i study the the science of plants therefore i am technically a botanist. you are as well albeit a shoddy one. your beliefs about sulfuric acid are highly erroneous.
if i remember you said something along the lines of: "Sulfuric acid is about 10xs cheaper than vinegar as 1 quart of sulfuric acid makes many gallons of PH down. "
as per your thread 1 qt of sulfuric acid at 33% is 7$
as per your thread you removed two cups water from your gallon of distilled leaving 14 cups whilst adding 1 cup sulfuric acid 33%. this leaves 15 cups of 2.3% solution. 15 cups times 4 is 60 cups or 3.75 gallons. divide 7$ by 3.75 gal to get $1.86 per gallon
now lets examine vinegar: 1 gal dwv $2.39 at 5% and at 2.3% concentration= $1.09 per gallon
so according to you being 42% more expensive is actually cheaper somehow?
what you should have said said was: sulfuric acid is 42% more expensive and only makes 3.75 gallons of 2.3% solution
You are comparing apples to oranges. It is like saying 99% silver and 99% gold are worth the same because they are equal percentages. 5% vinegar simply does not work near the level of 5% sulfuric acid. You also do not understand the basics:
Acidity and alkalinity are measured with a logarithmic scale called
pH. Here's why: a strongly acidic solution can have one hundred million million (100,000,000,000,000) times more hydrogen ions than a strongly basic solution! The flip side, of course, is that a strongly basic solution can have 100,000,000,000,000 times more hydroxide ions than a strongly acidic solution. Moreover, the hydrogen ion and hydroxide ion concentrations in everyday solutions can vary over that entire range.
In order to deal with these large numbers more easily, scientists use a
logarithmic scale, the pH scale.
Each one-unit change in the pH scale corresponds to a ten-fold change in hydrogen ion concentration. The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. It's a lot easier to use a logarithmic scale instead of always having to write down all those zeros! By the way, notice how one hundred million million is a one with fourteen zeros after it? It's not coincidence, it's logarithms!
Ok, now that I have explained what PH means and highlighted a very crucial line in the paragraph I will continue by explaining why it matters.
The PH of a 5% acetic acid mixture is about 2.4 and the PH of a 1% sulfuric acid is 1. This means that a 1% solution of sulfuric acid will beat the balls off a 5% mixture of acetic acid.
Granted, I may be incorrect in explaining this next part as I haven't been to chemistry class a long time and I am going to explain it in human talk with a little generalization and rounding to make it easier.
Weak acids don't give up all their hydrogen to the water in the nutrients, where as a strong acid gives up all of them.
Acetic acid is a weak acid.
Sulfuric acid is a strong acid.
Now, when you put those all together, your math that shows acetic acid being more economical is pretty stupid. You aren't using a gallon of sulfuric acid mix vs a gallon of vinegar. Your vinegar is not as effective at 5% as sulfuric acid is at 2%. Even 1% sulfuric acid is roughly many many times stronger than your vinegar.
And while this math may not be 100% accurate, it is close enough to explain why you are a wrong.
PH of 1 is 10x's stronger than a ph of 2. And a ph of 1 vs a ph of 3 would be 100x's stronger. A ph of 2.4 would be something like 40 times weaker than a ph of 1. That means acetic acid sucks and sulfuric acid is awesome.
Why would I want to pour a gallon of smelly ass vinegar into my res a week when I can use a tiny bit of sulfuric acid. I used a gallon of sulfuric acid on a 50 gallon res for multiple grows. A gallon of acid would only last a few weeks at best and if you are doing hydroponics you would be adding a lot of things to your res for no reason.
Simply put: acetic acid is inferior. It has never been used as a PH down except by people who are absolutely forced to, while sulfuric acid has a long history of use as a ph down for plants and works great.