Got my Jacks; Couple questions

[DabOnDabs]

Following D9's advice on Jacks for this next run. want a cheaper, easier method than what I've been doing..

So i got my Jacks Hydro 5-12-25 and my CalcNit

Started with plain distilled water, 0ppm. Added Jacks to 360ppm. Then added calcnit to 600ppm. He states that the ph solution balances itself after time??

I mixed my nutes 4 hours ago, and the pH hasnt raised at all... Its at 4.7. Why is this? Any explanations from other jacks users?

 

[DabOnDabs]

These plants need FOODD!!!!

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Have you calibrated the meter lately?

 

[DabOnDabs]

Yea, the meter is straight. Its a Bluelab Guardian, and it works awesome. just calibrated it a few days ago.

 

[MrAwder]

I don't know a lot about water science but most nutes, Jack's included, have lowered my starting pH. In my case Jack's run at 1.1-1.2EC brings the pH to around 6.6 so I need to adjust it down slightly. If I run at 1.5EC it is dead on at 6.0. So I believe to some extent it depends on your starting water. I run RO mixed with 1/5 tap.

Also as Ichabod said check your meter or test against a second source like drops.

Edit: my starting pH from tap is around 7.2 I don't test the RO since apparently it is unreliable. Sorry this doesn't answer your question directly, just wanted to input my observations.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Have you calibrated the PPM meter recently?

 

[DabOnDabs]

I have not calibrated my ppm meter ever. I didnt know it could be calibrated?

Ive had it for about 9 months.. Has seemed consistant and reliable. before i switched my old nutes, when mixing new batches it would be within 10-20 ppm every time.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Some can some can't. Get some test solution to test it. I burned some plants because mine lost calibration.

 

[DabOnDabs]

Okay; Went and bought new calibration and test solution; Everything is dead on, and calibrated.

Distilled water from walmart has initial ph of 5.5-6.1 depending on which bottle i test from.. ppm is 0. Wtf is this. equal number of ions in h2o = should be ph 7 for distilled water??

Is this causing me to run low?? Should i trust my meter and just add some ph up and stop freaking out?? plants reallly need water now

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Thats what I would do.

 

[Mister_D]

I would try mixing your tap with the distilled/ro water at different ratios until the desired ph is found. Distilled/ro/demineralized water has no ph buffering capacity on it's own. So you will have to add it one form or another. Ph up, tap water, silica, lime, etc can all be used to accomplish this. Use whichever makes the most sense to you.

 

[Ickis]

You are not supposed to ph test distilled water with a Blue Lab unless you add something to it first. Sticking the probe in distilled water can ruin the meter.

 

[Zen Medz]

Just got my Jack's earlier this week and when I added the 3/2 my pH ended up around 6.2. My tap water is very soft, about 45 ppm, and a pH of 7.5. My gut feeling is you should borrow a friends calibrated pH meter or buy some GH pH drops. Don't be blinded by technology! My buddy had a nice Oakton meter that he thought was amazing but found out that it was off by more than a half point recently. Good luck with Jack's. I'm happy with it so far, adding some seaweed and fulvics to it and the ladies are happy. Peace.

 

[Ichabod Crane]

I believe mister D is right on the buffering. If you add the tap water you will see less of a swing in the PH. When you add the tap water this buffering will show up as a slow PH swing up or down in a small range when mixing your nutes. This is benificial as it will prevent wild swings in PH.

Because of this, Mister D is right in adding the Tap water. When you break threw this buffer range it will take smaller amounts of PH up or down to swing the PH.

I would try adding some tap water to a batch of nutes to get where you want on the Jacks nute mix. With this batch of distilled and tap water you can test the buffer range if you want to see if what was mentioned is in fact true.

I can't say for sure if your tap water has this buffer in it but most tap water does.

 

[Snook]

.

 

[Ttystikk]

I must confess that I'm missing something here- what's wrong with just adding pH up or down- in the form of your choice as mentioned above? Mix it, pour it into the res, set EC first and then pH to taste. What's the problem? The fact that it doesn't come with a bunch of unknown prebuffering agents, so you use your own?

I'm not sure I get that there's a problem?

By the way, my own mix is much closer to equal parts calcium nitrate and base nutrient mix, to yield an NPK ratio of about 3-2-4. That's a lot different than what was mentioned above! What nutrient ratios are you running?

 

[DabOnDabs]

I dont know why this was bumped, and there is about 20 pages of discussion about nutes in my thread. I cant do it anymore.

 

[Snook]

I dont know why this was bumped, and there is about 20 pages of discussion about nutes in my thread. I cant do it anymore.

i thought I was in another thread.. sorry boutdat..

12K in lights... u better know what..