EC Readings

[Noob1903]

Hey guys

 

Hope you are well

 

I need some advice please. I recently bought a EC/PPM meter to check and see if I have issues.

 

So I feed with TA Tri-part and am roughly half way through flower

 

I make up a nutrient solution in a 20L water drum. I use tap water, add nutrients according to the dosage on the feed chart, PH balance to roughly 5.8/5.9 - 6.0 (growing in Atami Coco)

 

I took a sample of the nutrient solution and obtained a reading of roughly 1500 EC. I watered to run off (4 different strains ) and tested each sample I collected. I rinsed syringe, sample cup and meter off with tap water between readings

 

My EC readings on all the strains are huge:

 

Input EC Sativa 1200

Choc Haze 5000

 

Input EC Sativa 1200

Grape Cookies 4090

 

Input EC Indica 1500

Bushfire OG 8248

 

Input Indica 1500

DBN Cookie Kush 5000

 

I haven’t calibrated the EC meter yet but did check the water before nutrients. Reading was 130 EC. I check this on 2 different occasions and that figure seemed constant so don’t know if the EC meter is that far out.

 

Do you think this is a calibration problem or are my plants getting too much nutes?

 

Please help, I really wanted to have a relatively hassle free grow, this time around

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dookie69]

That runoff does appear to be very high. Do your plants appear to displaying any lockout / nute burn / stunting?
If your concerned about it I would flush each pot with 3 x it’s capacity in TA flash clean then after a day or so feed at 70% of the recommended dosage plus add some Calcium or Cal Mag to keep the Coco happy.
After that try to be conservative with nutes, I never run my plants past 80% strength, and my EC usually sits around 1400. (This is in flower, including any other supplements like Silica or whatever) (I run Auto’s, they require lower EC apparently)
As far as calibrating the EC, you can’t calibrate as such, but you can compare to a know standard liquid to see if it’s in spec or not.

[Noob1903]

Thanks bud

I have always just followed the TA (prior to that GH) feeding chart.

I did a big flush with Florakleen and added more water to the mix to reduce strength.

Seems like you guys don’t feed to max dosages? I will adjust strength going forward

Plants seemed ok but didn’t seem to be bulking up. I will monitor closely

Thanks again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Dookie69]

The feed charts are mainly to ensure the correct NER (Nutrient Element Ratio) is followed, for each stage of growth. They can be diluted as you see fit so long as the ratios remain correct. I also mix in 20l containers, but work out the percentages before, so let’s say it indicates 2,4ml of Bloom per litre, and you want to run a 70% strength. 0.7 x 2,4 x 20l = 33.6ml per 20l as opposed to 48ml at full dosage.
The order in which you add them is important. The chart suggests Gro then Micro then Bloom. It’s better to go Micro then gro then Bloom.
Finally a note on EC. TA can’t know the base EC of every place in the world, or indeed who will be using RO water for that matter. So they base their recommended EC range (bottom of each column in the chart) on an average tap water range EC (I think around 0,3). This added to their 100% NER strength gives the recommended max /min EC on the chart. Here in SA we have pretty low EC in the tap water, generally. Mine is around 0,1. For me this means that even if I feed at 100% Nute strength, I still don’t achieve or surpass the max EC, sometimes not even the minimum.
This leaves me with some wiggle room for adding supplements as a preventative or corrective measure, for eg CalMag, Chelated Calcium, Silica, Biodyne, Epsom salts and bloom boosters. Finally, and anybody please correct me if I’m wrong, EC is a measure of Electrical Conductivity in a solution, typically measuring salts content and cannot measure other non-electrically conductive elements in the water. This is why it is important to know what you’re dealing with media-wise, since your media (“soil”) can actually contain a lot of undetectable stuff which in excessive amounts can be detrimental to a cannabis plant.
So mix in the right order, mix conservatively, never exceed the max EC on the chart.
And don’t be forgetting pH. It’s as important if not more so than anything else. And keep an eye on you reservoir / bucket. pH can creep up over a few days and the next thing you know it’s way way over. Don’t think of pH as a linear scale. It’s an exponential / logarithmic scale. So pH 6 vs pH 7 is not “just” one point up. Water with a pH of 6 is 10X more acidic than water with pH of 7 ‍. Accuracy of pH is critical.

[Ill_Evan]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:29 PM, Noob1903 said:

I need some advice please. I recently bought a EC/PPM meter to check and see if I have issues.

Show me which pen you got, there's a difference between EC and PPM. If you had an EC of 5000 you'd basically be feeding a brick of salt with no water  

We favor EC over PPM, so if you can, keep your records in EC. 

With TA Tripart, you usually want to be around 1.6 EC when growing, and maybe push to 2.0 EC when hitting flower. I see you're halfway through flower, so 2.0 would be where you want to be. 

[Noob1903]

Hi guys. Thanks for the responses, been hectic at work. 
 

@Dookie69 You are 100% correct. I found a really helpful website for us beginners (Coco for Cannabis) and they have very detailed instructions for maintaining EC, managing EC run off etc. Super helpful 

I seem to be getting the hang of it. Essentially I was mixing nutes as per the dosages and feeding that to the plants directly without diluting first. I had to do a radical flush as the EC readings were accurate! My poor plants! 
 

The other question I have is how do you deal with the runoff in your trays if you have an indoor grow? Currently using a vacumn cleaner to remove excess water, but that is not a long term solution. Any bright ideas for drainage?

[Noob1903]

On 2/8/2022 at 8:09 PM, Ill_Evan said:

Show me which pen you got, there's a difference between EC and PPM. If you had an EC of 5000 you'd basically be feeding a brick of salt with no water  

We favor EC over PPM, so if you can, keep your records in EC. 

With TA Tripart, you usually want to be around 1.6 EC when growing, and maybe push to 2.0 EC when hitting flower. I see you're halfway through flower, so 2.0 would be where you want to be. 

Hi bud

 

It’s a cheap meter. It only has PPM & EC (Micro Siemens). The website recommends 1600 EC Outflow, so will keep things a bit lower to help the plants out. 
 

That runoff water looked like Monster Energy drink! 
 

next grow, I will keep a closer eye on the EC values to keep in check 

[Ill_Evan]

1 hour ago, Noob1903 said:

It’s a cheap meter. It only has PPM & EC (Micro Siemens). The website recommends 1600 EC Outflow, so will keep things a bit lower to help the plants out. 

Eish... I don't know about all that, chief. 

[Noob1903]

50 minutes ago, Ill_Evan said:

Eish... I don't know about all that, chief. 

Not really sure about it either but it seems to make sense. There’s a lot of disinformation out there, which makes it difficult for us to learn. 
 

I’ll follow the process for a new grow and compare to my past grows. 

[Ill_Evan]

5 minutes ago, Noob1903 said:

There’s a lot of disinformation out there

I get all my information from Joe Rogan.