Buying the best EC meter for growing cannabis, will result in more accurate tests of your nutrient solution. This means you know what your plant is eating, which will keep them fed properly, and healthy.
If you are growing cannabis with salt based nutrients, it is essential that you know what your plant is eating. You can do this by monitoring the EC of your feed and of the run off after feeding your plants.
EC is the most commonly used by growers, rather than TDS or PPM. As a result, you should make it easy on yourself, and buy an EC meter.
Why You Need to Monitor EC in Cannabis
If the EC of your feed is too high, then your plants will have too much food available to them. If they eat too much, your plants will start to suffer with Nutrient Excess issues. Cannabis doesn’t eat a lot, compared to other plants. As a result, they can easily be overfed if you follow the manufacturers guidelines.
By monitoring EC, you can gradually increase your feed in measurable increments. This will ensure you are not over feeding your plant, so your plant will suffer with less problems.
By monitoring the EC, you will be able to tell if you plant needs more, or less food, for example:
- If the EC, of the reservoir or run off is dropping after feeding, which tells you, your plant would benefit from a higher EC in the next feed.
- However, if the EC of the run off, or reservoir is rising, you are over feeding your plants, which means you should lower the EC of the next feed.
So, regular, reliable testing of your EC levels will result in your plant always receiving the right amount of nutrients. It is vital that you have equipment you can trust.
These models will give you that peace of mind, that your feed is at the correct EC for your stage of plant growth.
Essentials EC Meter
Essentials are popular amongst growers. They are very reliable, and accurate. If you maintain them well, they will provide accurate EC readings for many future grows! This is a great EC meter for novice and professional growers, because it is cheap, and reliable. It won’t cost too much, but you can be sure it will give you accurate readings.
Essentials are great value for money and they are very good at what they do. They are very popular and trusted in the growing community, therefore, if your are looking for a pH meter, and you’re on a budget, this is the model you should go for.
Along with the Essentials pH meter, there are many other EC meters available online, some will be cheaper, some will be much more expensive. If you want to have the peace of mind, make sure you buy the best EC meter you can afford. In conclusion, Essentials would be a good option for any grower.
Hanna EC Meter
The Hanna range of EC meters are very good. One of the best features of the Hanna EC Meter is it will tell you the temperature of the water, and it also gives an EC reading to 2 decimal places.
Because of the fact you get reading to 2 decimal places, you will get very accurate readings from a Hanna EC Pen.
The Hanna Grow Line EC Meter will give you accurate readings for hundreds of tests! Keep it clean, and calibrate it regularly, and this model can last you for years. It is definitely worth the investment.
No matter which one you choose, keep them clean and calibrate them monthly. As a result, they will stay accurate for a long time. The model you chose should come with instructions, that will be able to tell you how to maintain your EC Meter.
Thanks for reading! You can find more information on anything related to growing in our cannabis grow guides. If you have any questions, feel free to post below and ask members of our cannabis growers forum for help. Sign up. It is free, and we are always happy to help!
2 weeks!
@speks That depends on a lot of things mate, not a simple question to answer, we need more info from you. Like what medium are you growing in, how old is the plant, what nutrients are you using?
This post mentions the manufacturers recommendations being too strong. I have finally purchased and ec meter thinking that my grows have been weak on nutrients after following the instructions. Should I be expecting to use less nutes while using the ec meter?
@monkeydo yeah, I’ll get there. I have started reading about it u til I think I understand and then I’ll ask questions. That way I’m Lear ING so. E thing and then getting advise on the finer points to make sure I’m in the right direction lol
I understand your confusion. Most other grow sites use us/cm (micro semens per square cm), here it’s more common to use s/cm (semens per square cm) so they might say the EC is 1200 and we would say 1.2 EC. After you know this the conversion is a snap and not at all confusing. My meter displays in micro semens so if it displays 1105 I’ll post the EC as 1.1
@monkeydo it was just that I found those number easier to understand. The meter that I had showed ec us/cm and while the meter was showing a high number, everyone was saying 1 or 1.2 ec and because I didn’t have that on the screen it was confusing.
I have just had another meter turnupthat reads pH, ec and ppm so hopefully that will be easier to use. It wasn’t a cheap one this time so should be OK.
I had also made a reading of the run off and it was huge compared to the container so I panicked a bit and got overwhelmed by numbers lol I think I understand it a bit better now, I have been reading all day haha
Why not use the TDS setting and read EC? It’s completely universal and is the preferred measurement at Percy’s for that reason. BTW you can tell if it’s a 500 or 700 scale by comparing the TDS reading in EC and comparing it to the PPM. If the PPM is half the EC value it uses the .500 conversion, if not it’s a .700 scale.
@scottishmac those are the ones I use at the moment. Do you know if the tds pen uses 500, 640 or 700 scale?
I use this one
But i dont really recommend it uneless u can’t afford a better one
I use the honeforest HFTDS-M7 meter. It was on the recommended equipment list on a different grow site because it was cheap, about 15usd, and tested accurate against more expensive models. So far it’s problem free but I don’t know if it’s the best. Looks like the battery can’t be replaced so that’s an environmental negative.
Which one you using mac?
Would recommend mine just for how cheap the set is but there a reason there that cheap they ain’t reliable lol
Any recommendations for EC meters that should be added to this post? Let me know and leave me some links 🙂
Haven’t used my EC meter for about 8 months since batteries ran out, lol
Pretty much know my nutes now so all good…