Best ways to raise my PH levels

Discussion in 'First Time Marijuana Growers' started by hihl, Dec 11, 2014.

  1. Whats the best way to raise the PH in my soil. my soil is sitting around 5.5 between my Fox Farm happy frog and distilled water without any Nutes.

     
  2. Slowly through waterings
     
  3. Ditch the Foxfarm! You'll thank me later. I would go ROOTS Organic. Dont stress on it. It will go up. just make sure the plant looks helthy an proper nutes are added! 
     
  4. im sticking with fox farm.....but thanks lol
     
  5. Fox farms is fine a ton of people successfully use it. I've used it before with great results.
     
  6. #6 Indie-Kah, Dec 11, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 11, 2014
    distilled water is part of your problem.
     
    distilled water is purified to an extreme, and leaves nothing for nutes to bind to so the roots can take them in.

    Use spring water, or tap water that's been clarified or left to sit out for a minimum of 24 hours to settle the chlorine.
     
    Use persistent bases to take pH up...I'm usually against liming soil, but if your soil remains too low (acidic) after watering with the right water, then slowly add lime (a relatively strong base) in water suspension, bringing your soil up no more than half a point in a week (5.5 to 6), if you can do so. Once the soil is stabilized, flush, to distribute better and fix any incipient nutrient lockout issues.

    You can also use baking soda or potash in water safely....but again, move slowly, and test constantly while doing so.




    Oh, and for the Fox Farm detractor....while I don't like their soil much, their Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, and Big Bloom nutrient lines break down chemically to EXACTLY the balances they claim...so using as directed will do the job PERFECTLY. 4 full indoor crops, one "can I do it" plant, NONE grown in "ideal" conditions...not a single lost plant, no plants ever got sickly enough to comment on (we all deal with problems here and there...but if you only have SMALL problems, easily addressed, that's nothing to comment on), and no plant I didn't spend more time fighting to keep it under 30 inches in vegging over 3-4 months than I spent caring for them in all other ways combined.
     
    The same can't be said for ROOTS products...grab their vegging formula, and break it down in your garage, chemically. You'll find you get nowhere NEAR what they claim you should in the way of potassium nitrate, or phosphorous. If YOU can't separate them, neither can the plants.
     
  7. Then ill have to use Spring water, i tested the PH of the water where i live......my PH meter couldnt even read it, its above 8.5. So my Tap water is out of the question. And i plan on getting tiger bloom and other things. So i can use tiny amounts of baking soda mixed with my watering to slowly bring PH up?
     
  8. Ask around about persistent products. Baking soda can work, but it is a bicarbonate (a salt), and CAN create root damage if too much is needed.

    But you could also buy pH down from the pet store, and a 50 gallon Rubbermaid tub, keep the tub full, treat the water as if it's an aquarium, fill your gallon jugs off that. You'll know it sat longer than 24 hours, that being treated in large amounts SLOWLY it has stable pH in the right area.

    There's a million solutions...find one that will work with the least effort most effect for your circumstances. I've heard of guys using caps full of natural apple cider vinegar to drive it up and raw wood ash (which strikes me as foolish as hell in the long term) to drive it down....each swearing by how effective it is.

    There's a stickied thread in Absolute Beginners on pH...read it, it'll help.
     
  9. If your soil pH is 5.5 then that means that some of the organic material is still breaking down in the soil. As mentioned already in this thread, the more you water, the more the microbial activity will speed up. As that continues to happen, the soil pH will begin to stabalize unlocking all nutrients including micro/trace elements for plant absorption.
     
  10. Good info. Thanks (eventually will help on a test, too, I'm sure...lol)
     
  11. So i found this sweet ass thread on one of the top searches in google, i was dumbfounded now i PH my water with Lemon juice......haha sounds silly i know but it drives down the PH of the water and i can do it 1 drop at a time. And you are also correct with the tub of water i want to get a pack of air stones and a fish tank pump and get a big tub of water and PH it and pump air into it before i start watering them. I read this somewhere else too that distilled water has no air in it. Im using Spring water/Distilled water now and ill let everyone know over time how my Tub of water with the stone works. Since i cant use my tap water :cry: people keep telling me to get an RO system but i live in a rented condo lol i cant have something like that here. not to mention the crazy high PH of this city water....sheesh
     
    http://forum.grasscity.com/absolute-beginners/218218-updated-beginners-guide-ph-marijuana.html
     
  12. #12 Indie-Kah, Dec 13, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 13, 2014
    They have portable RO systems. Even ones designed to run off 12V DC (car battery). Check around RV supply stores and the like....water purification systems for RVers and boaters.

    Only if you want to look into that route, though...I suspect they'd be too expensive to be worth it...replacing the one on my sailboat years back was a couple grand, THEN (of course it also handled 250 liters a day, so a smaller one may be much cheaper).

    Found one...MUCH cheaper:

    http://www.amazon.com/APEC-Water-Countertop-Portable-Installation-Free/dp/B00IB14XDU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418474069&sr=8-1&keywords=portable+reverse+osmosis

    $239
     
  13. hey hey, I PHoenix Down with lemon juice too. heres the thing with that though, its a right away solution, as in you have to use the water you PH- immediately. otherwise the water will get nasty. IME i have yet to need to PH+ as my  water is basey as hell. 
     
  14. Dolomite like, ph up or watering with 7.0 water for a while and it will naturally go up.
     
  15. there's portable ro systems that screw onto your faucet or the end of a hose for far less then a $100 you can pick up at home improvement stores, wal mart, places like that. Ive seen them 2x -3x that at grow shops. My oarents have an ro they dropped a couple grand on, ridiculous what we have to do for water. I'm fortunate enough to have a culligans ro water machine just down the block for $0.09 a gallon, all the others are like $0.60 for culligans so I don't quite understand why its so cheap. For a couple dollars I get water for my plants and house for the week. One of these days I'll get around to hooking up an ro and run a line into my room, but I hardly can do it for 9 cents. Our city water costs that and would have the price of filters to add, I'll do it eventually. Its just my excuse for now. Our city water isn't even safe to drink do to an old waste site outside of town, we get letters every year saying its not potable
     
  16. #17 Indie-Kah, Dec 14, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 14, 2014
    Good tip on the hardware, Tin. brix, you talking about those Brita faucet filter type things? If so, they're just carbon filters, not RO units. But it sounds like your sourcing is actually from an RO unit, so all is good <grin>
     
  17. #18 brixfix, Dec 15, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
    no Brita isnt RO. There actual reverse osmosis systems. There's cheap ones on eBay for 50 bucks give or take.
     

Share This Page