Is RO water too acidic?
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FootClan
Well-Known Member
So you bought the small boy then bought the upgrade or did you just find a place that sales the small boy with the upgrade?? which filter is the upgrade? the sediment or the carbon or does the upgrade intell both filter upgrades??
cowboylogic
Well-Known Member
Water
The water source has almost nothing to do with medium ph. Up, down or all around. Ph is ph.
Medi 1
Well-Known Member
i work at a nute co and hydro shop so we have these in stock. i got the filter then bought the upgrade carbon. its the only one needed. its called a KDF-85. i think it retails for about 30 bucks so it isnt that much. so far ive been happy with hime., you also get twice the life roughly from the better fileter so to me that alone is worht the cost to upgrade.
FootClan
Well-Known Member
Ok ill check it out
cowboylogic
Well-Known Member
If your friends r/o water is 8.1 he is probaly using the rejection water and has the r/o going to waste. And if your is 7.5 either your system isnt working/needs new membrane or your meter is way off. R/O water no matter the initial source should be in the 6ish range.
Medi 1
Well-Known Member
yes i agree. like for me it took alot of water to run off before i got true readings. a new machine will raise the ph for a bit till the crap is flushed out. they say to run for 15 min or so and toss that out. i had to run about 100 gal to get mine down to 6.5 from 9.4 it was at once i installed it. ppm or ec all remained the same the whole time as mine is so low anyways. 0 - 20 ppm
businessmen
Active Member
So is testing runoff for soil ph a myth? Do u think using acidic ro could use up my soils buffers? Or going back and forth from acidic ro and alkaline tap could mess up my plants?
TaoWolf
Active Member
Look at it like this: Pure water has a pH of 7 (neutral). It has no buffers (it's pure H2O), so even a little bit of anything with a non-neutral pH (like carbon dioxide) in small amounts can have a big effect on the pH scale reading. However, if there are neutral buffers (elements with a pH around 7) in high amounts and in the water, a small amount of carbon dioxide chemically interacting with the water has very little effect on pH because the buffers are present in greater quantity. So... using slightly acidic RO derived water that is only slightly acidic due to the presence of carbon dioxide won't have much, if any, real effect on soil pH (which is already loaded with buffers and elements of different pH levels). However, it can wash out buffers/elements from the soil and impact pH in that way. So if the soil was acidic, it would move towards being closer to neutral. If the soil was basic, it would move towards being closer to neutral - but varying on how much of the offending elements were being removed from the soil (which is really hard to do without ending up completely washing away all your soil)... Or else you can buffer the RO water to where you want it with a pH adjuster and have a greater impact.
Tap water that is alkaline is basically buffered with minerals that have a high pH (like calcium). Alkaline tap water *will* have a strong impact on soil pH (increasing) because it will be depositing high amount of things like calcium into the soil while tending to wash away other elements already in the soil.
Medi 1
Well-Known Member
yes messing around with ph up and down and all this will effecft the medium and the plants. the more you make the lime work to try to keep the soil happy with ph then it doent last as long. testing run of fis not a myth, it isnt 100% but nothing realy is. its the best way to get a reading.
businessmen
Active Member
Thank u great answers and were back on topic too! Well I hope thus is my problem, cus otherwise I sm out of guesses. We will see soon when I get some buffers in there and test some more runoff. Right now soil has is still waterlogged from flushing
businessmen
Active Member
Well I used some cal mag plus in 50/50 RO Tap. We will see. Runoff was real acid still in my flowering plants, the sickest, got some ph up, but didn't use it, my water ph is already at least 7.6. Foliar fed lightly with complete. Bloom formula few days ago, made worse if anything. Might get some lime for those older ones with acidic runoff.
Medi 1
Well-Known Member
i dont get what you mean by you mixed some ph up but didnt use it...you or the plant? dont foliar with foods like that or the salt blocks/clogs the stomata, then it cant do what it needs to do efficiently
dont be mixin R/O and tap././why use the ro then
just take some ro water set to what the medium for the pH soil or soiless or whatever it is your in and run through till the pH comes up to mid 6`s. then leave it. check what the run off ec/ppm is at same time as you watch the pH rise on its own. if the final ppm is low once the pH is back up then add last bit of food to this at 1/2 dose. leave it to dry
dont be mixin R/O and tap././why use the ro then
just take some ro water set to what the medium for the pH soil or soiless or whatever it is your in and run through till the pH comes up to mid 6`s. then leave it. check what the run off ec/ppm is at same time as you watch the pH rise on its own. if the final ppm is low once the pH is back up then add last bit of food to this at 1/2 dose. leave it to dry
businessmen
Active Member
Hmm, I guess I used ro with tap because my tap real hard but ro was too acid and needed some minerals, tried to make a "good tap". I didn't use ph up cus the tap brought it up for me. I didn't foliar with ph up or csl mag either, just water and little bloom complete hydro type fert. TY for explaining how to water/feed. I don't have a tds meter, just cheap mid range ph aquarium kit. Maybe I'll use the ph up next time in pure ro, probably buffets soil better then my 50/50 water
Medi 1
Well-Known Member
ok well usingt the tap water with the R/O is wasting the ro filter is all. not helping. dosent realy mnatter the food. its a salt and may clog the stomata. another reasoin when we say to foliar is to let the plant cool a while after lights out..it lets the stomata close up so nopt to clog. besides the burn from the light. which is miore a myth realy...to a point. yes the ro will ballancde ph better than the tap does. holds better, rather than it going up n down causing a ph imballance.
id realy recomend even a cheep digi pen. them liquids are no good at all with foods added. to many colours and makes the final colour wrong. meant for water only, and is only as accurate as a .5. we need to be tighter than that....it is better than nothing though, ive used even a 30 buk pen for a year and was fine.
id realy recomend even a cheep digi pen. them liquids are no good at all with foods added. to many colours and makes the final colour wrong. meant for water only, and is only as accurate as a .5. we need to be tighter than that....it is better than nothing though, ive used even a 30 buk pen for a year and was fine.
businessmen
Active Member
Well they put out a crazy flush of pistols today, but the leaves are worse on the worst one. Only bud leaves left and they're getting bad. Think she needed some food w all that flushing. I wanted to see what the cal mag would do.
Rumple
Well-Known Member
I disagree. You can have high PH while your RO system is working perfectly.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]CO2 + H2OÂ -->Â HCO3 +Â H+[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The new equilibrium will always result in a lowering of permeate pH if there is CO2 gas present in the feed water.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Usually, the pH drop is largest for waters with high amounts of alkalinity or HCO3.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When there is very little CO2, HCO3, or CO3, there is very little pH drop observed in the permeate.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Therefore it is not true that reverse osmosis filters will always reduce the pH level of water to a noticeable amount. The pH difference after the RO depends on the composition of your input water source; depends on whether you have large amounts of gases such as CO2Â in your local water supply. If you are concerned with the pH of your drinking water, you should avoid guess work and get your water tested with an accurate pH tester meter (avoid those $10 paper testing strips, very inaccurate with pH readings). If you see that your pH is indeed below 7 with a good amount, you can consider putting a pH increaser filter as a final stage of your reverse osmosis system and correct acid water problem easily."[/FONT]
My system gets the water PPMs from 450 down to 7. My PH is 7.5
Medi 1
Well-Known Member
the pH form mine went from 7.4 tap to 9.8 afetr filtering it. but they need to be run to waste to get this down to the real numbers. maybe yours is still new and didnt run to watse to flush it??? i had to run 100 to 150 gallons to get mine set
a pH increaser filter???..realy, never heard of that term. what type of filter would increase pH.
a pH increaser filter???..realy, never heard of that term. what type of filter would increase pH.