Looking for a sanity check on my EC

@matommy Are you sure those numbers are EC and not PPM? .425 is a very low ec for plants those size for sure lol 

Check what reading your meter is giving you and let us know the results. But the plants look very happy, so you dont need to be worrying about anything right now

@matommy Your Plants look good to me. @WoodI2 is one of the members here running RDWC. I know his EC levels run fairly low also, I think he could help answer this question and will most likely be along soon.

  Hey @matommy, good morning I think. Ok so your having some questions about EC, and your using GH Flora Trio, correct? Are you using Armor Si or Cal/Mag? If you would, list your nutrients and the order that you mix them in and the amounts that you giving. What's your water source, tap or RO? How many Gal/L are in your system?  How many watts is the light that your using?

 I do run a lower EC but that's what the plants require at the time. Have you tried increasing the EC (I'm sure you have) and what happen? What type of EC meter do you have and have you calibrated it?

 The EC you stated is extremely low, but your plants show differently, they look great. Kudos man 👍 As you know it's not a bad thing to have a low EC, saves a bunch of money. But somethings not add up here, with that EC reading and those plants and their size. So hey lets chat and see if we can figure it out. If not you'll have nutz left over for your next grow!! lol

Thanks for all the great questions! I will try to capture the answers here..

I am sure it is EC and not PPM. I am using Atlas Scientific Ph and EC meters through the Mycodo software system. But I calibrated them recently and verified both with a BlueLab combo meter. .4 is my true EC, believe it or not.

When they were in veg, they seemed happiest at about .5 EC, but when I flipped to flower that changed to them liking extremely low EC.

I am using a 50 gal RDWC system. Tap water, which is about 7 Ph and .230 EC. I put HydroGuard first, followed by GH Micro, then Grow, then Bloom. I dump them into the main res and the pump circulates them for me over about 5 minutes or so. I have not used CalMag (there is so much misinfo/disinfo on that that I have no idea when it is appropriate to use them). I have used Si a couple of times in lieu of Ph UP.

I use a 450W Spider Farmer 4000 light at 100% and about 20" or so. The plants were manifolded to 8 colas.

When I raise EC, my Ph starts dropping pretty hard. When I lower it, Ph flattens out and occasionally rises slowly.

Let's see, I think that's it? Right now, they're drinking, EC (.417) is falling and so is Ph (5.77).

@matommy, carry on. 

It doesn't matter at this point what's right, wrong, or indifferent, it's working for you. It's unorthodox but working. Plus you have a back ground EC too. I add my Hydroguard last but I don't see any harm in it. As far as no Cal/mag, your water source being tap may have enough and your def getting your silica from that. So, don't know man but out of curiosity what mounts are you adding? How much micro, gro, bloom? Are you using Gro during flower?

@woodi2 Lol, yeah. Right now, at this point in the plant's cycle, I am using a 2:1:3 ratio of Micro:Grow:Bloom. I start with 20ml, 10ml, 30ml and see where the EC is, and add more from there. But since I trickle the nutes in to manage EC and Ph, I can't say exactly how much of each I have used. This is also because when Ph starts to fall on a steeper curve, I drain some water out and replace it with tap water, which lowers EC.

Any red flags there? I am happy to carry on, but not if I am driving off a cliff of some sort that I can't see..

@matommy, lol Red Flags are non-existent at this point. Everything that's wrong is right and "We're not in Kanas any more" applies here. LMAO!!  It seems that if you condition a plant to grow at a low or high EC it will. Then that is the life it will adapt to. DISCALMER; This is my stoner logic/ Bro Science babble. So the fight for life goes on and everything has to adapt to it's environment. So even thou the one you created isn't prefect and theoretically should have a different out come atm, regardless it's working. So there either Divine Intervention maybe happening here or something we're missing but it's fucking working so don't mess with it. lol I could say to do this or that but that would possibly undo what you have happening here, tbh. Is this your first grow? You've done well this far, you seem to have some experience with this puzzle plant. Good work!! Turn on your high beams, so you'll see the cliff's edge ahead of time. 🤣 word    

@woodi2, I recall reading not too long ago that plants can adapt themselves to outside of the typical norms, but constituency is key once a plant has adapted to certain conditions. 

@woodi2 I'll keep playing it this way and hit you guys up when something bad starts happening. Or if you're around Boston, I'll share some samples if things turn out OK.

For grins, here is a picture of the last six hours and things look pretty stable. @sevans, I plan to be as consistent as possible!

Edit: I added water at 1030 if you're curious.