I just picked up some fox farm nutrients from the grow store. I'm just wondering should I check the water pH before I add the nutrient mix to it? Or should I check it afterwards? Seeing as how the nute is like a green color idk if that would affect the color of the pH reading I would get. I want to get an accurate reading so I can properly adjust the water pH. I'm using a cheaper pH tester where you add a drop of tester and read the color off a chart, i know its not the most accurate but i'm a poor college student. Anyways hit me back plz!
just make sure it's around 6-7... if it looks 5ish ph-up that shit if it's hard to read after adding the nutes do the water.... if it's 8ish... it'll be cool cause the nutes will be acidic.... normally takes a 7 down to 5.8-6.3
absolutely... most nutes are acidic... if your water's slightly basic it balances out... if not a small dose of ph up might be required
Awesome that's what I needed to know the water up here is at about a 7.5 or so. Hopefully it will bring it closer to the 6.5 range and I wont have to adjust up very much if at all.
All the nutes I have ever used RAISE the PH level if your growing in hydro you want a ph level of about 5.8-6.0 and the plants will use the nutes much better. A ph of 7.0 is neutral (the middle) cuz PH runs from 1.0 - 14.0 http://forum.grasscity.com/outdoor-grow-journals/543932-g45-seed-grow-2010-a.html these are 45 days at 5.8-6.0 and just into flower a few days I have to hold them back a bit with 1/2 strenth nutes and straight water every other time or they'll run me out of the room. Oh and I always do ph after nutes, but great question.
Yeah i'm not using hydro atm. I'm using roots organic soil. Once I get a few grows under my belt i'm going to think about switching to hydro, just cuz it looks freaking awesome. Thanks for the feedback!
You got some good looking plants too man. This is my first grow and I thought I could get by with using Miracle grow tomato mix and not worry about pH. However I am quickly learning that is a horrible assumption to make lol. I just got the nutes and pH checker today and found the water of the pH coming out of the bottom of the pot was like 5 lol a bit ridiculous. I flushed it pretty good, so now i'm just gonna give it some recovery time and then start this nutrient at like 1/4 strength and try and get these plants looking good for when I start flowering in a week or so.
get some soil that won't burn your plants later... MG soils have these stupid time release nutes that murder plants right before they flower...
I'm not using MC soil. I'm using Roots Organic soil. I was just using the MG tomato fert mix for feeding.
ha ha yeah I had a buddy save me from making that mistake! I had the bag bought and everything. He came over and was like NO NO NO!! lol
absolutely. even if your water is pH 14, your nute solution (with FF Tiger Bloom) will always be acidic. The reason this happens is that your water is not buffered (i.e. very very small amounts of acid/base will affect its pH), but the nutrients are buffered. you will always want to adjust your pH after adding the nutrients to 6.5ish. This is not true because, as mentioned above, pure water is not buffered while the nutrient solutions are. "Pure' water at pH 14 has no buffering capacity, so even though it is very basic it will not affect the pH of the buffered nute solution. I spend my life buffering and pH'ing solutions (I'm about 6 months away from a PhD in Biochemistry)...so I've got some experience with these things.
Thanks for the info! I took one chemistry class and that was enough for me man got my credit. I'm about 2 years give or take a semester from a Bachelors in landscape horticulture with a concentration in business management.
hey it's news to me so +rep for that i distill and pH balance the water and jug it up... so i was assuming
you have a particular system for distilling? I usually just let the water sit out for a day or two in a jug w/o the cap on. That good enough or is there something else (simple) that I could do?
i just run it through a drip filter whenever a jug runs out... i use brita, there's a bunch of brands... i ph check and adjust to 7.0, let it sit a day and cork it