newbie

@spab your in very safe hands mate, you will have very good chance at a successful grow with everyone helping on here. 😀  

I went through five or six of the cheaper ph meters. Finally got a Bluelab. Been going strong.

Posted by: @zalaman

@spab im guessing you have prob just wasted your money like i did, the cheap ones are so unreliable your readings will be all over the place and not accurate, but very helpful peeps on here that will guide you to victory. 😀 😀 

I’ve been using the cheap meter you are referring to for years now without any problems. The key is that this EC meter is actually very reliable and if I test the readings 10 times the reading will be almost identical with almost no difference (maybe a very slight drift but well within a 1% tolerance). Never have tested the calibration but I don’t need to for my purpose. I don’t mix nutrients based on the EC of the solution, I mix based on a starting point and then adjust if the runoff is higher or lower than the input and that’s all I’m really concerned with. Because this meter has a good base reading and I can tell if my runoff is higher or lower than the input it does exactly what I need it to do, guide my grow with simple readings. The meter might be the most accurate on the market or could be totally off but as long as it’s giving me a consistent reading I can work with that. These meters are cheap enough that I keep 2 of them around just in case one fails. There’s some well known Internet grow forums that the site owners use and recommended this meter because it’s affordable and accurate enough. That’s why I bought it and I have no regrets.

My girls are swimming in nutrients. I need accuracy. I have thrown away many cheap ph and ppm meters. 

@spab,

Posted by: @spab

so would that sound about right tap water water ec 0.6

Yes my well water is EC- 0.64 that's why I'm using RO water. It has an EC- 0.01/PPM 0.00. That reading of yours could be correct. I use 12ml syringe (no needle) from the feed and tack store used for farm animals, to measure out small increments. I have one for each nutrient. A small 100ml cup, Accu Pour (amazon) makes great graduated pitches, also works well. I have the Gal, 1/2 gal, Liter and the little 100ml cup thingy. 👍  

I have tried many a cheap unit and tbf they are usually fairly close, however because of my schedule and the way I track my inputs in and out value I went and picked up a blue lab kit for both ph and ec along with their calibration kit. Usually it will last a good month before it needs a recalibration and even then the values are out by 1% or less. 

The only problem with that is when taking ph readings, I try to keep my ph as consistent as possible through each stage and if it's out by 0.2 it can mean the difference of a lockout or a good uptake ratio. 

There are many on the market and it really does depend on how you run your grow as to how much you want to invest in the meters. For me I am running coco so I see it as an essential device, but as monkey mentioned he doesn't worry so much about the input as he does the output, just depends on your own personal preference. But I will say that both @monkey and myself have been doing this long enough that we know where that mark is going to be by what we are putting into the feed bucket, so for starting out and getting your understanding of how much of which nutrient adds up to a desired ec value I strongly recommend a good quality tester along the lines bluelab etc to help put your mind at ease. 

@woodi2 thanks mate all the info has been great, sorry about English, spelling not good, but thanks guys starting to understand things so much better now thanks to you guys, i will just keep doing what im doing and do all the research i can, so i know as much as i can, for when that time comes to plant that seed, just been looking at feeding schedules an ratios etc, so i know all the stages of plant growth and what ratios to give an when etc and once that time comes i will start my diary and let you all know how its going so once again thanks peeps for all the help an advise, and esp to the guys who run this as all the stuff as been easy to find and already given me so much info already so THANK YOU EVERYONE

@bubblehok yeah will deffo be getting one as will be growing DWC so need to make sure EC/PH is bang on and consistant