"Whitey" (The White)

Hello... Did you know about the world wide perlite shortage? I bought some perlite at the grow store and payed 4 times the same amount. So I made the choice to use expanded clay pellets and fill the air spaces around the pellets with perlite and vermiculite. This will allow me to reuse the clay pellets and to use 15 % of the perlite vermiculite that I was using. On the bag of pellets it said the the PH will go high so put the pellets in a container and fill with water and adjust the PH. I jumped over this phase and filled the pots and transplanted thinking I'll be able to adjust the PH in the reservoir. I ran the system and adjusted the ph and didn't check it for about a day and a half. When I did check the PH it was over 7. I lowered it to 5.6 and ran the system for about 5 minutes and the PH jumped up to 6.1 The ph spiking has slowed down now. I adjust it down once a day again. I've included some pictures of what the PH imbalance looked like. Each plant had a little different reaction. Good thing I'm aware and experienced enough to caught it before it got much worse. The plants are doing well and I'm thinking of topping the taller ones. I've shown you the dark corner with all the grow equipment. Till next week. Chuck.