Hello gang. I have a 2 part question.

I'm a bit confused on adjusting my PH levels. I use tap water thats been left to sit over 24 hours and the PH of it usually is around 6.5 - 7. Lately after feeding my plants, the run off has been coming in around 5. I have tried to add PH up to my water but it never really seems to help. What am I doing wrong? I don't have a soil PH tester, so I really don't know what the soil is dialed in at. I have been using Black Gold potting soil from day 1. Should I be adding something to the soil to get the PH up? Like that lime stuff. Or should adding PH up to my water be fine? This confuses me completely, which isn't hard to do. I'm going to be moving the plants one last time to bigger pots before I start them flowering, so I could add some lime to the soil if this would help.

Also, my plants have been vegging for a while now. I can't really say how long it has been, but it is near 1.5 months. About a week or so ago I noticed my plants starting to show signs of sex .. or so I thought. Today when I was doing my watering, I could clearly tell that 2 of my plants are female from their 2 little white hairs popping up in a few spots. The thing is, the plants have been on a 18/6 lighting schedule from the start. These are bag seeds I cracked on a whim. I was surprised that they even cracked since the seeds were easily over 8 years old. My question is, is this normal for a plant to show signs of sex if its been vegging for a while? Maybe they are telling me its time to flower? Like I said these are bag seeds, so I don't know what strain they are. Could be auto flowering, I'm not sure.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

they are just pre flowers, theyre normal

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I have added a pic to show the hairs on one plant for reference. Not 100% clear but I think you can see the hairs.

If your irrigation water has a ph of between 6.5 and 7, don't waste your time applying acids to try and lower or raise it - you'll cause more problems that you solve. A ph of 6.5-7 is fine.

It's fairly common for plants that have been vegged for a long time to show differentiated pre-flowers, nothing wrong with it at all, consider yourself fortunate.

Adding a cupful of dolomite lime to your potting mix and mixing in thoroughly will help with ph buffering and additional sources of Mg and Calcium.

So the run off coming in at a PH of 5 isn't alarming?

Thanks for the advice. I think I will add that dolomite lime when I re-pot.