So I'm going to be attempting my first indoor grow. Trying to germinate some seeds with spring water now. I purchased a cheap electronic PH tester from Amazon and have come to the conclusion it is junk and returned it. Definitely don't want to spend money on a good one as I'm an occasional grower and they seem to high maintenance fro me anyways. I ended up getting a general Hydroponics PH control kit that has PH up and down, along with the drops to check for PH. I did some testing of my water with it and it's definitely not the most accurate way to test. So at my home I have regular well water, softened well water and RO water we use to drink. I heard the softened water is definitely a no go so I haven't even tested it. My RO water tested out about 6.5. The unsoftened water was at 7 to 8 but after adding 20 drops of ph down to 2 quarts of water, it brought the ph down to about 6.5. TDS I tested on the RO water was 24 and the unsoftened water was at 350. I also tested spring water and it was around 250. I really want to use the regular unsoftened water for my plants as the RO is slow and hard to get in the area I'm growing. I realize I need to PH the water after I use nutrients but I won't be using nutes for most of my veg cycle as I'm growing in a combination of FFOF, FFHF, Manure, and perlite blend which will give the plants plenty of nutrients to start. We'll have a lot of snow here for the winter so I'm sure I can bring that in and melt it down in buckets for water. Rain water is going to be harder to collect as the gutters dump into pipework into the ground and prefer to not mess with it in the winter months. Is it going to be OK to use my well water for watering by adjusting PH or do I have way too much TDS in the water? Maybe use a blend of snow melt and well water?
You’re going to have to PH your water even when you’re not using nutrients. Plain water has to be PH’d too. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
no brainer man, use well water, it's the best. Some nutes like Maxibloom will lower your water to the point you may not need to check or add ph down each time once you get the measurements right. Bluelab makes a good ph pen for $90. Calibration is simple once a month or few. Pen readings are not instantaneous, may take 15 minutes to get an accurate reading. Always clean and store in storage solution after use. I do not ph my tap when using maxi on soil, if you want to go the no pen route.