By Earl
It is not necessary to adjust the pH
if you have your solution properly buffered.
I can go for weeks without any adjustment,
after I have buffered my solution.
I just add plain RO,
with no pH adjustment,
and my pH is perfect at 5.6
That's only because the nutrient mix is naturally pH balanced at 5.4 to 5.6 on nearly all chemical hydroponic nutrients and because RO water has no buffers so it becomes what ever pH the nutrient formulation makes it. It you did not obtain that pH you have problems with excessive CO2 in the RO water. You will never have a high pH with RO mixed nutrients if they were properly formulated.
There are four agents that you should use
in the correct combination
to get your solution to the proper state of buffer.
•Phosphoric acid Not
•Potassium Silicate Not
•Potassium Carbonate Yes
•Potassium Hydroxide. Not
This can only be done with RO or Distilled water,
and a digital pH meter so you can maintain 5.6.
Any water can be buffered.
Use the P-silicate first,
Wrong. This will raise the pH but not add any buffering. Meaning if you use it to raise the pH then you can not also use the P-carbonate and P-hydroxide as then your pH will be excessive. If he is just indicating adding a little Pottasium silicate, why. The use of pottasium silicate is recommended for other reasons. Some people wrogly use it as a long term pH up. That is a waste of monet y and means less use of pH up which at least contains some buffer.
and then the P-carbonate & P-hydroxide in combination.
Earl the P-carbom nate in pH up should be the primary used ingrediant in you scheme as it is the only buffer you even mention.
Right Earl. P-carbonate and p-hydroxide are the active ingediants in pH Up. Hopefully people know that, if not they now do, no thanks to you. But they should be used as the pH up and buffer as potaasium silicate does not contain a buffer. It contains about enough P-carbonate to buffer only as long as it took to reach the lower pH your now adjusting for. They only added enough buffer equivalent in neutrlizing power (buffering ability) equal to the amount of acid which caused the need for the pH up. So if your sytems pH khad previously dropped the amount your now adjusting in 12 hours the pH up will last twelve hours. If the pH drop happens over 24 hours the PH up P- carbonates will last about 24 hours. Tye pH up manfacturers are intentionally only supply a temporary fix. Anything more than that would reduce sells of pH Up. They definitely want you to buy more rather than less. They are not your friends they are money makes. They want your money, not appreciation.
It takes about four days of checking the pH,
at least twice a day,
to get the solution properly buffered,
depending on whether the mfg of the nutes
you are using has already buffered the nutes.
What are you now even trying to say Earl. Are you simply confusing simple adjusting of pH with buffering against acids by adding carbonates above your present daily usage. You make little sense Earl and provo ide no information other than galzing over pH adjustments daily for a few days.
If you have unbuffered nutes,
then you may not need the Phosphoric acid.
If someone has unbuffered nutes they will have no problem obtaining a low pH. Duh!
Once you learn to buffer your solution
you will have less pH fluctuations.
But you taught no one how to buffer their nutes Earl, unless you consider using pH up buffering nutes. It is a vey, very temporary buffering. If you have long term acid accumaltaion then you need long term buffering. pH up does not provide that long term buffering.
What a numb nuts. Guys I hate to burst the bubbles of those who think what Earl wrote is going to change much because as usual he doesn't really know much about what he is writing about. I have read many of Erals posts where he whined about his continual pH problems. By the looks of this entry he is taill han ving problems ass nothing he has written adequately adresses the problem of a lack of adequate buffers.
To begin with adding an acid or a hydroxide typically only lowers or raises your pH it does not buffer. Acids are what you buffer against, not what you bi uffer with. You can not readily buffer against hydroxide influence on Ph. Unless the hydroxide forms up with something to make a strongly bound carbonate it does not contribute to acid buffering. Carbonate and Bicarbonates can buffer but they are pretty poor buffers as they are essentially just calcium carbonates waiting to become attached to a phosphate, sulfate, magnesium etc. in order to become a permanent hardness buffer. In the mean time all they really buffer aginst is a carbonic acid formed by excessive CO2 in the water. That is not a common problem in aerated fresh water nutrients.
Silica phosphate does not buffer. The silica is pretty much inert as far as affecting the pH or buffering, however the potasium it was bound to is a hydroxide so its addition will temporaily raise the pH unless it binds with a carbonate then it will not appreciably effect the pH but will instead form a buffer (pottasium carbonate). However the calcium must be there for it to bind with. Phosphoric acid will not buffer at all either but it is an acid and it will lower the pH so it is a reason for needing a buffer.
The only buffer (carbonate buffer) Earl even mentioned is the pottasium carbonate. It is not a very good buffer, but fair as it does do a small amount of buffering. Magnesium carbonate is a good buffer. Sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate (half as effective as sodium carbonate) are also just fair buffers as they might bind with magnesiun m or such and become a good buffer.
The fresh water buffers are the carbonates which cause permanent water hardness not temporary water hardness (calcium carbonates such a sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate) are called temporary hardness. However the temporay hardness calcium can form up with magneisun, sulfate and phosphates etc. to form good buffers. For example soluble calcium from calcium nitrate or calcium chloride can bid easily with magneisum from magnesium sulfate or with pottasium to form buffers.
Calcium carbonates by themselves are not a good buffers as they are weakly bound carbonates, just as sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonates is not good buffers as they also must bind with a sulfate, magneisun or pottasium to become a good buffer.
In all reality if you want good buffering you must insure the minerals needed to form those buffers are in your nutrients. This essentially means you need calcium and magnesium at levels high enough to provide your plants needs for calcium and magnesium plus also supply enough calcium and magnesium to form the magnesium carbonates needed to form buffers. When this is low pH is most often a problem is in early growth when the plants are taking up ammonical nitrogen and therefore the roots are putting out H+ ions to balance the pH within their system, or during budding when the plants needs are high for magnesium and pottasium and when the plants are also doing the H+ releases.
While pH up does raise the pH and does supply a very small amount of a fair buffer it in does not supply enough buffer as it should. They know more is need but they just throw in a token small amount so that they can say they supplied buffer. Obviously they have no intent to supply adequate amounts. After all it pH up supplied adequate buffers for long term buffering no one would ever have to buy more as they would have to only use just a little very seldom.
Essentially if you have a problem with your pH continously dropping you should add more magnesium sulfate and calcium. Yu should also look at your fertilizer ananysis and see how much ammonical nitrogen is in the formula. If it is more than about 10% of the amount of total nitrogen you need to buy a different formula as it will lawys have low pH problems in early veg and in bloom.
There is a product called something like Cal-Mag on the market that is an excellant way of handling the issue.
SH Hydroponics, Inc. > Botanicare CAL-MAG Plus™
If you esearched you would find that there are two types of Calcium Nitrate fertilizers on the market. When one is made Lime is used to precpitate the fertilizer. This forma Calcium Nitrate fetilizer. When the other type is being made dolomitic lime (mah gnesium carbonate) is used and this acused a precpitated fertilizer of Calcium Nitrate with magnesium carbonate and some iron attached.
When you see a calcium nitrate fertilizer that also lists some thing like 30% magnesium in its analysis it is what is being sold as Cal-Mag. It add a great amount of buffering power but it also adds Nitrate. A formulation made by most commercial hydroponics growers for the fruiting (budding state) uses Calcium Nitrate with magneisum in its formulation rather than Plain Calcium Nitrate. AN and GH does not do thais as many customers use tap water and the combination of hard tap water and a formula with a lot of magneisum carbonates would really suck as most of your EC would be in carbonates not the other nutrients.
You very seldom can get what you need or want by buying commercilal nutrients as they sell to the masses and therefore sell a poor product in reality as they are trying to put out one products to work for a hugh vareity of needs. With self mixed you prepare just what you need not what the average of the masses might be able to get by with.
As far as saying adding a little pottasium carbonate is going to solve your problem for more than a day or that anything else Earl suggests is going to solve your problems. NOT. RO water has no buffers. Period. Adjusting your pH and adding some Pottasium carbonate as in adding pH up is not going to solve a long term problem of a lack of aedquate permanent hard water carbonates. Alkaline water is water full of buffers. Nutrient manafacturers don't sell any highly alkaline major nutrient formulations, as they sell a minimum amount of carbonates in the formulations they sell as they are not considered nutrients, and because it would reduce the sell of their other products that are sold to address pH issues. Remember they are not your friends they are your dealers out to get as much of your money as they can. They really don't need or even care about your appreciation praise or word of mouth advertising as you are a captive consumer group. There are very few Pot nutrient manafacturers in comparison to regular nutrient manafacturers. They know you have no waher else to go to get what you want. The only highly alkaline nutrient commonly sold that I am aware of is Cal-Mag (Calcium Nitrate made with Dolomitic Lime) sold as a
supplement.
