Wilma 8 pot issues..

**the green meanie** · 11-03-17, 12:23 PM

Hardly a novice but thought I'd post here.. I'm new to hydro.
Set up a little 20 litre nft a couple of months ago,no ph pen or ec truncheon,just fish tank ph testing fluid.
..piece of piss! 40ml a+b vitalink grow and 3.5ml of ph down and bang.. Perfect ph every time!
Thought 'this is easy' and bought a 8 pot xl with a 100 litre tank..ph pen and truncheon..ionic grow..can I get the ph and ec right? Can I fuck. Been set up 10 days and ph is swinging from 7.4 to 6.3 daily.. Ec is 2.8.. I admit I put 100ml take root in there too.. All young plants but don't seem too stressed though.. Shall I just bin the res and start again with weaker solution? Or keep fucking about with the ph down? Oh and I've drilled the pots and tank lid to make it dwc and am running the pump all the time the lights are on (18/6) in lava pebbles. Also 2 air curtains,2 wave makers and an aquarium heater set at 21. Lots of info Soz lol

**British green** · 11-03-17, 12:40 PM

Ec is way to high and I mean way to much . Even when I'm flowering a mature plant I only go to 1.3 ec Max . Your pump constantly being on can also cause problems as your roots won't go searching for the water and just be happy were they are . Set the pump at 15 mins on in the hour and off the other 45 mins . When making your nutes let the water stand over night 24hrs then make up the nutes give it a good stir check adjust ph and then leave it to stand a hour mix again and check ph adjust if needed and then put it in the system and allow it to drift from 5.5 to 6.2 before you adjust it again

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**the green meanie** · 11-03-17, 01:25 PM

Good info. Much appreciated.

**Trex** · 11-03-17, 01:27 PM

2.8 ??!!! Jesus , i have an auto in dwc thst will not accept anything above .6 (base of 0) ,drain you res ,put ph'd decholrinated fresh water in on its own for a day or so , til she stops throwing nutes back and when she stops ,start her back up at .5 and go from there man

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**the green meanie** · 11-03-17, 02:19 PM

Thanks again.. I can't see how it got so high.. It was all running a week before I got my Bluelab..I didn't over do the stated amount on the ionic bottle.. Bit of root it at correct dosage.. Guess it's best to start again eh? While the plants are still standing up! All a learning curve I guess

**British green** · 11-03-17, 02:23 PM

The bottle guide is a load of bs and at half strength is normally the max I'd go to . Dump your res run a few days like tree says plain water and then make your nutes up at 0.3 ec above your base reading .

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**the green meanie** · 12-03-17, 06:29 PM

Res changed. Ec .6 ph 6.2..all good for now. Flipping next week so I'm sure I'll be back panicking lol

**Trex** · 12-03-17, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by British green

The bottle guide is a load of bs and at half strength is normally the max I'd go to . Dump your res run a few days like tree says plain water and then make your nutes up at 0.3 ec above your base reading .

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Yes thats true BG , ive even contacted Remo nutrients and asked them "are these charts for fucking real ?" They told me 60% was a better take off point , so I went with 50% and even i thought that was high on the EC scale , i think in the end 30% was a better jump off point tbh .

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**ReeferDankness** · 14-03-17, 12:08 AM

That EC is enough to knock out a small elephant mate

The problem seems to be the amount of PH +/- you're adding. That stuff is lethal and will bump your EC up dramatically!

The best way to add PH adjuster is to get a 2lt bottle of water and add like 5ml of +/- then add the diluted mix to the res 500ml at a time until you reach the desired PH, it allows for a much more controlled adjustment of PH levels without adding the huge EC increase.

Also what PH are you trying to get? because you should be at around 5.6-5.8

I use the same system as what you use (but homemade version) and it was tricky at first nailing it down but once you have it you can leave your plants for weeks without having to worry about them... I just top the res up once per week and give the res a clean out maybe 3x during the grow and apart from training the plants and cutting off the lower growth I have no work to do in the groom. Wilma systems truly are the lazy mans garden

**the green meanie** · 14-03-17, 03:44 PM

Cheers mate that's good to know.. I'm aiming for about 5.8
I've flushed for a couple of days and added grow nutes at not even half strength..ph is now 6.1 and ec 1.2.. I think.. Need to have a lil lookie later on. Been a stressful week,I've got some hard to get hold of strains in there!