Help please! Relatively new. Have had a few good successes but have been traveling the past year and took break. Anyway did notice on one of my last ventures that the ph from the tap was a little high. Like 8. Have done nothing but soil so I know it should between 6-7. Just started a new one and am about 4 weeks in now and noticed splotchy spots on the leaves. Immediately I knew I should’ve paid attention to the ph. So yesterday i lowered it to 6.5, over watered a bit to test the runoff and the runoff was way low! Like around 5. I’m so confused,I figured if I was using water that the ph was too high I would have high runoff and could just mix some “down ph” and correct. So I have high ph tap water that’s making crazy low ph runoff?! What do I do. Flush? Or give it a few feedings with the correct 6.5 and see if the runoff corrects itself. Help please
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What is your setup.? Soil mix?
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The thing about ph is that the value is a ratio of positive to negative loose particles. And does not take into consideration concentration. And that’s a big part. If you have a soil with tons of nutrients and salts, meaning very concentrated, and the ph is low, you’ll need to put into; not only a high ph water, but a very concentrated one. So just the tap water won’t be enough. You need a concentrated solution with high ph to counter act the very concentrated nutrients in your soil.
You could dilute them all with a flush, tons of water, but they’ll be drained and wasted, better to put a buffer so they all become available.
google alkaline organic amendments or teas or whatever you like to balance the soil contentsComment
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9finger. Thanks for the input! Just a couple more questions. So I need a very high ph or alkaline water to bring the runoff down to the 6-7 ph that a soil grow needs. Can I just use the general hydro up ph liquid and mix it in? Just not sure how I will be able to tell how high I get the mixture bc the drop tester colors can only show dark green in so many shades. I know how many drops it takes to bring the ph down from 8 to 7 so maybe go in the other direction w the same formula?
Yeah. Happy Frog and using the Fox Farm nutrients as well.
Really appreciate the advice!Comment
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In that case the alkaline nutrient you have is big bloom. So you can have a gallon of tap water and with a few drops of ph up or down the ph changes very rapidly. But if you add nutrients first. Then a few drops of ph up or down only change a little bit the ph value.
It’s not that you need higher ph. You need nutrient water with high ph.
I would use big bloom and ph up to water at ph 7 until the runoff come out above 6.
Then in the future always aim for 6.5
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Myself I would add wood ash to the soil to buffer the PH.Comment
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Wood ash works great. However, it makes the soil stiff, almost builds a skin. Just use in moderation. It builds it up and can make watering tricky. I know from personal experience. I personally won't use it. It's counter productive. I had used it last winter and in the long run it's not a good idea. Creates blockage in your medium. My 2 cents.no disrespect, we're all trying to help one another.
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