not a plant problem per se.......

[headshake]

so i recently moved from the hood to the country. seriously. my water here is well over 7.5 pH. (waiting on a replacement probe before i can get an accurate reading.) i was also told that the water is soft.

back when i lived in the city, i could let my water sit out for a few days before using it and the pH would drop significantly and i would only have to use a small amount of pH down.

here in the country i've tried that to no avail. the pH doesn't seem to drop at all. i have to use a capful of pH down to drop a gallon of water to within acceptable ranges for soil.

any thoughts/ideas/input/suggestions?

thanks in advance!


-shake

i haven't done much research as of yet, but i was wondering

headshake Reviewed by headshake on 10-17-2009. not a plant problem per se....... so i recently moved from the hood to the country. seriously. my water here is well over 7.5 pH. (waiting on a replacement probe before i can get an accurate reading.) i was also told that the water is soft. back when i lived in the city, i could let my water sit out for a few days before using it and the pH would drop significantly and i would only have to use a small amount of pH down. here in the country i've tried that to no avail. the pH doesn't seem to drop at all. i have to Rating: 5

[Dutch Pimp]

well...to make a short story, long....:jointsmile:

my well water was 7.3 ...and my cheap soil meter always said 7.0 ph....over and over..7.0 ...so I added some sweet pickle juice to my water. The soil ph meter recorded 6.7 ph...:thumbsup:

I've heard some peeps...say they use lemon juice

I don't know what you can do with this information?...but, there it is....:smokin:

[DreadedHermie]

Hey, Shake.

Hope you are well.

My water's 7.6 on a good day, 740ppm, and full of bad bacteria.

Still, I've grown nice plants with it "just to see." I did have to flush a lot though. Watered to bigtime runoff every time, and "mini-flushed" the plants about every other watering, like: "feed / water / feed / flush" sequence.

Lotta nutes will lower that water pH significantly.

And take your time adding your acid and letting the reading stabilize... good time to really aerate the solution with shaking/mixing, too. :dance: Give the molecules a chance to get well acquainted.

Start checking your runoff, too. You may see a shift start taking place there. (Are you in soil with this?) That's what I'm shooting for when I adjust the water pH: correct environmental conditions for the roots. Hitting 5.8 or 6.3 on the nose with your ingoing water is pointless if the medium pH is way outta whack.

See how the plants do. It's strain-variable, I'm sure. But I've done fine using less acid / higher pH than I read about. Just my .02....Hermie :thumbsup:

EDIT: Whoops, typed too slow....DP has also beat this demon!

[headshake]

Hey, Shake.

Hope you are well.

My water's 7.6 on a good day, 740ppm, and full of bad bacteria.

Still, I've grown nice plants with it "just to see." I did have to flush a lot though. Watered to bigtime runoff every time, and "mini-flushed" the plants about every other watering, like: "feed / water / feed / flush" sequence.

Lotta nutes will lower that water pH significantly.

And take your time adding your acid and letting the reading stabilize... good time to really aerate the solution with shaking/mixing, too. :dance: Give the molecules a chance to get well acquainted.

Start checking your runoff, too. You may see a shift start taking place there. (Are you in soil with this?) That's what I'm shooting for when I adjust the water pH: correct environmental conditions for the roots. Hitting 5.8 or 6.3 on the nose with your ingoing water is pointless if the medium pH is way outta whack.

See how the plants do. It's strain-variable, I'm sure. But I've done fine using less acid / higher pH than I read about. Just my .02....Hermie :thumbsup:

EDIT: Whoops, typed too slow....DP has also beat this demon!

yup. i'm in soil at the moment DH. i will be going to hempy buckets as soon as the meter gets up (waiting on a new probe; have never used it yet that's why i've never checked runoff, been using an aquarium kit) and i grab a bale each of perlite and vermiculite. i also have a TDS meter but have yet to use it. i think i might bust it out today to get acquainted.

i understand what you are saying about the medium pH and whatnot DH. maybe i'll take some clones and run some with adjusted watered and some without just for fun.

i'm back off to my task list. i'll be checking in.

thanks both of y'all.


-shake