need help with meters and readings

groder97

Member
hi everyone well iam starting a recurculating drip hydro. so i went ahead and got me a harvest master ec/tds and temp combo. i like it so far i just dont know witch setting is use with ec and how to read it. for ex. i am using fox farm and they say where the ec should be and they say like 2.3EC and on my meter i have EC-KCI,EC-442, EC-NaCl they say EC-KCI is standar. ok well my EC is 368. how dose that cover hver for foxfarm. do i just put a decible after the 3 or do i have to do math here?

my TDS is 186ppm if that helps
also plz tell me what u think of the Harvest master if u have one. and last thing i bought, The Eco Tester ph2 iam having a little problems with it but dose anyone else have it and what do u think?

i know it looks like iam asking a lot of Q but this is my first hydro and i have some new additions to my strain i have sour d and soon to have banna kush and tangerin kush. so i really would like this round to start out sooth and end smoth and strong just like the bud i hope.

thank groder
 

fatman7574

New Member
EC recommendation are usually made in the U.S. with an EC reading as calibrated with a NaCl standard. ie a 0.5 standard. However many European conductivity meters are set a at a default for a 0.75 conversion so that might be considered also as an indication to check where your nutrients are manafacturered. i.e, european nutrients EC recommendations are likely cased upon a 0.75 coversion factor. The conversion factors are used to determine the overall ppm estimate based upon conductivity. Any way it goes 2.3 EC is quite high. I would start with a 1.0 and work up to a 2 or 2.3, not just start at 2.3 That could quite easily do some burning due to excess nutrients. Plus with a high EC you have very little calcium up take so you would have very weak stems and little plant resistance to chewing bugs.

To actually determine TDS properly would require laboratory procedures. Set amount of fluid. Filter fluids. etc. etc. etc. You have volitile solids, and non volitile solids. ie orgainic and non organic. With chen mical nutrients you want to really just know the in organic dissolved solids. But a simple conductivity conversion to TDS ppm is generally good enough for horticulture.
 
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