How important is PH adjusting?

Hello

I have been growing couple months. Beginner.
I got pretty Bad results

My water has high ph level: 8

I got ph testkit and ph- couple days ago
Now i adjust my nutrient mix and water to 6.2 ph
Hope its gets better.

Is ph level 8 dangerous?

What ph is best?
is 6.2 ph that i adjusted ok?

Sorry for my bad English. I live in Norway

what kind of soil? 6.5 -6.8 is the sweet spot for P.H. if you are running a lite soil that requires heavier feeding and you don't top dress. if you use bacterial and fungal inoculates
and top dress 7.0-7.5 is best. How you grow ultimately dictates how you control the P.H. of your soil. I use top dressing and amending my soil before hand to control P.H. as well as timing for feeds and what you put in them to control p.h. vs. following a formula and then adjusting P.H. with alkaline or acidic solutions, that drive up the PPMs of the solution and could possible have negative interactions with the solution if they are not compatible.

Yeah the city water is bad here. Sometimes it is acid, sometimes basic. I got a pH lock once (plants turned yellow because they couldn't use the food) at a pH of 7.8. It is pretty important if pH is too high or too low. Make sure your soil has powdered Dolomite rock (type of limestone) in it. Be sure to pH the plant food AFTER you mix it in water, and also pH the water for the plants.

greengrowers said:

Hello

I have been growing couple months. Beginner.
I got pretty Bad results

My water has high ph level: 8

I got ph testkit and ph- couple days ago
Now i adjust my nutrient mix and water to 6.2 ph
Hope its gets better.

Is ph level 8 dangerous?

What ph is best?
is 6.2 ph that i adjusted ok?

Sorry for my bad English. I live in Norway

Click to expand...

Depends on how you grow. Hydro 5.5 to 5.8, soil 6.0 to 6.5 and coco is 5.5 to 6.2
Ph is super important in all but organics.

PM me if you need help i can save you some reading let me know how you grow and ill set it strait for you. Ph adjustment sounds tough but is not

for soil veg should be 6.5 and for flowering it should be 6.7 - 6.8.

if you can grab a digital pH pen such as blue lab. they are way more accurate and easier to use

toxic hippie said:

for soil veg should be 6.5 and for flowering it should be 6.7 - 6.8.

if you can grab a digital pH pen such as blue lab. they are way more accurate and easier to use

Click to expand...

Ive switched to drops and have much better esults than pens. Pens are expensive and dont hold accurate without callibration. I have to throw out a 300$ hanna combo pen because they dont make or sell probes the the black ones anymore, think im buying a new white model? Nah, drops are 5-10$ and work great the pen lasted 2 years for $300 drops are $20 a year

YetiOG said:

Ive switched to drops and have much better esults than pens. Pens are expensive and dont hold accurate without callibration. I have to throw out a 300$ hanna combo pen because they dont make or sell probes the the black ones anymore, think im buying a new white model? Nah, drops are 5-10$ and work great the pen lasted 2 years for $300 drops are $20 a year

Click to expand...

hannas used to be great 8 or so years ago. then everything went down hill.

ive had my blue lab meter for 5 years and ive only had to replace the probe once. never changed the batteries either. i clean the probe and calibrate once a week. its always spot on.

but to each their own

Growing in soil I use GH Ph test kit and its always worked great for me.In hydro though I believe you want a good pen.Like it was said before use dolomite lime in your soil mix for ph buffering and to prevent ph drop during flower

Salutations GreenGrowers,

greengrowers said:

...i adjust my nutrient mix and water to 6.2 ph...

Click to expand...

Perhaps it would be appropriate to mention the type of rooting system you've opted for.

While reviewing some rememberances i realize that for me the matter of pH wasn't much of a concern after i started using self-watering buckets, as i recall:


Except this one was moddified to allow bottom filling of the water tank, ideally with a dry topping to help keep the surface soil dry. After a few weeks the water in the base would change colour and gradually turn yellow until it's almost red - m'well, if i didn't purge that salty water long before, that is.

Above we can see the top-end of a conical/tubular protuberance connecting with the base side, it's actually been marked by the drill bit when i proceeded to the transformation below:


In this present case i didn't cut that protuberance because water arrived from a front opening instead, so that's an unused option for more advanced projects i suppose.

Below we have the exact bucket measurements, take note that wasn't meant for a tall plant at all...


...and this was the front aperture which i used to probe water level, water colour... then also empty/refill as required.

A closer view:


So, put briefly, the water tank couldn't fill above a front hole that served many functions including a change of water before it got red.

My guess is that's not as precise as a pH meter but it still seemed a better system than none. Perhaps you might want to reflect on something similar...

Good day, have fun!!