180ppm water and ramped up from there.
I have waited overnight to ph adjust, waited couple of hours, and of course adjusted immediately. I steered clear of a bubbler in tank based off feedback and my own experience with the bubbler seeming to increase my ph ever faster.
I'm using Man O'Greens feed schedule during the newest grows.
I adjust the res daily. I keep between 5.7-6.1, Res fed trays and non res fed trays (hand bottom feed) are all approximately the same elevated ph when measuring at the tray.
Ph climbs a steady .1-.3 over a couple days.

My concern is why do I have 6.7ph in my Autopot tray when my res is at 5.8.........

Thanks for your response.

 

[cloud10]

Just a quick question the pot modules were you can see your feed are you keeping the lids on them so you cant see the floats

Yes I keep them on, I'll uncover once every 2-3 days to verify functionality.

 

[St. Tom]

Yes I keep them on, I'll uncover once every 2-3 days to verify functionality.

the only reason I was saying as I used to leave mine off worrying about blockages etc and I ended up with issues with lockout and its was ph problems but apart from that I'm unsure what it could be maybe @Mañ'O'Green can advise you

 

[cloud10]

Good to know, thanks. I’ll try to keep that on n mind in the future.

 

[cloud10]

I just took a reading with a soil ph pen and from 2 plants, 4 readings I got no higher than 5.6 soil ph.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@cloud10 This is just a stoned theory but the cow pots are made of cow manure and they have nutrient content. It may be that when you transplant the outside of that pot has concentrated Nitrogen (ammonium nitrogen) all around it. This gets released to the plant in rapid response to the water then continues to organically break down in the coco coir robbing the other nutrients by altering the cation exchange in the coir.

Pictures speak volumes?