every time I feed my plants they go from 6.7 pH to 5.5ph
AsNoriuanswered grow question 7d ago
Here I would totally disagree with the previous answer. I have a huge respect for ultraviolet ( think its his nickname ), but he speaks about Coco and you are in soil mix. I told you previously that it's stupid to grow in such mixes because exactly of one of such situations as you are in now.
There is few golden rules whrn growing in soil.
Less is more !!!
You never flush in soil.
In soil, you control what you put in not what you are getting out. I don't know about your coco but sometimes it's sold not pre-buffed, maybe that's the answer to your issue.
Plus I would really want to know how you collect it . Do you really put clean plate under the pots and collect not first not last but middle part of runoff and that's the thing you measure, is it really so ?
Have you checked your measuring equipment. I had always triple comparison system where my meter was put against strips and against something stable, which I know is always keeping approximately the same pH. Meters tend to break or go bad that's most common mistake in soil growing. Check and keep safe your equipment constantly !
Ph is essential.
With those flushes you just ruin all micro fauna, leave pots moist for long time, what causes more salts to build up, rot and ph fluctuation.
Do you really have those issues ??? you haven't showed us your previous leaf problems I see only nice growth , so maybe you are panicking again ?
In soil and organic grow ( even worm castings is kind of slow release nute version, which is not balanced diet, but more as desert on your table after healthy meal) you preplan your feeding schedule, most of things you do now, will have effect after few weeks.
I would return to good wer/dry regime. Would control what i put in and only if i would have troubles, i would be checking runnoffs and etc.
You are growing autos, they hate panic and instability. Stop and rethink what, how and when you do something.
70% of soil in mix is still dominant, you have to obey soil ( not coco ) rules !
MindFlowers68answered grow question 7d ago
I know this doesn't exactly help. I really have no room to offer advice in this situation but. this is why I particularly like organic and amendments and stuff is. i never really worry about any of this. if i notice a small deficiency which is kind of rare i adjust accordingly. Over time I've gotten a real good sense of ballpark amounts i need to reamend with to hit my targets. I think organics is so much more forgiving than people give it credit for. it can be harder to get right if you don't understand certain aspects of it. I never test my soil but i really should be. just to made sure i don't have too much heavy metals building up but that one of the benefits of my biochar it helps buffer some of that out along with certain microbes
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Ratlesnkanswered grow question 7d ago
Your to paranoid, that is common when your new to growing and most of the time you kill the plant. Their to young to be checking all this stuff. Starting with fresh new soil, I always use Fox Farm Happy Frog, you don't have to worry about anything but water for 3-4 weeks. Keep it simple, trying to be fancy won't get you a bigger harvest, you just have to know how to treat her. I don't transplant, quit a decade or so ago, so I stick with this mild fertilized version. Flush all the crap out of the soil and start over with feeding properly and PH 6-6.5 at the most when she dries out completely, not this inch or so of the top soil you see recommended growing flowers and such. I'm not familiar with "Athena" but as long as it has all her needs, start back feeding at a low dose, 1/4 of recommended. Are they photo?
You can give her extra time to get on track if so.
Good luck
Oh, and to check soil if your going to keep doing that, stay away from those probes. The most accurate way involves removing soil way down in but that will harm the roots. Yeah, with an outside plain jane garden plant your fine but we don't want to stress our ladies. So to get somewhat of a general idea of the PH in the soil, I flush with plain PH'd water, let her sit for a bit then water again with plain PH'd water, you shouldn't need much, until there is enough runoff to test with an actual quality meter. I haven't worried about the soil PH for far to long to remember once your experienced with cannabis. It won't be exact but you'll know somethings wrong if you really do get a 5.5 reading. Most good bagged soil has a built in buffer that keeps the soil in good shape unless your PH is to one extreme or the other every time you water/feed or your dumping all those additives into it. If you think it's that bad then transplant her sooner then later and start over with proper soil.
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Green_Clawsanswered grow question 7d ago
Stop flapping and start enjoying. I'd like to know what all that white powder is on top of your soil. What ever it is I wouldn't! it looks chalky and suffocating, I never pH anything in soil you won't see mother nature with some pH down and pen in her hand... If your using chemicals your best in coco
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RasendeRollo92answered grow question 7d ago
Hey 👋,
Mineralsalze können sich im Medium ablagern & zu Veränderungen im Medium führen. Deine Pflanze kann die ganzen Salze nicht aufnehmen, vorallem wenn du mit stofftöpfen arbeitest. Allerdings muss ich ehrlicher Weise sagen ist auch ein PH - Wert von 5,5 noch in einem akzeptablen Rahmen, weshalb du dir absolut keine Sorgen machen musst. Ich dünge deshalb nur bei jedem zweiten Gießen… bin kein Freund von chemischer Korrektheit bei Pflanzen.
Hoffe das hilft. Viel Erfolg 👊👍🍀
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Altitonans_Fulmenanswered grow question 7d ago
Give a man a fish: Growing medium is packed with concentrated, unabsorbed fertilizer salts. As the plant drinks water, it leaves behind these mineral salts, which acidify the rootzone and artificially skew the runoff. Even though you just flushed, a single flush often isn't enough to completely strip the tightly bound salts out of a medium like coco. Runoff 5.5 means the core rootzone is likely even lower (around 5.0), which completely locks out Calcium and Mag.
Need to do a reset flush; this requires 4-5 times more water to separate from soil particles when flushing. Don't use RO water; use 2-300ppm (tap water is ok), Distilled water will screw her roots up. Once the medium is completely cleared of the old salt buildup, resume feeding with your normal combo dosage. Make sure you are watering to a consistent 10% to 20% runoff every single time you feed. This daily waste fraction is non-negotiable in coco; it constantly flushes out yesterday's leftovers and prevents these salt loops from happening again.
Teach a man to fish: Different forms of nitrogen have different "stickiness" to the medium. Highly mobile, negatively charged nitrates NO3- wash away easily during a flush. However, positively charged ammonium NH4+ acts like a magnet and stays glued to the coco fibers. When you do a basic flush, you accidentally strip out all the nitrates but leave the sticky ammonium behind. With no nitrates left to balance its diet, the roots are forced to feed heavily on that remaining ammonium. To absorb these positive ions, the plant's roots pump hydrogen ions H+) right back into the coco, souring the pH all over again.
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