thedaveabides
New Member
The core of my issue is that my 55 gallon reservoir of Mills nutrients + a few other things climbs 1.0-1.4 pH every night since I mixed a new batch 4 days ago. Details below.
I recently got myself a reservoir going so that I could quit hand mixing single gallons. My plants are mostly in soil but a few in coco (came in late from another garden) so I'm not autofeeding, but rather mixing in the reservoir and hand feeding from there. My plants are Quantum Kush (in a mix of FFOF, Roots, Ancient Forest humus amendment and perlite), Blackberry Kush (in straight FFOF) and Afghani (in coco); all in week 5 of flowering.
This run I loaded the res with 45 gallons of municipal tap water (no filter yet, thus sayeth the almighty wallet) and the following nutes/additives in per gallon values: Mills Basis A & B 20mL each, Mills C4 8mL, Mills Vitalize 1.5mL, Thrive Alive B1 3mL, GH CaMg 1.5 tsp. I had forgotten that I had been told not to run the CaMg with the Mills and that may very well be an issue with the plants right now, but I suspect my climbing pH issue is something else. I realize that according to the bottle, this is an very heavy feed, but according to the most recent schedule at the Mills site, this is barely a medium feeding. Could the strength of the solution be an issue?
The res has an EcoPlus 1030gph pump feeding a large air stone 24/7 and two Eco396 pumps I run for mixing or autofeeding. It is covered all of the time and does not see much light at all. The morning after I filled the res I noticed that the solution had built up a hell of a froth as though someone had put some dish soap in there. That persisted through the next day but was gone this morning. The day I filled it, I got the pH stable at 5.9. By the next morning, the pH was just shy of 7. I ran it back down, but by the third morning the pH was back to 7.1 and has done this every day. It's taking about 60mL of pH down (I use Nectar for the Gods Hades Down) per day to get the it right, which seems rather excessive.
The res itself as well as the air stone, pumps and hoses were all in use at my friend's grow for a long while before they came to me. I noticed that the bubblers (diffusers) and drip stakes were struggling to stay flowing all of the time so I'm wondering about organic problems......
Would some sort of shit growing in the res throw off the pH and gunk up the autofeed system? Is that a thing? What else could I be looking for? Did I screw the pooch royally when I put the CaMg in there? Or is that a 'just don't do it next time' thing? Any other thoughts? Thanks for any and all input and especially thank you in advanced to Mills guys for info on the CaMg thing.
I recently got myself a reservoir going so that I could quit hand mixing single gallons. My plants are mostly in soil but a few in coco (came in late from another garden) so I'm not autofeeding, but rather mixing in the reservoir and hand feeding from there. My plants are Quantum Kush (in a mix of FFOF, Roots, Ancient Forest humus amendment and perlite), Blackberry Kush (in straight FFOF) and Afghani (in coco); all in week 5 of flowering.
This run I loaded the res with 45 gallons of municipal tap water (no filter yet, thus sayeth the almighty wallet) and the following nutes/additives in per gallon values: Mills Basis A & B 20mL each, Mills C4 8mL, Mills Vitalize 1.5mL, Thrive Alive B1 3mL, GH CaMg 1.5 tsp. I had forgotten that I had been told not to run the CaMg with the Mills and that may very well be an issue with the plants right now, but I suspect my climbing pH issue is something else. I realize that according to the bottle, this is an very heavy feed, but according to the most recent schedule at the Mills site, this is barely a medium feeding. Could the strength of the solution be an issue?
The res has an EcoPlus 1030gph pump feeding a large air stone 24/7 and two Eco396 pumps I run for mixing or autofeeding. It is covered all of the time and does not see much light at all. The morning after I filled the res I noticed that the solution had built up a hell of a froth as though someone had put some dish soap in there. That persisted through the next day but was gone this morning. The day I filled it, I got the pH stable at 5.9. By the next morning, the pH was just shy of 7. I ran it back down, but by the third morning the pH was back to 7.1 and has done this every day. It's taking about 60mL of pH down (I use Nectar for the Gods Hades Down) per day to get the it right, which seems rather excessive.
The res itself as well as the air stone, pumps and hoses were all in use at my friend's grow for a long while before they came to me. I noticed that the bubblers (diffusers) and drip stakes were struggling to stay flowing all of the time so I'm wondering about organic problems......
Would some sort of shit growing in the res throw off the pH and gunk up the autofeed system? Is that a thing? What else could I be looking for? Did I screw the pooch royally when I put the CaMg in there? Or is that a 'just don't do it next time' thing? Any other thoughts? Thanks for any and all input and especially thank you in advanced to Mills guys for info on the CaMg thing.
