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HELP! Lime juice and nutrients

A

Atriax

New member
Hello.
I'm relatively new to growing and I have a couple seedlings that are a few weeks old and everything's going well so far . My tap water is about 9 ph. I figured I'd use Lime juice since I already have that on hand, lower the water ph to about 7 then add dynagrow foliage pro.I'm wondering if there is any adverse reaction to treating my water to lowering the PH of the tap water I use and using nutrients at the same time
 
Hey Atriax and welcome

I use lemon juice to pH down, no issues.

It will of course depend what nutes you use. Best way is to test a mix. Add nutes to water then slowly pH it down...dilute the citric acid at least 50/50 with water first then add a few drops and measure..once you achieve your desired pH seal the container and store it for a week then retest. You are testing for stability so hopefully you get a very similar reading. If you do you are good to go.
 
Ok so the nutes I'm using are dyna grow foliage pro and then later dynagrow bloom. I forgot to mention that I'm growing in soil, specifically coco coir by foxfarms. I have 2, 5-gallon pots currently going. All Indica if that matters. The whole setup is pretty much this websites beginner's guide.

Also when you say testing for stability wdym by that? What am I looking for?
 
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Soils ain't soils
I have as much idea if you can use that combination without testing the setup first.
I have had incompatibility problems with nute/suppliment/citric acid combinations cause me issues with rising pH over time in my nute tank...I had it automated so I coukd be away for a week.
Even if I was watering by hand it would eventually cause the same problem in the medium and nute lockout at the roots.
I need to find a compatible cal suppliment...mag is easy.
 
coco is not soil, the problem I had with lemon juice was the PH would climb back to what it was before in 24 hours, so I use sulfuric acid now.
 
As Rwise has pointed out. There are lots of factors at play here so trial and error approach. It might work fine for you, it might not.
 
Save yourself the hassle and headache. If you can afford it, get bottled pH up and down. You're already using bottled nutrients. They're usually designed to work well with the pH up and down. Lemon/lime juice will work. .... For a few hours. After that the pH will creep back up slowly to the pH you started with.
I tried using lemon juice and baking soda to pH my water and i had SO MANY problems. The lemon/like juice works. It's just not stable. Ever since I went back to just using a drop of pH down for 2L of water, the pH has been a lot more stable. I've noticed the yields increase, the size of the leaves, and overall health.
PH is important. Especially when growing in coco much more so than moss based soil. Coco also has nice pH swings when the medium gets too dry. So watering might be something to check as well.
Hope that helps! Happy growing!
 
Lemon juice (citric acid) works perfectly fine with the base nutes I am using. It will hold its pH in the nute tank with little change over a week....say 0.03pH variance max change.
When I added a micro cal/mag suppliment everything changed and in a 6 day period it went from 6.2 to 7.1. I use pure rainwater which I can't measure but with a tiny amount of nute it normally comes in around 5.8 but varies low 5's to mid/high 6's typically.
So many things are at play it's best to test it and see what happens.
 
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