Flushing soil at ph4.7, still 6.8 run off.

I had another post showing my plants stalling, leaves drooping and getting pale.

The droop may be the damp soil at the bottom, I've drilled plenty of holes now to sort that out.

The paleness....

I measured the tap water ph at 7.5. Maybe it's gone up because we had lots of rain lately. (ppm 100)

I measured the run off from the soil with water at 7.0. Run off is higher. I flushed like 10L of water at 4.7 using citric acid to adjust and it stabilizes at 6.8. Still at the high range. I can't get it down.

I just measured some seaweed fertilizer I was going to hit them with but the ph is 9.7! I assumed it was going to be acidic.

What can I do? I'm definitely not using that fertilizer. How can I get the run off at a reasonable level and sort out these nutrient lockout problems?

If you are using a ph probe, confirm it is calibrated or double check your readings with ph drops.

Changing your soil ph generally takes time so it is better to start with soil that you know is in range than to try and change it while growing. Soil will outbuffer water so it is difficult to change soil ph with water.

I'm not a fan of using nutes that require a ph correction before you can use them just because it is one more thing you have to do. So I'd be looking for something else if you really are at 9.7.

One of the benefits of myco fungi is that once they are established, they expand the usable ph range for your plant. They will work better in organic grows. The higher you take your NPK levels on synthetic nutes, the less the benefit from them. Something to look into when you have time.

could well be a buld up of salts in your soil and never i mean never ph soil anyway a good soil is around 6.4-7.2 witch is ideal

take some soil from you pot place in a tub with holes in run some plain ph 7 water though the soil test the run off if its greater then 7 you have salt build up in the pot