Not necessarily, thats why its important to check your runoff ppm and compare it to previous runoffs. The ph needs to be corrected so the plant can uptake the nutrients. You wont loose that much because the nutes you have been adding have just been building up because the plant isnt able to feed. I just went through the same thing you are going through as far as battling ph. FF usually has enough nutes to last until flowering.
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Wait youve been adding raw nutrients to your soil?
Ph is more important than ppm numbers. Ppm can be fixed easily ph canât. Youâre going to be in for a long battle trying to meet exact numbers
No. But ive been mixing them with water according to the directions on the bottle.
If i add more water wonât i be diluting the solution and providing fewer nutrients than directed?
Thanks
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Yes it dilutes it down. With hydro and fox farms the general rule is half strength on everything. I normally shoot for a 2.0 EC in full flower and thats generally very dialed in. To achieve that with the schedule they provide. I run 1/2 str on all nutrients and bios/microbes and full str on the boosters. Like open seasame, beasti bloomz and cha ching. I run straight tap water that comes out at 100ppm at 7.0 pH. The schedule now calls for fox farms calmag at each feeding as well. 2 tsp per gallon. So again i half that at 1tsp per gallon. They change their formula and feeding schedules constantly. Ive seen 4 different schedules for hydro in the 2 years ive been using it. That being said im running hydro and my feeds are a little different than soil but the rules are the same. Fox farms is very hot and needs to be halfed
They have everyone overfeeding. A normal full flower feeding if done the way they prescribe it has an ec of 3.0 or higher. Forcing users to flush in between every other week. Its unnecessary and a waste of nutrients. Just a way to force people to buy more more mroe
So the advice is to prioritize PH and be less concerned about ppm?
Theyre both important. The balance of nutrients macro and micro is essential to keep a good pH. Adding more of this or less of that will always throw off your pH because the plants arent taking them up in balance. So even if youre using half str, make sure its down the board. Too many of one thing will throw off the rest. And mixing different companies brands can mess everything up. Ive seen calmag that has a 4/0/0 npk and others with 0/0/0 and 1/0/0.
Ultimately though no matter how well your nutrient levels are dialed in. If your pH is off theyre not feeding right and will suffer from deficiencies
Yep I mean you definitely want decent ppms but if you have to choose one to be accurate make it the ph. You should be able to meet in the middle doesnât have to be exact. If I mix nutes and my ph comes to 6.8 and my ppms are 750 Iâll add bloom nutes to bring up the ppms while simultaneously lowering the ph
2 ways I reach desired ppm and ph
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I ignore the feed chart and add in just enough bloom to lower my ph to the right level. Iâll check the ppms and usually there in prime range
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Mix nutes full strength then dilute down which brings up my ph and lowers the ppms. I meet them at a sweet spot
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Im in living soil. I screwed up by using a quick method of treating my water with the aquarium dechlorinate stuff. It would bring my water down to 6.5, and also the treatment had salt in it so therefor i had a little salt buildup in my soil. My soil ph tanked to 6.3 amd locked me out and slowed the progression of my girls since im 4 weeks into flower. I need to be up in the middle to upper 6s so my roots can uptake the nutes needed for the big push. My PPMs were nearly 3000 which im not worried about since i was showing major deficiencies. I flushed with regular tap until i reached my target ph. My PPMs dropped to around 2200 but im ok with that too. All im doing now is water with regular tap that ive had out for 24 hours to help with the chlorine. That was 4 days ago. I got back from a 3 day out of towner and my girls are definately of their stunt. Moral of my rambling is this⌠PH is way more imprtant than nutes. Like someone mentioned above, unless caught quickly, ph issues will hurt you worse than worrying about nutes.