Anyone else have weird pH issues?

This isn't first grow. Everything was fine until I put them into the buckets. Then allllll hell broke loose. Mostly noob mistakes from me, such as not having a RO system,calcium deficiencies, pH issues, nute burn, etc.

Basically 2 days ago I finally got my RO system in place and hcanged the resevoir with 170ppm water and no nutes. But it seems I can't keep the pH at 5.8, it constantly drops down, so I basically adjust it back to ~5.8 with GH pH up or down.

Could this be because the plant is still stressed from the nute burn? I trimmed some fan leaves also, mostly because there were necrotic spots on them. Should I look into getting some clearex and flushing them for a period, or would just changing the resevoir out everyday suffice? My roots look good and healthy, this is starting to tick me off

Edit: this IS my first grow

sounds like root rot to me. the rot bacteria drive ph down. start reading up on root rot cures, I use dutch master w/ good results. I also have tried beneficial bacteria tea as discussed here on RIU w/ good results.

Wouldn't I have visual s/s of root rot? My roots are still white and healthy.

I've been looking up threads, and realized I might be making errors when I have been adjusting my ph. I've been adding the ph adjusters directly to the resevoir while the plant is still on the bucket ( I just slide the top over) should I be doing this or another method?

It seems like the pH constantly drops, like every 6 hours it'll drop .8-1

Yeah adding a few drops of pH down right into the bucket away from the roots should be fine bro, and for the pH drop id make sure EVERYTHING is clean, my airstones and bottom of the bucket get the skankiest, also check under the lid of your bucket, and also make sure your buckets are light proof so no new algae is forming. When i first mix up a nute solution i adjust the pH then the next day i adjust it again as it will bounce back up a bit, is it just bouncing around while it stabilises or is this something happening every day regardless?. Also one last thing, when i first got my new air stones i washed them pretty well but didnt run them through a bucket of water and pump air through them before i used them, they must of had some checmical in them because my pH dropped like a rock. Hopefully one of these will be help you out =] good luck!

well a bit of an update. I basically "washed" the roots, soaking them in ph'd RO water, set at 6.0 I did that last night for about an hour or two. When i put it back into fresh RO PH6 water, I forgot to pop an airstone back into the bucket (I washed the remaining buckets to get rid of scum) so it sat for ~ 9 hours with no o2. I popped the airstone back into the bucket and did the same for the bigger plant, this time I soaked the airstone in bleach water for 30 minutes, pure 3% h2o2 for 30 minutes, then flushed with water for 30 minutes, and hooked it up to the air pump in some clean water to purge the contents. This was finished at about 2pm today. I came back to it at 1am and the pH in the big plant was 4.5, and the small plant stayed at 6.3.

I also wanted to add my reservoir temps are about 73-76 degrees. I know, its very very warm. I'm trying my best to get them down

This leads me to believe the problem lies in the roots or hydroton of the plant. I'm going out tomorrow to the store and picking up a large quantity of hydrogen peroxide, about 100 feet of black air tubing (mine is clearish blue right now), some more reflective metal tape to wrap the entire bucket/lid/root cover, and some water bottles to throw into the freezer.I'm going to put the net pot lid and soak it in some peroxide solution for about an hour, and then add some peroxide to a clean batch of water, and set everything back up.

Im doing a little test to rule out the airstones as the culprit, basically I set the same airstone that was in the 4.5ph bucket in it's own bucket, with 6.0ph RO water and hooked it up to the air pump, put a closed lid on it, and tomorrow I'm going to see if there are any pH changes.