Water questions

[Kingdav1st]

Hi guys,

It's been awhile since I've posted to a growing forum. When I first started growing, I was at overgrow.com, and when that blew up I went to planetganja.com, and now here I am, at icmag.com.

Afre a two-year break from growing, I am now back again growing medical-grade. I use DWC buckets, and I am having some really weird issues with the water. The pH is really, really hard to change. For 1 gallon of water, it takes 15 drops of GH pH down to get it down from pH 7 to pH 5.5.

My standard technique was to take water from the sink (we have pretty soft water around these parts) and let it sit for 24 hours, add H2O2, nutes, and go to town. The pH was always very sensitive; one drop too many, and the pH would either go up or down far too much.

Now, it's the complete opposite. I can't change the pH. It takes way, way more acid to lower the pH of my tap water than I remember. I bought a gallon of reverse osmosis water from the super market and messed with the pH, and it was super sensitive, like I remembered it. So it's something in the water. I bought one of those Pur water filters that hooks onto the faucet and I still had the same issues.

I'm worried -- is this bad for my plants? Why is the pH so hard to change?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Kingdav1st]

bump the orphan thread?

I could really use some ideas with this!! Thanks!

 

[GrnMtnGrwr]

After I add my nutes it takes me 60 drops of GH PH down per gallon to get to 5.5, my plants don't care, as long as the PH is right.

 

[NiteTiger]

Yep, whatever it takes. As long as the plants aren't showing lock-outs or anything, just brute force it down

The plants just care about the PH of what they're sitting in, not in how it got there

 

[TheMonarch]

Why is the pH so hard to change?

Alkalinity? Did the source of your water change during those 2 years?

"Alkalinity is a measure of the pH buffering capacity of water. (In this case alkalinity is not used in the chemistry context, as alkalinity is typically used to indicate that the solution has a pH above 7.0, i.e. it is basic or alkaline). It indicates the concentration of carbonate (CO3)2-,hydrogen bicarbonate (HCO3)-, borate (BO3)3-, sulphate (SO4)2-, and hydroxide (OH)- anions."

 

[Haps]

Water changes, don't worry about it just adjust, and adjust, and adjust. Age your water and nutes a few days if you want them nice and stable.

 

[ganesh]

Before going hydro, i did hundreds of EC and pH tests with my water (7.5pH @ 0.1 EC ~100ppm), mineral water, water with nutes, etc and found that GHE pH down liquid does not mess with EC, you can add virtually whatever you need and EC/ppm values does not change to dangerous levels.

However, i don't know if there's some other issues that affects plants.

My tap water is really hard to adjust pH, i adjust it to 5.5 and if i add an air stone, after a few hours it rises up to 8.

I keep a reservoir with a air stone and adjust the pH every day, after a few days pH stabilizes and it is good to go.

I also noted after adding pH down, a sulfur like smell in reservoir in the first days, but it fades out.

GHE pH down is an excellent product.

 

[Kingdav1st]

Interesting. I guess the thing that freaked me out was that the water had, indeed, changed. I'm in the same town, just different apartment, and the alkalinity (stability?) was way higher than it was before.

So is the general consensus that there's nothing to worry about, just add more acid than I'm used to and go from there?

BTW, @Ganesh, I don't use a reservoir... I just top off the buckets with fresh solution every day. (By the end of flowering each plant uses 0.5 to 1.0 gallons per day.) I know that pH tends to drift up, so I typically try to made the fresh nute solution at around 5.5.

Well, thanks for the help, guys!! Maybe I'll start a grow thread later. Good growing, everyone!

 

[NiteTiger]

So is the general consensus that there's nothing to worry about, just add more acid than I'm used to and go from there?

Yep, don't let that water push you around! Show it who's boss

Well, thanks for the help, guys!! Maybe I'll start a grow thread later. Good growing, everyone!

This is IC, what do you mean you may start a grow thread? It's required by the weed gods!

Welcome to IC, glad we could help, that's what we do here