Live Res PH Control - How do you manage it?

[Papageno]

No you had a very dirty res. They are having a party. When the food source dwindles it corrects itself.

You can pH it down if you like. Won't help but in the end, in a big enough res, it don't matter. In a smaller one just do it slowly and by top offs or from a cup of res not directly in the res.

The pH of the solution being near neutral is in no way detrimental to the plant. It is detrimental to some nutrient mobility. All of that is easily remedied.

You should have good uptake happening in a few hours. Roots in a highly aerated DWC grow fast so as the bacteria and enzymes clean up access points and remove bad roots new ones can grow out fast. So your uptake will likely go up and you can top off with a 5.8 and bring it down slowly.

 

[Papageno]

FEB you are doing a different methodology not DWC. You were doing DWC but I think you only tried this after you switched. DTW is a different monster in many ways. Your are not soaking your infection in the bath until it is fixed.

 

[Far East Buds]

Yah totally different... It only leaves the res so nothing that has gotten into a plant makes it back to the res... People have gotten real good with DWC at reading what the plant is doing based off the readings. DTW it's all about reading the plants. Harder if you have an issue as sometimes the results are too late to be corrected. Has some good benefits too though.

Not really sure where I was going with that...

My understanding is the ph is rising from the bacteria all working but if It goes too long before stabilizing then you should or could foliar feed some cal..mag or even nutes etc. Or feed them a fresh dose through he pots.... then hopefully it stabilizes or do it again in a few days or daily if you like until ph stabilizes... Eventually it will not take as long as the bennies will eventually win and it will start to stabilize faster in the future applications...


Correct me if I am wrong VI?

FE

 

[Papageno]

You wont need to. The results of beneficial bacteria is plant food.

This is an article about one type of beneficial bacteria. They Isolated one growing in very hearty trees that were growing in harsh areas. Transferred this bacteria to other plants and the roots and plants were way bigger.

A few quotes below from this site from an article "Probiotics—for plants: Helpful bacteria promote growth, less fertilizer on crops".

Probiotics—for plants: Helpful bacteria promote growth, less fertilizer on crops

In plants, beneficial bacteria and fungi are endophytes. Scientists have known for decades that plants like legumes (peas, beans, and lentils) have beneficial bacteria in nodules attached to their roots. These bacteria "fix" vital nitrogen, turning it into a form the plant can easily use. However, researchers have recently found some nitrogen-fixing bacteria actually live inside plant tissue—in the leaves, stems, and roots—with impressive results.

This endophyte-plant relationship is partly a matter of speed in adaptation. "Plants have a limited ability to genetically adapt to rapid environmental changes (heat, drought, toxins, or limited nutrients) and so they may use microbes that do have this capacity to rapidly evolve due to their vastly shorter life cycles," she explained. "By having the right microbes for the conditions, the plants are healthier.

IT will all work out.

 

[Mcjoint]

I added the tea 2days ago, I been kinda of nervous, I won't lie but she finally drank about a liter of water last night. It looks like my my root has grown some. Hopefully everything thing keeps improving. My ph has been staying pretty stable as well, it has been staying around 6.2.

 

[Papageno]

You can fight mother nature...but you wont win.

In the future if you run it regular the res does't get so dirty and it wont be as exciting. In the future you will be relieved to know how clean it is be knowing what it does do when introduced to a dirty res.

Do that once every 2 weeks until it is time to bring down the PPM near the end of boom.

If you are adding crab meal you probably only need to run that twice in bloom. But that is something completely different.

 

[Mcjoint]

You can fight mother nature...but you wont win.

In the future if you run it regular the res does't get so dirty and it wont be as exciting. In the future you will be relieved to know how clean it is be knowing what it does do when introduced to a dirty res.

Do that once every 2 weeks until it is time to bring down the PPM near the end of boom.

If you are adding crab meal you probably only need to run that twice in bloom. But that is something completely different.

i am using shrimp meal, which i believe does the same effect. i am most likely gonna her alone for a few more days, then top all her nodes and let her veg for a 1 1/2 to weeks before i start to flower her.

 

[Papageno]

So that is not for bacteria. That breaks down to a "sugar" that the plant recognizes as an insect infestation. So the immune system goes overboard which is great for a number of reasons but it is a stress mechanism. I am doing it in a soil grow. At week 3 from seed into glass of water I introduced its first dose. At week 3.5 one seed running in 24 hour light was in full bloom (male). I don't usually add the Chitosan until later but I tried it early this time.

But it does not aid in the bacteria wars. So you can use that sparingly and get the final benefits.

 

[Mcjoint]

ok, so in other words i don't have to use shrimp meal every time i make the tea maybe once a month or so?
they should really make a sticky for live res.
Also is it normal for my res to foam and the ph not to go up.

 

[Papageno]

The thing is there are a thousand ways to do this. The ingredients matter. What I posted is a basic recipe with everything that works. You should learn about the ingredients and fine tune the recipe for different parts of the grow. For example, you don't need bat guano in Veg. You can use it and it wont hurt but you don't need it in veg.

 

[Far East Buds]

ok, so in other words i don't have to use shrimp meal every time i make the tea maybe once a month or so?
they should really make a sticky for live res.
Also is it normal for my res to foam and the ph not to go up.

this thread is becoming a good one for live info....


FE

 

[Mcjoint]

this thread is becoming a good one for live info....


FE

yea, there is a lot of good information here.

 

[Hozona]

Hey FE, thought I would look in for a peek. I grow/have grown with several different hydro set-ups. Top drip, aero, nft and have a love/hate relationship with all three. I found that a small separate pump with a hose extending out of the covered reservoir keeps me from having to take the top off to add nutes or test them. I just turned on the small pump long enough to get enough to test. When it's time to drain the small pump works fine without having to lug anything around. My first try at hydro I bought from a company that sold complete kits. It was a top feed with 6 net cups

I didn't even know anything about PH, ppm, flushing, or anything else. Thanks to my mentors here at 420 Magazine I was able to increase my knowledge base and have more successes than failures. Keeping your reservoir sealed helps eliminate pests that like to destroy plant roots. I had the most trouble with the NFT set-up, but produced some very nice plants with it.

In my current grow I use a combo of Aero/DWC

Here are my original plans, More than 4 pots gets pretty crowded so I only use 4 now.

And last but not least I used a top feed with a heavily LST'd plant...over an OZ from this little tree

Good luck with your grow, Let me know if I can answer any questions. I don't have all the answers, but we can always find them here somewhere.
HOZ

 

[Mcjoint]

so i brewed my 2nd batch of tea but this thing things ended up a little different. last time my tea finished at a ph of 7, this time my tea ended up very acidic ph around 5.1/4.9 i kinda freaked out a little and tried to find some information on the web. i was able to find this from another forum
"Anyway in my venture of Organic teas I have found that simply bubbling it raises the ph because as the Bacterial/fungi ratio rises the ph rises. More fungi=acidic(Fungi excrete acids in order to unlock certain nutrients in the medium). More bacteria=alkaline(basic)(Bacteria excrete alkaline slimes to bind soil particles and create a friendly environment). As a result Bacteria/Fungi balance each other out. Different ratios of the two different types in turn mean a different PH. In turn you can say that plants who prefer a lower PH prefer a higher count of fungi/bacteria where ass plants who prefer a higher PH prefer a higher count of bacteria/fungi.Fungi don't multiply in tea's they merely grow bigger where as the bacteria multiply very fast. That is why the PH of a tea usually raises very fast after 12-24 hours. Adding molasses helps feed the bacteria and fungi, but more so the bacteria because they love eating simply easy to digest sugars where fungi love things that are harder to digest."
so apparently my tea how more fungi than bacteria this time around for what ever reason. hopefully this fungi is beneficial and achieves the same goal. some of the other posted claimed they put tea's as low as 4.5 and had no problems. i am gonna keep an eye on my baby and see how she reacts. it seemed to have cleaned the roots, as my roots where a little stained from my first tea batch. now alot of the roots have become really white and this happen rather quickly. it made my res really foamy but a white foam. i will try to take some pictures in a bit.

 

[Papageno]

Yup I originally recommended adding molasses or molasses product every 12 hours and right before adding to the res. You can keep adding it to help them keep going but that shouldn't be necessary.

The real problem is the sludge at the bottom. You need to stir it every few hours to prevent the anaerobic bacteria from growing in the sludge. And when Filtering it out it is a good idea to put the air stone in the filtered bucket so as to try and help prevent aerobic bacteria getting through. it isn't that big a deal but the fewer transferred the better.

The easiest way is to stir the bucket up a few minutes before filtering it and waiting for the breeding bubbles to come back. Then it is at a good ratio throughout.

 

[Mcjoint]

Yup I originally recommended adding molasses or molasses product every 12 hours and right before adding to the res. You can keep adding it to help them keep going but that shouldn't be necessary.

The real problem is the sludge at the bottom. You need to stir it every few hours to prevent the anaerobic bacteria from growing in the sludge. And when Filtering it out it is a good idea to put the air stone in the filtered bucket so as to try and help prevent aerobic bacteria getting through. it isn't that big a deal but the fewer transferred the better.

The easiest way is to stir the bucket up a few minutes before filtering it and waiting for the breeding bubbles to come back. Then it is at a good ratio throughout.

i did add molasses about every 12 hours. i made a tea bag of women's stocking and put the solid ingredients in the sock. should i stir the mix every 2 or so hours to try and help the bacteria numbers increase?

 

[Mcjoint]

Took some pictures.
Here is the patient Skunk 47

Some pictures of her roots

This picture looks pretty neat

This is how my tea is looking, I added some more molasses and stirred it around some, it had a lot more white foam before, just how it looked in my res. I will continue to stirring it every few hours and I will see if my ph increases

 

[Mcjoint]

 

[Papageno]

Actually steeping a bag is a different technique. I don't know how long it will take but it should be a lot longer to get all the stuff out. I don't recommend doing this method.

 

[Mcjoint]

Actually steeping a bag is a different technique. I don't know how long it will take but it should be a lot longer to get all the stuff out. I don't recommend doing this method.

So I went to your Journal and looked over your recipe and I noticed I added 2 products that you didn't. I added hydroguard and soluble mychhorri (fungi spores).
I used these the first time around. however, this time around I used a little more fulvic acid, which supposedly help feed the fungi. This would explain why I have so much more fungi this time around