S/H PHAL PH SPIKES

[rick84]

Hello everyone, my name is Rick and I have 1 phal I bought from a local nursery. I have no idea what variation. I am awaiting some hydroponic culture pots in the mail. (the ones with water level guage) Untill they arrive, I have taken a 6" net pot and applied the same concept as the mail order pots. I am sure you all have seen them once or twice before so you get the idea.

To give you an accurate picture of what this plant has endured until now I can say-

Bought it about 6 months ago in bloom, It was healthy and the only one that wasn't sunburned. I kept it in the 3" clear pot it had came in. Allowed it to finish flowering and then chopped the spike all the way down to the 1st node. This was done in anticipation of encouraging new growth and for the soon to come transplant.

I fed the phal a kelp and complete B vitamin nutrient and new growth exploded. Leaves and airial roots. I made the transplant into a media mix of my own devise that consisted of crumbled cork, #4 perlite, hydroton, moss, coco coir fir and charcoal. The phal did great and this was about 2 months ago. Since then I have removed 2 yellow and wilted bottom leaves. The plant just keeps on cranking out new leaves. Seeing this vigor I assumed it was safe to put the plant in a S/H. So I again cut off 2 more leaves, these were not yellow at all and very healthy. But the new root growth needed to be placed lower in the S/H pot to adequately cover new roots.

At the time of transplant you will almost always trim dead roots away, I did too and almost all the original roots were dead. After the trim now the root mass is consisting of 8 roots that are all about 3.5" long and more new roots are still coming above the nodes of removed leaves. I am using a complete High quality hydroponic fertilizer known as " ADVANCED NUTRIENTS"

My nutrient solution is aproximatley
370 ppm
0.7 ec
5.56 ph
73F temp

My ambient temp is 78F, plant canopy is 80F and RH is 65%.

Lighting is 600w tunable full spectrum commercial LED.
This light is the real deal and is dialed in presently for encouraging vegetative growth.
425nm-470nm/ 2700K & 6500K whites/ 610nm, 630nm,660nm/ 720mn-740nm. FULL PAR with a CRI of 90.
I know that my lighting is adequate and not to intense. I am not using it at full power, mabey 20% power.

My problem is this phal goes thru a limp and firm stages. One day its leaves are firm and the other limp. I am testing my nutrient solution every day to moniter ec and ph spikes. I had put some moss on top of the hydroton to act as a vapor barrier if you will, to try to reduce evaporation of the nutrient solution. EC is jumping in a 24hr period more than .7 and ppm is the same jump. PH is also going from 5.56 to 7+. My nutrient have a PH buffer in them to eliminate this type of problem, what could be going on here.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading -rick