nutrients for as little pH maintance as possible

Doesn't matter what nutrients you use. All needs adjusting if it doesn't fall within the ph value you need. Best practice is to let any water you use to sit for 24 hours before adding nutrients. The water will naturally increase in ph in that time. Then when you add your nutrients and correct the ph, it stays way more stable then if the water never sat for 24 hours.

I like Advanced Nutrients PH Perfect line. My last grow I was using water with pH 7.5 and 1/2 strength of nutes, they made it 6.8. Now I’m using very good spring water with pH 6.7, and no pH down is required. Solution is about 6.3-6.4 when I just mix PH Perfect. But as said already, it always depends on your water quality.

There are some additives, like calmag, that will do a number on your pH... but it's not the nutes or additives that are the real issue - it's usually the water that you're using. I've found Spring Water to be a lot more stable when it comes to pH issues than my regular tap water.... and would assume, though I haven't tried it, that RO water is even better. One thing I've learned is to only check the pH once a day at the same time of the day... it WILL fluctuate during the day for various reasons and I used to chase around madly as well trying to adjust here and adjust there... Just check it once a day... same time every day.... life is a lot calmer and surprisingly, the pH is more stable as well. Good luck!

Well. Adding in Adv nutrients with what you are using is going to mess around with your PH.. the trio you have is stable enough.. and using big bud is what's messing you grow during flowering.. No matter what you use. Flowering periods are demanding, pH wise. But keep hydro nutrients to 1 brand if you can. This alone will make for a much more stable PH. GOOD LUCK

I use floraflex and love it. But you will always have to PH down with DWC—- always get a drift up.

Boiling water is 9.2x more acidic than water at room temperature. Or thereabouts.

Stop treating PH with such rigid conformity. Ph is a spectrum like any other with vital function in nutrient uptake and processing. There is many reasons a PH can vary. Ph is logarithmic like earthquakes. A magnitude 5 is 10x stronger than a 4, magnitude 6 is 10x that of a 5 so on so forth. PH is much the same in a 6 is 10x more acidic than a 7. So what may only seem like 1.0 difference is actually magnitudes difference. Nutrients uptake through the rootzones varies drastically based on the ph level, nitrogen may uptake 4x rate at 7ph but drop to 0.25 at 5ph. I can't remember the exact differences but I do recall how vastly different each nutrient was from one to the next. Plants also have the ability when exposes to excess light to send thay energy back in to rootzones leeching the soil to its desired ph. Plants mechanism of slighlty adjusting the ph of the medium itself depending on what nutrient is most desired at each stage of growth. Being rigid and religious regarding ph is often as harmful. Naturally cycle. 7 is neutral and we recognize this as water.

Stepwell Soil 100% Organic 7 gallon + No nutrients required from start to finish. Just water.