Riddle me this...!

so, I watered my plants the other day and when I checked runoff I had a ph of around 6.5. And a ppm of 1500-1700 depending on the plant.

When I watered yesterday, ph went down to 6.2, just the way I wanted it. I watered without nutes and a ppm of around 500 (no, I'm not drinking that). One plants ppm went down and the other 2 the ppm went up by 300-400.

Does anybody know how why this happened? I have to mention that I gave those plants a vigorous flushing about 9 days ago. And haven't used nutes since.

Any ideas are appreciated!

R1b3n4 said:

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that's funny

I would start with

your feeding to high of ppm... the reaction to your flush is likely something the plant reacted to when you flushed all the salt out due to over fertilization

next time... feed less... check your run off weekly and see if the ppms are climbing

for example
if your feeding 800ppm of fresh nute solution but theres 1200ppm coming out the bottom drain then you have salt accumulation and need to flush to bring it down

if your feeding 800ppm and the drain sample is less than 800ppm feed a wee bit more

try 800 ppm for full grown plants

what nutes are you using

im4satori said:

try 800 ppm for full grown plants

what nutes are you using

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FF trio. I do understand how I to adjust to not overfeed. I never even fed as much as it says in the feeding schedule. I'm just puzzled how my runoff has a higher ppm than whet I dumped in and even more than my previous run off, when I haven't added nutes at all.
I flushed the shit out of all 3 plants. Figured that would do. But it didnt

make sure when you water your running enough fluid thru to the bottom and let it run thru for a bit more with each watering

keep your ppms lower

I'm growing in 3 gallon garbage cans and each plant gets a gallon of water, ensuring plenty runoff..
I can't get any lower a ppm than water the bare water has. I even put leave the plant on a grate above the saucer for a bit so no runoff gets back in.

I misunderstood your question

is the plant in flower or veg?

flush the plant with plain phd water until the waste water from the bottom of the pot is down below 800 ppm

then go back to normal watering with nutes... but feed a lower ppm

It's in flowering, 48 days after flip. I put the plants and let tap water run right through for 10 minutes each. It's ph7 and after I was done, runoff was at around 6.5. I know I know... chlorine and all. But I don't do organic so the chlorine doesn't really matter

MadButcher said:

It's in flowering, 48 days after flip. I put the plants and let tap water run right through for 10 minutes each. It's ph7 and after I was done, runoff was at around 6.5. I know I know... chlorine and all. But I don't do organic so the chlorine doesn't really matter

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I don't do organic and chlorine doesn't bother me as long as its under 20ppm which tap water is more like 2ppm

just keep flushing it until the ppm are reduced..
even if it takes a couple days to get it leached

im4satori said:

just keep flushing it until the ppm are reduced..
even if it takes a couple days to get it leached

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Yes, I kinda figured that by now. That would be the answer to the question "how do I fix this?"
Not the answer to "how could ppm go up when nothing got added but water?"
Sorry if I didn't make this clear.

who knows
you might of had faster drainage, more water volume, maybe you dumped it with more force or quicker... either way its irrelevant
since it is only a symptom to your problem
fix the problem no more reason for symptom

It sure is.