Ideal PH Target range

R

rmax

Well-Known Member
I hand water, growing in Promix HP using tap water.

Tap water PH is ranging between 7.1 & 8.8, even after sitting in jugs for a few days. PH seems to fluctuate.

Using PH down seems to be unpredictable. Sometimes I'll add a 1ml squirt to the gallon and PH will fall 1 point. As a result I'll add another, say .5 mil squirt PH down and then PH drops into the low #'s. So then I have to mix in un-PH'ed water to raise PH into the range. This means it takes a few attempts to get a PH range, 5.8 to 6.2 right across multiple jugs and I'm sick of measuring PH. I'm using aquarium PH down had from $WMT.

What's a good PH target range?

There must be a better way than all these jugs. Thoughts on a 50 gallon food grade drum w/spigot? I expect municipal water agents and buffers would re-PH my PH'ed water in the drum so perhaps this is a bad way. A controller is expensive. Sigh. What's the way?
 
Billy the Mountain

Billy the Mountain

Well-Known Member
rmax said:
I hand water, growing in Promix HP using tap water.

Tap water PH is ranging between 7.1 & 8.8, even after sitting in jugs for a few days. PH seems to fluctuate.

Using PH down seems to be unpredictable. Sometimes I'll add a 1ml squirt to the gallon and PH will fall 1 point. As a result I'll add another, say .5 mil squirt PH down and then PH drops into the low #'s. So then I have to mix in un-PH'ed water to raise PH into the range. This means it takes a few attempts to get a PH range, 5.8 to 6.2 right across multiple jugs and I'm sick of measuring PH. I'm using aquarium PH down had from $WMT.

What's a good PH target range?

There must be a better way than all these jugs. Thoughts on a 50 gallon food grade drum w/spigot? I expect municipal water agents and buffers would re-PH my PH'ed water in the drum so perhaps this is a bad way. A controller is expensive. Sigh. What's the way?
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If your water varies that much, it follows that the amount of pH down required will vary as well; there's no way around that.

5.8 - 6.2 is fine for hydro
 
Jjgrow420

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
I duno man. 8.8 doesn't seem right for municipal tap water. Way to alkaline. When I mix I know if I add xx amount of pH up/down it'll be in my target range everytime. The only time it varies is when they flush the system. Generally in the spring and fall.
 
R

rmax

Well-Known Member
Jjgrow420 said:
I duno man. 8.8 doesn't seem right for municipal tap water. Way to alkaline. When I mix I know if I add xx amount of pH up/down it'll be in my target range everytime. The only time it varies is when they flush the system. Generally in the spring and fall.
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I think you're right,. I looked up stats on pubs.usgs.gov and PH isn't supposed to exceed 7.9. Maybe I should report the water company to the FEDS. Bust the case wide open. Shrugging shoulders.
 
Polly Wog

Polly Wog

Well-Known Member
Mine runs around 8.4. I used to pH it to around 6.5. I stopped this grow and just run it through a chlorine filter. Lots of chlorine smell in our county water. I've seen no difference except I have less cal deficiencies. I do run it into a 5 gal bucket for ease of watering.
 
calvin.m16

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
HP I used to run 6.0-6.2 with excellent results, same with promix and coco. In veg with coco I will run a little more acidic pH since plants seem to like it, as low as 5.7 no problem with lower EC.

Always see what happens without using pH adjusters, I don't fuck with pH when I'm using stuff like promix unless its way off, that stuff has plenty of organic buffers in it.
 
A

A.k.a

Well-Known Member
Yeah ph down is pretty powerful. When I switched to filtered water it was so sensitive I ended up filling a syringe with half ph down and half water to dilute it.
 
calvin.m16

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
A.k.a said:
Yeah ph down is pretty powerful. When I switched to filtered water it was so sensitive I ended up filling a syringe with half ph down and half water to dilute it.
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Were you pHing before or after adding nutrients or were you just pHing straight filtered water? You should never have to pH adjust clean water because it has nothing in it to even buffer pH to begin with.
 
R

rmax

Well-Known Member
Two days ago I PH'ed a gallon of tap water from 8.8 down to 6.5.

Today I tested the PH'ed water and PH was up to 6.8. Something is in the water.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
The missing and probably important variable in this equation is not what the range of water pH is, but what the range of EC/PPM is. Super low PPM you may have difficulty dialing back/in your pH. But higher PPM you probably have an easier time with stability.
 
bam0813

bam0813

Well-Known Member
I have no doubt your water is better lol. I never cared about ph much but running jacks so i have been but not even sure I should bother still lol total newb w synthetics and cannabis still. First run fucked up with them and just getting back around to trying again
 
S

Supra98x

Well-Known Member
So not sure if this is an option for you but I use 100% distilled water. Comes it at a strait 7, you can always add a little PH down to it to get yourself in the mid-6 range.

another option is augment your soil with spagnum peat moss. I went 25% moss in this soil mix and ended up at 6.3-6.5 range for my soil.
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
I haven’t checked PH in years. I just dump it out of my dehumidifier and give it to all the plants in my house. If your use a good base soil that contains compost and either mycorrhizae or add it yourself ph should pretty much stay in range by itself. Nobody ever ph-s the water that falls from the sky yet plants on earth seem to be ok with that. Try just watering plants with normal plain un-ph-ed water; nutrient solutions need to be ph adjusted of course but the soil itself should already be ph balanced…ph-ing plain water doesn’t make sense ..that is ..unless you grow in a hydroponic medium.
 
I

Irrelevanttwat

Well-Known Member
Nasty hard water. Yeah your pH (potential hydrogen) will fluctuate. It's either build up in the lines in your town of like calcium deposits or similar or your ground water or wherever they getting it from is messed up and hard AF. I'd expect bore water to be that hard, maybe.

It'll also mean that once you've got a balance it can fluctuate in your res. Like powdered nutrients falling out of solution, hard water can deposit calcium etc. That in turn will cause variance on your res. pH. Might no be much of a swing or it could. Found this out from personal experience and yeah tap water shouldn't be above 7.8 or something, mine was usually 8. Pain in the ass I can say that much.
 
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