pH help pleases.

[Gundari]

Ok so i recently discovered my soil was extremly acidic, probably due to the fact that the water in my place is rather acidic. To combat this ive been spiking the water with hardwood ash as i have a bountiful and free supply of it (it was recommended to me by a friend to help drop the pH of my soil.) So every 3 or 4 days whenever i go in to give my girl a drink ive just been mixing up a decent amount of ash into the water then watering it. Whats bugging me is that the drainage water is still testing to be very acidic, it may have shown some slight improvement but nothing near the levels i was hoping for. However the plant seems to be making a recovery so im confused as well as weary of continuing to attempt to make the soil more basic in the fear of ending up with soil thats entire too alkaline. Does anyone have any input? Im new to all of this still (this is my first attempt at a grow) and id really like some veteran input so i dont end up countering one noob mistake with another. Thanks for any help in advance.

the first picture is of the plant shortly before i started the ash treatment and the second is of it a day or so ago when i watered it last.

edit: ive trimmed off all the really bad looking stuff from the second picture, didnt want the plant wasting any energy on it.

[stinkyattic]

dropping the pH means making it MORE acidic.
I think you are confused about what constitutes acid/alkaline... pH scale is 1-14, 14 being basic or alkaline, and 1 (or, rarely, lower) being acid.
An example of an alkaline soil amendment would be lime, but usually growers add it to the SOIL and use commerical pH Up (Potassium hydroxide) to fix problems that they find arising later.
Repot. Use good soil. Flush with water that has been adjusted to compensate for your runoff pH. If your runoff is 5, and you want 6.5, flush with water at pH 8 for example. I hope this helps.
BTW it looks like you have no soil lighteners in there... what are you using for soil?

[Gundari]

Hmm im not really confused as to how the whole acid vs bases thing works, i probably just worded something backwards. My fingers frequently own my brain. The wood ash when mixed with the water creates a very basic solution. I was hoping that just adding water that had been treated to be more alkaline would help me adjust the over all problem, but from what you've said i gather that my best option would be to re-pot into a new batch of soil and make sure that the over all pH of the soil stays within an acceptable range by using water that is mostly neutral. However i would be able to just adjust the over all pH of the soil by adding some commercial pH up?

as for what im using for soil its just Bayer potting soil with some lava rock mixed in to promote drainage and improve aeration. As for soil lighteners...i have no clue what those are so i doubt im using any. Thanks for the input thus far ^^.

[rhizome]

Actually, ash is a relatively weak base- while the solution may test to a high pH, it'll only take a wee bit of acid to knock it back down. As your plants showing you, this'll work- but it's a long, drawn out fix.
Benefits of commercial pH up-

Higher mol weight- it will nuetralize a much greater amount of acid per application, and retain buffering ability much longer in the soil.

Replicability- wood ash is inconsistant- esp in it's chemical properties. Trust me- I've used ash as a buffer on gigantic scale. It's only advantages are price and availability ( as you can often dispose of ash waste from other operations, killing two birds.)

If yer married to ash, don't use the particulate from the coal bed of the fireplace, or the base of the fire- the fly ash is much more consistant, more soluble, and more potent.


By soil lighteners, she's ( I think) talking about perlite and the like.

[Gundari]

thanks for the info rhizome ^^

ill probably just go get some commercial pH up then and use it as a quicker fix to the problem but continue to use a little bit of ash (much less then im using now) in order to counter act the natural acidity of my tap water.

edit: by fly ash, im not exactly sure what you mean and as to how id collect it vs the stuff in the coal bed. Thanks again!

[VTDank]

isnt the fly ash collected outside in a little door on the chimney? I think it is

[Gundari]

ah well if thats the case, I'm golden. Thats what ive been using ^^