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Hey everyone,
I'm growing inside in 5 gallon buckets, my medium is mostly Peat, with some humus and mushroom compost. The tap water is 6.3 but after checking today the runoff water is only 5.4. How should i raise the PH of the water and what should i adjust it too? Maybe start the PH'd water at 7.0 or so and then check runoff again? The plants look like they are needing some help.
Thanks,
Sellncars
You can flush your soil with PH corrected water. 5gallon buckets will take a good bit of water. Usually want to use at least double the amount of water to the amount of soil.
the plants are way too small to be in 5 gallon buckets. your root system is gonna grow like crazy and the above ground part of your plant will lag behind. it's good to start in a small pot, perhaps a jiffy pot, and then transplant to a 6" square, or a 1 gallon pot, then maybe to a 3 gallon, or directly to the 5 if your plant is quite large.
as to your pH issue, sphagnum peat (which alot used is) has a very low pH, ~3.0-4.0. the humus can range from ~3.3-5.5 and the mushroom compost is around 6.6. now can you see the reason for your low runoff? trying to adjust your soil by using a higher pH'd water is gonna be pretty worthless. it's not gonna be stable, so you will be chasing it the whole time. also, that's an awful lot of water with those 5 gallon buckets. you can try to remove the plants and transplant them into smaller containers with pH'd soil, or scrap them and start over.
your soil mix needs drainage and to allow for drainage. you should mix in 1/3 perlite to 2/3 of your soil mix. to stabalize the pH you need to add dolomite lime. this is a long term, slow-release buffer that won't allow your pH to go over 7.
-shake