ph question......

How important is it to have a PH tester. I have 10 plants in soil they are about 3 weeks old, about 12"s tall and seem in good health. I have not checked the PH since germinating them so was wondering if i will need one for the rest of the time as so far so good without one?? thanx

Ph is probly the biggest thing in growing to planting them they can look healthy but on day out of the blue BAM and your like WTF and it looks like diff of all nutes and thats exactly was happening ph lock and you will starve your babies

I used to use Miracle Grow potting soil and the PH out of the bag was at like 8.5-9 which is too high, I recently started going to my local hydro shop and bought some bags of Happy Frog and the PH out of the bag was a perfect 6.5! This HF soil actually has a PH buffer so its hard to change the PH. I know your not talking about soils but usingthe HF my plants were much thicker and grew much faster! One of these PH meteres can be found at walmart for less than 10 bucks .

DrZ said:

Ph is probly the biggest thing in growing to planting them they can look healthy but on day out of the blue BAM and your like WTF and it looks like diff of all nutes and thats exactly was happening ph lock and you will starve your babies

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Exactly. PH can cause so many other problems that will start showing themselves soon usually you will see the post are all regarding 2-3 week olds and it's usually all problems from nuting too early, and ph.
It's a very important small investment.

cowell said:

Exactly. PH can cause so many other problems that will start showing themselves soon usually you will see the post are all regarding 2-3 week olds and it's usually all problems from nuting too early, and ph.
It's a very important small investment.

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Excactly

I started with Farfards soil (says PH balanced on the bag) and it turned out to be very acid. Fertilizers just add more acid.

Most soils could benefit from a little lime to raise the PH from the start, but nothing beats a PH meter.

dont buy a cheap ph tester. espeacially if you have ten plants. the cheap ones can be way off. spend the 75-100 dollars it will pay for itself and save you many headaches. trust me my first grow i didnt jnow anything about ph. it was a disaster. good luck

a cheap meter is OK but test it first. my first showed a ph of 6.5 for orange juice,ammonia and vinegar. returned it and the next one worked fine
here is a link to test it.
common PH values

Thanks for all the replies, i took the advice and bought this one, does anyone else use this?

http://www.growell.co.uk/p/0739/Hobby-pH-Meter.html

Glad i got it when i did as the readings were coming in at 9.4, on my last feed i got it down to about 6.8 using some PH down

Thanks again