ph! ph! My kingdom for steady ph!

[SmallPowerzzz]

I think I'm ph paranoid. I've been having issues with getting the ph of the reservoir between 5.5-6.5.
First I was using revers osmosis water which after adding nutes had a ph around 4. So I was using baking soda as ph up...Bad idea! I had to add ph down every day to keep it lower than 6.5.

everyone seems to be saying the same that, once you start fiddling with the ph up and down you'll never get a break from it, it'll need to be done daily. But if you leave it it'll sort itself out.

so after getting some advise I just switched the soup to tap water. but I don't understand ...How can I not fiddle with the ph ? after adding nutes the ph is 8 (mind you I don't have a digital reader), and it shouldn't be higher than 6.5 .I added some ph down to bring it closer to 6.5, but I must be missing something...Can anyone help me?

 

[NoDrama]

use RO water, tap water is BAD BAD BAD!! How big is your reservoir? As the plants use up the nutrients they also drive up the PH, if your PH is rising really fast, then the plants are eating alot of food. Just top off your res with PH'd water, sometimes you may need to add up to 3 gallons a day depending on how much the plants use. Drain and refill res every week with new water and nutes. 18l of water is an awefully small res, can you get a larger res to pump from? say 40L +.

 

[caddyluck]

First get a tester. I would only used distilled or RO water. for me, I had to adjust the ph every day until they started drinking nutes. now I havn't had to do any adjusting since upping the nutes last week. when i change my res I have it full of distilled water which has a ph of 8.1, after I add my nutes it drops to 5.8, keeping it there required lots of adjusting up until this last week! I top off with plain distilled water, not ph adjusted. How old are your plants?

 

[H&D]

Get a tester theres heaps out there Keep using RO if you can too ...
Chasing your pH is just something that has to be done in most cases , Mine rises each day by about .2 but every second or third day I add pH down and test again ,It's No big deal ... I'm not gunna stress over adding up or down to the mix considering the results it comes back with at the end of the day ...

After all this is how good your plants would look if you get it right...
My Babies

 

[SmallPowerzzz]

Just top off your res with PH'd water

Do you use ph up and down to balance you water ?

18l of water is an awfully small res, can you get a larger res to pump from? say 40L +

I have 2 grown up plants ready to flower and a 24L res this week (last week it was 18L) do you really think I need a bigger one even though I only have 2 plants?

 

[Al B. Fuct]

use RO water, tap water is BAD BAD BAD!!

Really? OBVIOUSLY, I'm doing it all wrong and I need your help, NoDrama.

Please point out which one of the following pictured plants were killed by tapwater:



mother plants dead? Not very dead looking


clones set root poorly? um, no..




12 ft cherry tomato plant in organic soil grow,
yielded 450 fruit - evil tapwater to blame?


tapwater causing poor yields, I guess? Only an oz on this budstalk




NoDrama, you better get right over here and help me sort out where it's all going bad! OBVIOUSLY, it's the TAPWATER! Not.

Tapwater has served this grower very well for the last 20+ years. Cannabis plants have survived for hundreds of thousands of years on NASTY OL' RAINWATER. Can you believe it?

How big is your reservoir? As the plants use up the nutrients they also drive up the PH,

pH should NOT rise as plants use nutes. It WILL rise if you add plain tapwater to a corrected res.

Rockwool will cause pH to rise because there is some limestone powder which remains after mfg, but pH won't usually move more than 0.1-0.2/day on this cause.

If a tank is mixed properly, water first, add nutes, then correct pH, it ought to stay right where it is unless there's some root disease in the plants or rockwool in the system.

Rule out a bad meter by testing the meter with pH reference solutions before measuring tanks.

RO takes out chlorine, which is harmless in the quantities applied by a municipality, but it also takes out Mg & Ca, both essential micronutes. If you use RO or distilled water, you need to replace the Mg & Ca it removes.

Unless you have to use water with high salinity, RO or distilled water are simply unnecessary expenses. If you can drink it, you can grow great plants with it.

I don't know where this wives tale/furphy/myth about cannabis plants dying en masse without fancy water came from, but one thing's certain- it's absolutely false.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

so after getting some advise I just switched the soup to tap water. but I don't understand ...How can I not fiddle with the ph ? after adding nutes the ph is 8 (mind you I don't have a digital reader), and it shouldn't be higher than 6.5 .I added some ph down to bring it closer to 6.5, but I must be missing something...Can anyone help me?

GET A GOOD METER! You have NO idea what's going on in your tanks without ACCURATE metering. Paper strip tests are not accurate and will lead you to chase your tail, like you are now. Liquid test kits for swimming pools are just as bad as paper strips. Cheap meters are almost as bad as colour match methods.

Get a good meter, buy some pH7.0 & 4.0 reference solutions and calibrate the meter with them before each use until you are sure that it reads the same every day. Even then calibrate a couple of times a week to be sure you are reading what you think you are.

I remain concerned about the bleach and baking soda you were previously using remaining in your media, causing the pH swings, if indeed they are happening. You really don't know without good metering!

 

[WeEdDeMoN]

auto ph ajuster $200 SH Hydroponics, Inc. > Automatic pH Controller Reservoir Kit

 

[Al B. Fuct]

auto ph ajuster $200 SH Hydroponics, Inc. > Automatic pH Controller Reservoir Kit

PRIT-tee pricey for something you can do by hand. If it works, great, but pH shouldn't wander so much that correction is a task worthy of automation. If you can't look in on your op once a day, I can see it, but $200 is still a motza for the task.

 

[fitzyno1]

Yeah right, a gran for 5 of them!

 

[Al B. Fuct]

well yeah... I have 5 tanks. Not everyone will have that many, but it'd be $200 a whack, wouldn't it? Yikes.

My $112 Eutech pHScan1 meters, one 5 years old, one 7 years old, do the job for all my pH measurement needs, with rock-solid reliability.

 

[fitzyno1]

Them automatic controllers wouldn't even be out 5 years never mind 7 years lol, wonder how long the warranty is?

 

[NoDrama]

Really? OBVIOUSLY, I'm doing it all wrong and I need your help, NoDrama.

Please point out which one of the following pictured plants were killed by tapwater:



mother plants dead? Not very dead looking


clones set root poorly? um, no..




12 ft cherry tomato plant in organic soil grow,
yielded 450 fruit - evil tapwater to blame?


tapwater causing poor yields, I guess? Only an oz on this budstalk




NoDrama, you better get right over here and help me sort out where it's all going bad! OBVIOUSLY, it's the TAPWATER! Not.

Tapwater has served this grower very well for the last 20+ years. Cannabis plants have survived for hundreds of thousands of years on NASTY OL' RAINWATER. Can you believe it?

pH should NOT rise as plants use nutes. It WILL rise if you add plain tapwater to a corrected res.

Rockwool will cause pH to rise because there is some limestone powder which remains after mfg, but pH won't usually move more than 0.1-0.2/day on this cause.

If a tank is mixed properly, water first, add nutes, then correct pH, it ought to stay right where it is unless there's some root disease in the plants or rockwool in the system.

Rule out a bad meter by testing the meter with pH reference solutions before measuring tanks.

RO takes out chlorine, which is harmless in the quantities applied by a municipality, but it also takes out Mg & Ca, both essential micronutes. If you use RO or distilled water, you need to replace the Mg & Ca it removes.

Unless you have to use water with high salinity, RO or distilled water are simply unnecessary expenses. If you can drink it, you can grow great plants with it.

I don't know where this wives tale/furphy/myth about cannabis plants dying en masse without fancy water came from, but one thing's certain- it's absolutely false.

great!! You must have good tap water where you live?? Here where I live its 450PPM 8.5 PH and full of chlorine, heavy metals and radioactive runoff. The Federal Govt recommends NOT drinking our water until the new Water treatment facility goes online next year. So thats why I use RO, have MUCH better success with RO than our deadly tap water.

 

[WeEdDeMoN]

lol guess im lazy it works perfect with my 17plants hydro box

 

[fitzyno1]

great!! You must have good tap water where you live?? Here where I live its 450PPM 8.5 PH and full of chlorine, heavy metals and radioactive runoff. The Federal Govt recommends NOT drinking our water until the new Water treatment facility goes online next year. So thats why I use RO, have MUCH better success with RO than our deadly tap water.

Holy shit, radioactive runoff. Do you or your family not get sick?

 

[Al B. Fuct]

great!! You must have good tap water where you live?? Here where I live its 450PPM 8.5 PH and full of chlorine, heavy metals and radioactive runoff.

Got news for you, RO will not make water with radioactive debris safe to drink.

Can you smell chlorine? If you can, it means that there's TOO LITTLE chlorine in the water. Go read about water treatment.

My tapwater is presently 8.1 and about 300ppm. Have seen it at 7.0 and 140ppm; varies seasonally and after heavy rain, when the plant treats for pathogens which get washed out of the catchments.

Your comment, lest we forget:

Originally Posted by NoDrama
use RO water, tap water is BAD, BAD, BAD!!

You made a blanket statement about all tapwater being "BAD BAD BAD!!" This is plainly and simply false. Even if your local tapwater is the piss of Satan himself, you should not attempt to mislead RIU readers- and that's what you've done.

The Federal Govt recommends NOT drinking our water until the new Water treatment facility goes online next year. So thats why I use RO, have MUCH better success with RO than our deadly tap water.

Radioactive tapwater would be REALLY big news. What municipality are we talking about? Start me off with the state, that won't compromise your stealth one bit.

Most of the time when people think they have a water quality issue in a grow op, there's some other cause for problems. In many, many years of doing this, I've never seen municipal water ever cause a problem.

If you can drink it, you can grow great plants with it.

Some water, ie rainwater off your roof, I would not consider drinkable (think bird poo on the roof), but would do equally well growing plants.

I'm getting really annoyed with some of the rumours and wives' tales flitting around this board. Someone hears something, doesn't research, doesn't test, repeats it as though it's the Word Of God.

We have to be anonymous on this forum. All we have on here when making recommendations are our reputations- I could be a qualified municipal water chemist but without my name, you don't know who I am from Adam. Our recommendations (and thus reputations) should thus ALWAYS be based in replicatable science, not rumours.

 

[fitzyno1]

I dont know if any of you guys have ever been to Ibiza, Majorca or the Canary Islands, but you can't wash your teeth in the water never mind drink it. Washing your teeth in it gives you a sore throat, and drinking it will make you ill. It is very foamy water, i've always wanted to know why that is, does anyone know?
Sorry for wandering off the track, but it has always bugged me.
Would it be bacteria, minerals or cause of the volcanic rock?

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Yes, tapwater in remote places (notably island countries- Fiji's water is generally unsafe, too) and third-world countries can be of poor quality compared to that in developed nations.

But, how many of us on here live in a banana republic?

The vast majority of RIU readers are in the US, Canada, Aus or the UK and of those, only Aus is really big in the banana department.

 

[NoDrama]

Al you are right, I made a blanket statement about tap water being bad, But that was no reason to go into a MAJOR rant with a personal attack against me. Now that you have made a blanket statement about all tap water being good, I guess it all pertains to yourself as well.

 

[fitzyno1]

I wasn't talking about water for plants LOL. I just wandered off there a bit, i'm a bit stoned at the minute, you know your self.
I go to these places on holiday, they tell you not to drink the water, and everyone knows not to, but no-one seems to know why.