You can't accurately ph tinted water when using one of those color-coded test kits. The tinting skews the results.

You might want to adjust your ingoing water to the high end of the ph range, (7.0 or so) and then add the nutrients. The nutrients will bring your ph down further, but ph should still be in the acceptable range. If you start to see the leaves curl ('the claw) or some yellowing...raise the water ph a tad more before adding the nutrients. The plants will let you know if that's ok. :thumbsup:

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Rusty Trichome Reviewed by Rusty Trichome on . PH testing water with nutrients. Heya! Quick question. When I add my Bio-grow nutrients to my tap water, it becomes brown. To test PH, I then use a GHE liquid test indicator. I take a vial, add some water, and some PH-test-solution, and the color changes according to what PH the water is. My question is, does the fact that the water is brown change the color of the PH-test water after I've added the solution? My tap water is around 8.0 PH. I added 2-3 ML of nutrient to 1 L of tap water, and checked the PH. It was at Rating: 5