Hey guys I got a ph kit today, I measured the water it come up too 8.0 then I watered my plant and got the water out of the bottom and ph checked it and it came back between 6.5 and 7.0 from what I can see by colour? Now my question is is my water fine going in at 8.0 and coming out in the correct range or do I still need to ph it down to 6.5 before it goes in because I was reading on a page and it reckons if it goes in higher but comes out at the right range I don't need to adjust it any further is thus correct and could you please tell me by the photos that my ph us in the correct range ? Thank you
The first thing I would do is toss that kit into the trash. It's almost impossible to hone in on the exact range (6.3 to 6.7) for soil with one of those. If you really want to know what the pH is, you'll have to spend a few dollars on a tester that will actually work right and give you true readings. I started out trying to use that kit you have...and failed miserably. I then bought a cheap pH tester pen only to discover that it hadn't worked correctly since I took it out of the box. Only after I spend around $65 and bought a pH tester pen of some quality did my plants start to turn around. Always check and adjust the pH of liquids GOING INTO YOUR PLANTS. Not to say that the runoff pH isn't important, but generally if you get it right on the water/feeds going into your plant, the runoff will stay within a normal range. That's not the correct way to measure runoff pH anyway so your number probably isn't correct on that.
your soil is putting your ph levels at that niumber, if your using quality soil then your ph is usually fine and I wouldn't adjust it now, but you may have to adjust it later in the grow, how is your plants doing? if there is no problem then don't fix it.
Water with a ph of 8 will catch up to you eventually. More than likely mid to late flower it will end up too high and youll be fighting to get it back down. Id reccomend a bottle of ph down and ph your water to 7 even 7.2 or 7.3 is fine. Widow is right, you need to throw the ph kit in the trash and get a pen. I know yoyr runoff isnt coming out clear, if it is you're using too much water. Anyway the off color of the runoff will throw the test off.
make sure the ph is about 6.0-7.0 in coco or 5.7-6.7 in hydro ) your roots won't absorb the stuff it needs correctly if too high I use lemon juice to bring the ph down if I need to for coco but I wouldn't use lemon juice for anything else but with coc
Thanks mate that's the only ph test I have at the moment but ofcourse it's shit haha, by any chance is it somewhat use able I'm only asking because I have ph up and down so if anyone knows roughly how far off it was compared to a pen I may be able to somehow adjust the water roughly in the mean time while I look at getting a pen thanks