Does pH Up/Down Kill Beneficial Bacteria??

all organisms have a PH they function best at. when it comes to beneficial bacteria find out what bacteria are in your mix then just look it up. i am sure you will find plenty of information because those organisms are usually studied by biologists and that information is curtual to work with them.

bacteria is best around 5-7 ph fungi at 7

Thanks for the replies. But that is not quite what I was asking.

I was more looking to see if using the pH products are going to kill off the bateria and fungi. I know the correct pH to run my nutes and soil at, I was just making sure that adding these products to my nute solution to get the correct pH isn't going to kill the stuff in my soil or nutes.

I talked to the guy at the local hydro shop and they said there isn't a problem using it.

if it isn't all organic and there is a chance that the ph solution my have synthetic salts which will kill the microbes like salt on a snail so you should see whats in your product

it seems the consensus over at the icmag organic forum is that ph up and down do indeed hurt the microlife. read the organics for beginners sticky, or the tea brewing sticky, for more info. burnone is a very knowledgeble guy who has done some research into the matter.

hope that helps

you are find unless make sure u feed them with molasses

thebeerstalkin said:

if it isn't all organic and there is a chance that the ph solution my have synthetic salts which will kill the microbes like salt on a snail so you should see whats in your product

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Are you talkin' about pool ph up & down? Unless you're drastically changing the pH, then many microbes will live.

Other thoughts...

- You don't often need to pay attention to pH at all when running an organic grow. Humates + lime and the microbeasties do the job. It's not like an "inorganic grow" where pH at the wrong place locks out nutes.

- Why buy a chlorine filter? You can air bubble the chlorine out the drinking water in most places, and pet stores sell DeChlor. DeChlor supposedly works on chloramine and other chlorine in the water. My teas smell like fart after 1 day using dechlor'd water so I assume it works.

- Also, some microbes are capable of breaking down salts. I just recycled ~40 gallons of used promix that should have had lotsa inorganic salts in it. I used Espoma Bio-Tone to incoculate the promix. So far, plants look happy.

- If you still want to pay attn to pH, then you can use cider vinegar to bring the pH down, and baking soda for up.

I don't mean to be a nit-picky asshole, I just don't want cha to spend extra cash and time on stuff you might not need.

I disagree about not paying attention to PH in an organic grow. If it wasn't for my PH up PH down kit I would have lost several crops. I often found the micro life threw PH into the 8 and above range on their own.

I am not growing organically. I grew with organics last time and just didn't get the results I get with the mineral nutrients so I went back to them.

I am not using pool pH up and down, it is Gen Hydro pH up and down.

And I do feed the organisms with AN Carbo Load and Hydro Honey from Humboldt Nutrients.

bongrippinbob said:

I am not growing organically. I grew with organics last time and just didn't get the results I get with the mineral nutrients so I went back to them.

I am not using pool pH up and down, it is Gen Hydro pH up and down.

And I do feed the organisms with AN Carbo Load and Hydro Honey from Humboldt Nutrients.

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Well shit, if you're using "inorganic" ferts then yeah pH matters.

If you're using that stuff, I see no reason at all to be worried about killing microbes with ph up or down.

@ Toppers
Every organic grower has their own set of methods. Personally, I've never had to worry about pH using my methods and mixes. I will pH test water once in a while, but pH'ing growing medium is a pain in the ass because there are ~3 different tests for "soil" pH and they all yield different results.

To each his own.

So then it sounds like the verdict is still out on weather or not using PH up down in organic teas is bad or not.... some are saying yes and some no. I've even see two different people say, "the guy at my hydo store says.." with two different answers. Also, another question comes to mind, what if I have access to well water with a low ph (4.7) and I'm using that to cut my tea after brewing, is that doing my microbes and beneficial bacteria's any harm? Thanks.

I did some reading on this, and it seems that you should dilute the pH up or down like 1 part pH solution to 100parts water then put that in your nute solution. This way microbes/bacteria/etc are not affected by being subjected to super low or super high pH's which would kill them off and also make some nutrients unavailable to the plant. I have been doing this lately with much better results than when I would just dump in the pH up or down.

I can agree with the clorine thing as I drilled a well, but I couldn't see much difference between using ph up or down, or an alternative. I would have to say it's OK when used according to the instructions on the bottle.

MrBaker said:

Are you talkin' about pool ph up & down? Unless you're drastically changing the pH, then many microbes will live.

Other thoughts...

- You don't often need to pay attention to pH at all when running an organic grow. Humates + lime and the microbeasties do the job. It's not like an "inorganic grow" where pH at the wrong place locks out nutes.

Click to expand...

Pretty much says it all. Provide a balanced grow medium that services all subsurface plant requirements and concentrate on something else.

- Why buy a chlorine filter? You can air bubble the chlorine out the drinking water in most places, and pet stores sell DeChlor. DeChlor supposedly works on chloramine and other chlorine in the water. My teas smell like fart after 1 day using dechlor'd water so I assume it works.

- Also, some microbes are capable of breaking down salts. I just recycled ~40 gallons of used promix that should have had lotsa inorganic salts in it. I used Espoma Bio-Tone to incoculate the promix. So far, plants look happy.

- If you still want to pay attn to pH, then you can use cider vinegar to bring the pH down, and baking soda for up.

I don't mean to be a nit-picky asshole, I just don't want cha to spend extra cash and time on stuff you might not need.

Click to expand...

Lots of opinions on both sides.

Beneficial bacteria thrive just above neutral pH (7+). If for some reason your pH is up over 8, which can be a sign of vigorous microbe growth, then a little pH down won't hurt, if you keep it over 7. And if your tea is under 6 pH, then a little up would not hurt. But as they have mentioned, if your soil is buffered and alive, pH is not the a huge issue in traditional organics. If you are worried, try a little pH adjusting every other time as a compromise.

There are other ways to lower pH than just pH down, many nutrients and supplements are designed to bring pH slightly acidic.

It seems like I have responded to so many posts asking this exact question.
Before I reiterate that answer, I need to address the whole chlorine and air bubbling thing. Yes, free chlorine will dissipate from an open container of tap water over the course of a day or so, and an air stone will facilitate the evaporation of free chlorine.
However, many municipalities use another form of chlorination as a secondary disinfectant specifically because free chlorine dissipates so readily and as it does the propensity for nasty stuff to grow within the pipes of the water supply network increases.
These secondary disinfectants are known as chloramines and they do not dissipate from the solution very easily. Detailed reports outlining the practices of your local municipalities water supply network are usually available online and/or mailed to your residence annually. Such reports indicated the quality of the water and including things like average TDS, pH, disinfectants used and the presence of various contaminants.

Despite which disinfectants are used, I would still recommend using filtered water for organics grows and there are various reasons to do so. Many of them have to do with the presence of contaminants in tap water and there is a whole list of nasty compounds that I wont list here again but which you could find out about on the EPA's website. Some chemicals even have a tendency to react with free chlorine and chloramines (to a lesser extent) to produce more toxic compounds (chloroform, carbon tetrachloride). Some municipalities add fluoride to drinking water as well.

General Hydroponics pH UP is the primary concern so far as microbes go. It contains potassium hydroxide and potassium carbonate which are common components of detergents and are correlated with reduced biological activity. Using small amounts of Up might not have a significant impact on soil biota, but if your goal is to create the ideal environment for the microbes to thrive then I would highly recommend not using it.
Some will also argue that using pH Up actually leads to a dependency (perceived?) to such products. Soil with higher pH also holds more water and less oxygen, which is not what you want.

Personally, I just mix dolomite limestone in with my liquid fertilizers so the solution isn't too acidic.

Nullis said:

It seems like I have responded to so many posts asking this exact question.
Before I reiterate that answer, I need to address the whole chlorine and air bubbling thing. Yes, free chlorine will dissipate from an open container of tap water over the course of a day or so, and an air stone will facilitate the evaporation of free chlorine.
However, many municipalities use another form of chlorination as a secondary disinfectant specifically because free chlorine dissipates so readily and as it does the propensity for nasty stuff to grow within the pipes of the water supply network increases.

These secondary disinfectants are known as chloramines and they do not dissipate from the solution very easily. Detailed reports outlining the practices of your local municipalities water supply network are usually available online and/or mailed to your residence annually. Such reports indicated the quality of the water and including things like average TDS, pH, disinfectants used and the presence of various contaminants.

Click to expand...

Sound advice. Some chemicals used in many municipal water systems are to preserve the pumping machinery and pipelines. Makes me happy to be on a private well in a sparsely populated area.

Despite which disinfectants are used, I would still recommend using filtered water for organics grows and there are various reasons to do so. Many of them have to do with the presence of contaminants in tap water and there is a whole list of nasty compounds that I wont list here again but which you could find out about on the EPA's website. Some chemicals even have a tendency to react with free chlorine and chloramines (to a lesser extent) to produce more toxic compounds (chloroform, carbon tetrachloride). Some municipalities add fluoride to drinking water as well.

General Hydroponics pH UP is the primary concern so far as microbes go. It contains potassium hydroxide and potassium carbonate which are common components of detergents and are correlated with reduced biological activity. Using small amounts of Up might not have a significant impact on soil biota, but if your goal is to create the ideal environment for the microbes to thrive then I would highly recommend not using it.
Some will also argue that using pH Up actually leads to a dependency (perceived?) to such products. Soil with higher pH also holds more water and less oxygen, which is not what you want.

Personally, I just mix dolomite limestone in with my liquid fertilizers so the solution isn't too acidic.

Click to expand...

Chemical hydro growing aside, most perceived and real pH problems in organic grows are based on grow medium components and/or addition of bottled nutrient/pH adjustment supplements. A properly prepared grow medium will offer acceptable pH with a balanced environment of water and air retention and throughout plant life cycles. Concentration on the correct grow medium to create a living soil eliminates the necessity of adding supplements which will disturb an established balance.

anyone kno of an organic way to lower ph? i been tryin humates , bu i think you can balance the ph of your tea by the amount of fungi vs. bacteria......fungi lower ph, bacteria raise it........im tryin now to work out the exac equation...........other than that i been adding vinegar to lower ph, as it jus feels better than ph down.......lemons will work too (i heard)......does anyone have experience with 'diamond black'?? i might try that....

Diamond black won't lower ph. Molasses will.