Baking Soda

Is that a safe way to raise your plant water pH w/ nutrients added? .. I use the fox farm line and every time I add something to the water the pH plummets. I heard baking soda is a good quick way to raise it, but not sure if it's actually harmful to the plants?

ive heard the same thing, so id imagine its ok, just go weak. weak weak. and wait til someone else comments on this, that has done it before lol.

i went and bought a variety of nutrients, made a small batch of each at full strength, and checked the pH. i just alternate nutrients depending pH.
Note: before people flip out, lemme make this clear. i dont grab a bloom bottle during vegetative cuz it ups the pH or vice versa. i have like 5 dif veggie ones, and 3 flowering ones, and 2 of micro nutes. all with a varying degree of pH reaction.

i have never used baking soda. i was going to put some in my pool to raise the alkalinity which in turn will probly raise the ph. not sure about using for plants.

i tested my water years ago and was good and have never checked it since. i also use the fox farm lineup and i use promix or sunshine mix as a medium and it has dolomite lime in it to help keep every neutral.

what kind of a growing medium are you useing? are you testing the feeding solution or the run off from the container after feeding the plant?

yeah it works well to raise ph, though i'm not sure it will stay long that way. you only need very small amounts of powder. i think it's safe, at least i havent seen any adverse effects.

also, organic and soil nutes usually buffer ph for a higher

smoke and coke said:

i have never used baking soda. i was going to put some in my pool to raise the alkalinity which in turn will probly raise the ph. not sure about using for plants.

i tested my water years ago and was good and have never checked it since. i also use the fox farm lineup and i use promix or sunshine mix as a medium and it has dolomite lime in it to help keep every neutral.

what kind of a growing medium are you useing? are you testing the feeding solution or the run off from the container after feeding the plant?

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I use Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil, and was told it is pH'd at 6.3-6.8, so I try to test the feeding solution to 6.6-6.7 which has recently become a pain because I ran out of pH up and down...

asaph said:

yeah it works well to raise ph, though i'm not sure it will stay long that way. you only need very small amounts of powder. i think it's safe, at least i havent seen any adverse effects.

also, organic and soil nutes usually buffer ph for a higher

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So my best bet would be buying more pH up and down? Or will it actually be good enough @ holding pH to feed my plants?

try testing your runoff from a watering. your soil may adjust the ph as you water.

Gigawatt said:

So my best bet would be buying more pH up and down? Or will it actually be good enough @ holding pH to feed my plants?

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I have a bottle of pH down. After all is added I set the water to pH 5.8 (hydro) and over the course of the week it will drift to 6.5 then I drop them back to 5.8. I think a certain degree of pH drift is necessary due to the uptake of nutrients is best within a certain range.

The pH of my runoff was 6.1, which is pretty much what my nutrient solution is before I was adjusting it.. and @batf1nk, I grow in soil.

Baking soda is Sodium Bicarbonate, which is a salt. Best not to use it.

Sebastien Blades said:

Baking soda is Sodium Bicarbonate, which is a salt. Best not to use it.

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Amen. Thanks Sebastien