using ph test drops?

[Guest]

Does anyone here have experience using ph test drops or ph test strips? I've read a few negative things on here about the test strips but seem to find mostly positive stuff about the test drops (like GH sells in the little 6.95 bottle).
How well do they work, especially when compared to an actual meter? My issue is that the extra $90-$120 for the meter is way too much for me at this point to afford.

I'm already preparing to set up a DWC system as cheap as possible. So far my list is....

>3 gallon rectangular trash cans for containers......$1 each at dollar store.
>plastic or luan cut to fit to cover these.
>yogurt containers with holes punched in them for netpots
>small bag of hydroton
>1 quart containers of GH flora series using lucas formula
>1 cu foot (or smaller) bag of hydroton (possibly just use pool noodles)
>ph up/down
>2 dual outlet air pumps from walmart (for 4>3 gallon trashcan buckets)

already have lights, fans, carbon for a homemade filter

I'll probably initially grow small bushes initially until I have sex determined then I might put them under a screen if i can.

please give me any and all opinions. I'm particularly concerned about the ph drops and test strips.

 

[bartender187]

I like my meter... I cant tell yellow green from green from yello from shit, all looks the same, especially under that yellow light. my .02

 

[clowntown]

But they're good for doing run-off tests, and verifying your meter's results once in a while for verification if meter number throws out a surprise.

 

[Guest]

so they're not a good substitute for a meter at all? I guess what im wondering is...if i can't afford a meter, is it not even worth it to make the switch from soil to hydro? or will i still be able to see growth rate increases even if just testing pH with the drops or test strips?

 

[clowntown]

Although my opinion is similar to bartender's, I think the drop testing is plenty sufficient. Most of the time you don't really need dead accuracy, just a working window.

 

[minds_I]

Hello all,

I use pH Stix ... test material on plastic dip sticks. They work well, and are alsways in callibration... read under a white light.

I get about 240 tests for about 20 bux. I never have to calibrate just pick up the damn things off the floor.

How many tests can you get out of a mid priced meter? Will it measure guano tea pH?

I think the meters are good for a more sterile environment such as hydro but for soil I think the test strips are superior.

Its hard to judge the color of merky fluids is it not...the test strips do not have that limitation.

Good luck,

minds_I

 

[ItsGrowTime]

http://cgi.ebay.com/HANNA-HI99104-P...ryZ58191QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

No idea where this $120 figure comes from.

 

[Guest]

wow, IGT!!! thanks for that link
i was lookin all over for cheaper meters and for some reason couldn't find them. go to some of the more popular hydroponics sites and you'll readily see where the price range i mentioned came from.

Have you used this meter thats linked? do the electrodes need to be replaced often on it? that seller has some amazing prices btw. theres really no excuse for me not to switch to hydro now!

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

You can get by a grow or 10 using the chemical kit, but eventually you will want to get a meter.

It will help greatly to fully understand the quality of your water in hydro. Without a meter you will have to guess or use RO water. At least if you use RO water then you know the PH is 7. Most hydro nutes are buffered for tap water. For instance my water PH from the tap is around 8.5, however after adding Botanicares Pure Blend Pro BLOOM nutrient the PH drops down to around 6.5. In hydro you will usually still want a little but lower unless....

I highly advise you skip right past the low tech DWC bubbler method and build a BIO DWC. The only difference if that instead of an air pump and air stone you will use a powerhead water pump which will create MUCH healthier conditions that the bubblers ever will.

The tide of simple hydro has long since been in favor of the DWC bubbler, but that was before bio hydro hit the scene and people realize bio filters where marvelous additions to a grow rez. Perhaps this revelation was made by some brilliant aquaponics guru who realized the potential of bio filters in hydroponics.. I dunno, but they've been around for aquariums for awhile. Anyway whats a good hydro if not an aquarium for your plants roots. That being said who runs an aquarium with just a couple shitty air stones. Nobody (cept those one fish fish bowl things) and that's because if they did that they would have to clean their fish tanks every 1-2 weeks to keep the fish poo and such from creating deadly conditions. Anyways the same goes for your plants roots. A plain aerated container of water is fine, until you add nutrients, heat, light and time and then it's just a matter of time until it goes bad on you. However, add water movement and a bio filter to that system and you water could stay good indefinitely. The water movement is a major factor. Most people don't talk about it, but water movement helps prevent nutrients and/or dead plant matter from settling on the bottom of the container. Though I have yet to test this one. I theorize that airstones also increase the speed at which sediment builds up in the rez because the tiny bubbles actually have a way of causing particles to settle rather than stirring them as you would initially thing. (thats just my theory)

In any case Bio Tub is a great starter system. It's just like the DWC bubbler, but better in every way. So much so that instead of having to change out or flush the water and nutrients every 2 weeks like in a DWC bubble you can go the ENTIRE grow without flushing. Just add water and nutrients as the PPM goes down.

In your case you will have to guess when to add more nutes. Read Big Tokes thread on Water Chemistry, but you can do this without a meter by measuring how much water the plants are uptaking. So say your plants are in flower and drinking a gallon a day. You have a 20 gallon container. In 20 days you can be sure it will be time to add more nutrients. Of course daily water uptake will change during different stages. Just keep an eye on roughly how much they drink and when they've drank one rez full of nutrients you do the nutes again at full strength. Doing it this way prevents salt buildup. If you see deficiencies you can always hit them with something before it's time for the scheduled nutrient fill ip.

Anyway the bio tub is just a rubbermaid like a DWC bubbler filled with water with a Net pot filled with lava rock. Instead of netpot you can make your own, but since you need hydro nutrients anyway you will probably order online. Get the big pots 6 or 8 inchers. as you can grow enormous plants like this. Get a container with a rigit lid so it can support the weight of the plant. Keep the holes closer to the sides of the container if you need the added strength or make your own lid to the rubbermaid out of plywood or such.

Instead of cutting a giant 6-8 inch hole in the lid make your life easier and cut a 4 inch hole in it and attach the net pot to the bottom of the lid Big Toke style. This prevents all that extra light.

Instead of hydrotron you can save a lot by getting the lava stone.
A powerhead water pump will ultimately cost you less than an air pump, air stones and air lines, plus airstones clog and need replacement.
Since you need to buy nutes just get the netpots from the hydro store. Yogurt cups are WAY WAY too small for the level of growth you should be planning for.

You won't need much PH up/down if you do it this way, but you should get down PH down just in case. You won't need PH UP and if you did you could use baking soda for PH down citric acid is nice, but I don't know a good over the counter PH Down off hand. The stuff is pretty cheap and I hardly use it because my nutrients are PH buffered and because I use a bio filter.

Oh yea thats the other added benefit of the bio filter, beside the fact it creates a constantly healthy ecosystem for your roots which means no flushing and greatly reduced chance of harmful bacteria in the rez, you also get increased growth because the bacteria and the roots have a symbiotic relationship in which I believe enzymes from the bacteria greatly enhance nutrient uptake. Yes that means faster growth and bigger yields and less sensitivity to PH.

More or less we should look at standard hydro system which do not support beneficial bacteria as being hyper sensitive to PH, while biologically balanced hydro allows are nutrients to be available at PH's that standard hydro would create lockout conditions.
That is a major advantage once you realize most deficiancies arise from PH. The beneficial bacteria that grow in the bio filter will also over time lower PH slightly helping reduce your need for PH down.

Another good trick is to mix RO water and Tap water to get the natural magnesium and calcium thats in tap water along with the sanitizing effects of the chlorine. This gives you tap waters PH buffering along with RO waters lowered RO basically helping you lower the PH of your tap water if your nutrients aren't buffered enough or whatever.

If you go bio testing the PH will be less necessary anyway since the plant will have much more tolerance to higher PH and most water is around PH 8+ so it's higher than standard non bio MJ would like.

So get the right nutes and you may as well get some decent net pots. Eventually you may want to build a bio bucket style system and it will help to have already bough the 8 inch net pots. The large pots help allow for massive roots and trunks while also hosting tons of surface area for beneficial bacteria.

The powerhead pump circulates water in the rez and can pull air in from an external pipe/hose. It's really the cheaper long term options. DWC bubblers will cost you a lot more in nutrients when you have to flush every 2 weeks and adjusting the PH all the time sucks.

use privacy service when surfing pot growing stuff like anonymouse.org or guardster.com

look up the words 'Bio Tub Nimby' in google for more info. These things are the new age DWC bubbler which has been around since like the 60s or something. They use beneficial bacteria concepts which basically where not in use back in the day. Thats why fish tanks have only recently switched over to always having bio filters. Naturally the stones in the fish tank work as a bio filter and thats also why bottom filters have always been superior. Now they realize glass beads make inferior bio filters, but the idea itself was sound. Just have a porous and it will have lots of surface area for bacteria to easily cling to and colonize. Put that medium right in the flow of rushing water and it will tend to only host beneficial bacteria (unless it clogs).

In the bio tubs the 8 inch net pots with lava stones are the bio filters and the powerhead pushed water across them. Ideally the powerhead will also create turbulence in the water and ideally make little mini waves that crashing into the lava rock. This constant state of water and air exposure is perfect for breeding beneficial bacteria and aerate the water. This puts high o2 level right there in the root zone.

DWC bubblers are nice, but there is really no reason anymore to use them. Without the ability to circulate the water a rez is vastly inferior. Just as I said, it would be like a fish tank with no filter. The airstones are mostly just for show in fishtanks, not to add O2. They create pretty bubbles that people like and they make those mechanical underwaters chests and skeletons and such operate, but they don't serve any real purpose. Most people don't even use them anymore. The waterfall effect is by far the preferred way to filter and aerate a fish tank. So, it's only obvious that's the route we need to be going.

Don't get that Hannah POS meter. That's a waste of money. Sorry but look at it. It doesn't even have automatic calibration or temperature compensation.

Look up the Hannah pHep on ebay it's like 51 bucks with free shipping. So barely twice as much, but a FAR better meter that will last much longer and give more accurate readings without annoying calibration issues. Plus it tells you the water temp, which you will soon learn is quite important. That PH meter is a cheap one for school not for real use. It's not even waterproof. One drop in the rez and it could all be over for that thing.

You can skimp on a PPM meter, but don't go any cheaper than the Hannah pHep on the PH meter. You'll be glad you did down the road when you auto calibrated, temp compensated, water proof PH pen is still working years later.
It has a nice resolution I suppose for the cheap, but for just a few dollars more you could get a real PH meter not a toy

Mostly I'd be concerned with the longevity of that PH meter. The probe is probably not well protected. Accidentally leave it out once and it will be dead.
The phep and most modern PH meters resist drying out if you accidentally leave the lid off. The auto calibration isn't that big a deal though, but the thing just holds its calibration WAY better and that's what really matters.

 

[Guest]

thanks for the advice you should be a sales(wo)man! I don't know about gettin into the bio stuff yet, just because i don't feel like i fully understand how it works along with other factors. I've definitely been interested in it for a while and rading a lot about it but I need more time to think about it.

 

[ItsGrowTime]

wow, IGT!!! thanks for that link
i was lookin all over for cheaper meters and for some reason couldn't find them. go to some of the more popular hydroponics sites and you'll readily see where the price range i mentioned came from.

Have you used this meter thats linked? do the electrodes need to be replaced often on it? that seller has some amazing prices btw. theres really no excuse for me not to switch to hydro now!

Yep, thats the pen I use but keep in mind thats only been 3 months so I cant speak on long-term reliability. Im sure Ill upgrade at some point but its worked fine so far and hasnt needed calibration once. I just shake it off and cap it. Happy to help

 

[Sauce]

I used ph drops for about a year and recently got a meter. I agree with the guy who typed a lot (lol) that you shouldn't go cheap on a ph meter. Mine was $40 and does +/- .1 accuracy. Personally I wish I had spent a little more on a better one. I have to calibrate mine every time I use it just to make sure it's going to be reading correctly (don't trust it yet). After buying mine I saw one on Ebay with +/- .02 accuracy for only $60 which is an amazing deal. Most meters with that accuracy are like $100+.

Since getting my meter I've noticed the ph drops are clearly off by like .5+ ph almost every time. And I calibrate my meter a lot so I'm sure it's not the meter being incorrect.

While ph drops do work nicely for awhile, I personally wish I bought a meter a lot time ago. The color is hard to see under some types of lighting too so the same color could vary by about .5-1 ph.

When you buy a meter make sure to buy extra calibration fluid and a large bottle of whatever you need to store the meter in, for my that's 7 calibration solution.

Also I recommend getting at least 2 point calibration and get automatic if possible. Mine has 2 point calibration screws which are a bitch to calibrate. Also 2+ point is important because it gets the proper 'ph slope' of the water vs. a 1 point (not as accurate).

And water pumps are better but will add heat to the water, so there is a downside to using them.

 

[Guest]

pH accuracy is pretty important when it comes to hydro IMO. I do not like the visual test kit with drops. The Hanna 99104 is .2 pH accuracy which is not adequate IMO. Test strips might be better than the drop kit but dunno. Get a pen with at least .1 accuracy and two calibration points (like Sauce said). The pH scale is logarithmic so the difference between 6 and 7 is 10X (1000%). The difference between 5.9 and 6.0 is 100%...just like the richter scale...and 100% is alot.

 

[Macola]

I know I'm bumping a four year old thread.

Does anyone have any specific pH test drops items recommendations ? I saw advice that any aquarium ones would do but after checking I disagree since the ones I found either weren't suitable for our pH range or had too big pH steps (usually 0.5).

If anyone has brands/links of 0.1 step pH test drops, please share.

 

[Scrogerman]

lol, 4 year old thread, anyway if you must get drops, i use the GH full spectrum liquid test kit to make sure my meters are working correctly, PH6.0 is yellow a point or .2 either side of 6 & the colour turns, cant go wrong. recommend you get at least a PH pen, pick a tidy one up cheap enough, say £35-£40, worth their weight in gold.
0.1 on the whole spectrum is asking a bit much & i aint seen one. prolly cost too much if you got one & you'd be better off with a pen/meter.

 

[Macola]

Scrogerman, I had a 300$ pH meter and a 10$ Chinese one ( "pen type ph" @eBay). When calibrated I always got the same numbers, even more, Hanna's took longer to get a stable reading.

I see I was a little too vague with the first post. I'm looking for drops in the 4-8 pH range (basically the levels used in hydro) with 0.1 or 0.2 steps.

 

[FreezerBoy]

I'd trust drops far more than any meter. It's more a matter of convenience. My old grow, I tested one tub twice a month on a technicality (I knew what was happening but checked to be sure), strips were fine. Used them for17-18 years. With my move, water changes, op changes, I now test 7 tubs twice a day. Suddenly a pen makes sense but, I still test the pen against the drops. I wouldn't trust a pen any further than it could throw me.

 

[Scrogerman]

Scrogerman, I had a 300$ pH meter and a 10$ Chinese one ( "pen type ph" @eBay). When calibrated I always got the same numbers, even more, Hanna's took longer to get a stable reading.

I see I was a little too vague with the first post. I'm looking for drops in the 4-8 pH range (basically the levels used in hydro) with 0.1 or 0.2 steps.

I see what ya saying, but as far as ive seen you wont get a liquid test that reads to 0.1/2 through the spectrum, if you find one let me know man.
Like FB i dont trust meters either, why i check with the GH liquid drops to 6.0.

G'luck

 

[Hammerhead]

Not me I would never trust test drops. To ea there own.. The problem is the low test only goes from 6-7.6. The High range goes from 7.4-8.8. Not good enough IMO. You need one that will go down to 5. The drop kind will only do these values.. The test strip paper will go to 4-7. I dont trust these stripes at all but its your grow..


A quality test meter is one of the best investments I made..

 

[Scrogerman]

The GH full/wide spectrum liquid test kit reads from 4-8, but reading between points(1.0) can be tricky-near impossible. apart from PH 6.0 which is solid yellow. like i said before a .1-.2 either side of 6.0 & the colour starts to turn(easiest to read). you need to get used to reading the colours but it never lies & doesnt need to cal'd. Why i only use the liquid test to check my meter is calibrated properly.