Hello all,
I just noticed this and thought it might not be common knowledge...or maybe it is, idk. I've been messing around with my water a lot lately, testing it, testing various PH up/down options, etc. This is the first time I've used this source of water to grow indoors and it's moderately hard...ph around 7.5 and average 300 ppm. I've always used citric acid to lower PH in the past because I typically used organic nutes and I figured it was the safest thing for my microherd, and it's incredibly potent-I used to use a mg scale to measure it out, but today I just tried to eyeball it and if you're only adjusting a gallon of water at a time, you only need the tiniest pinch of it. What I realized was that the amount I used to lower my PH from 7.5 to 6 ended up lowering my PPMs by around 80-100 ppms. That's all- it's very consistent too. I've subsequently verified this phenomenon by way of the internet and lots of science words, but it doesn't seem to be especially common knowledge on the cannabis boards. I thought it might be useful for others struggling with high alkalinity water, since the more common PH down products (phosphoric acid) actually ADD ppms. For the past few weeks I actually thought my TDS pen was super inaccurate because of this, so I have another one in the mail right now-well, mystery solved!
Merry Xmas peeps, I hope Santa stuffed your stocking with citric acid!
