Gravity Drip DIY pH control, gathering information

[Boio_]

Hello to Ya'll!

Next month I will be leaving for the first vacation in which I want to use a gravity drip since I started growing. I got myself 10L tanks and put hoses on them with openings that slowly drip water. I will measure the amount it allows through over time and adjust it accordingly. That should not be an issue. While I know there will be a negative effect on the grow, since the plants are used to hand watering, I'm not running a business and just want to get my plants through my week of absence. The one thing that worries me however is that the pH of my water usually jumps up again quite fast. I do use RO water, stabilize with CalMag and add very little nutrients as my soil is BioBizz All Mix and the recommended dose is high.

What are you experiences with gravity drips that aren't on a timer?

How would you treat the water to counter the pH jump over time? ( I was thinking to lower it more than I normally would to make use of the swing, is that an option)

Thank you in advance for any response!

Best regards
Boio

 

[Three Berries]

Where are you measuring the pH jump?

 

[crimsonecho]

i wouldnt worry about it too much how high does your ph get? is it hard water, lots of carbonates?

 

[Boio_]

By pH jump I just mean it goes up fairly fast after I use pH down. By the end of the day its back up to 7.8 which is the value I get from the tap, even though I filter it through an RO system that didnt change. I don't know about carbonates as I have no way of measuring.

 

[CrushnYuba]

It doesn't matter. 7.8 isn't that high and prefect ph doesn't matter too much in organic soil.
If you put it through a RO system, you shouldn't have carbonates. And you shouldn't have 7.8 ph water. have to ask the obvious question, is your meter calibrated? Maybe i misunderstood you.
When you say you "stabilize" with calmag, what do you mean? What kind of calmag are you using? That organic stuff is usually carbonate based.

What kind of acid are u using to lower ph?
You might as well saywhat kind of small amount of nutrients your pouring in it because it will likely affect ph.

I feel like the answer is in those few questions.



As far as a ghetto gravity feed drip.. I don't know how long you are leaving for, but i imagine your flow would be less as the tank empties and there is less water weight. I'd personally get something similar to a blumat if you have time. I think i saw a Pinterest with someone using an iv bag.

 

[Boio_]

Thank you for the response. The meter is calibrated and I use two of them. Both pens, one at around 90€ Bluelab or something and the other is a cheap 30€ one, both show the same value. The person who recommended me the RO filtration mentioned that the pH might remain the same, but don't quote me on that it's a while ago. The same friend also recommended I use CalMag. By now I have forgotten the reason to be honest, but could it have to do with rpm?

I use nutrients from BioBizz

Max
Bloom
Grow
CalMag
pH down

Wouldn't the amount of water the Blumat dispenses also vary depending on the pressure in the tank?

 

[CrushnYuba]

Blumats don't flow all the time. When the soil is wet the valve closes. Pretty ingenious. There's other ceramic based watering things that can get you through a short trip but a blumat you can use through a whole grow and it will probably do better then if u hand water.

I don't know what the ph of your water is out of the tap but if it goes through RO it should always be slightly acidic because your removing the carbonates. Like 6ish. Google says 5-6.5. Something needs to be wrong with your filter or your meter if it is that high before u add anything to it.
I don't use bio biz but I just Google the ingredients. "Organic" calmags are not nitrate based. They are USUALLY carbonate based. Carbonates are what you use to raise the ph.

Bio bizz ph down is citric acid. Citric acid only lowers ph for a short time. I have used it in a pinch but it is not stable. I would imagine that's a large part of your rising ph. There's threads about it here. I have used sugar free lemonade as a source of citric acid in a pinch but it's not ideal.

There's a few variables messing with your ph and the whole point of organics is you don't have to worry about ph. If the plants are thriving and perfectly healthy, I wouldn't worry about it. If your ph is rising in a day, its happening in your soil even if you water it in instantly. Do I don't think it matters as far as your concerned for your trip. But just a suggestion, for your next run try dropping the 5 products and ro. It sounds exhausting and expensive. I wouldn't use 5 things in hydro. It can't possibly do as well as good soil and water. Biobizz just seems like watery snake oil. The nutrients numbers on it are like 1-2-2. That's like nothing diluted in water. I don't see any fertalizer for sale in California that is that watery. That's like the same amount of nutrients as compost.

 

[Itsmychoice]

Crushn’s advice is sound. If your reservoir is big enough for the trip i would just try a higher quality ph down and if you are growing in soil put it at 6.5 when you leave and do not worry about the rise while you are gone. If i was going to use gravity drip, i would try it with iv tubing setting it to drip very slowly and put a very small amount in the container to begin with. If you are growing in soil another option would be to top dress it with something like espoma the day you leave and just use water to feed it while you are gone.

 

[Three Berries]

Anyone use pH buffers instead of bases or pH up or down in hydro?

 

[CrushnYuba]

I do but I may not understand what you mean by ph buffer INSTEAD of up or down? I am no book learned. But I thought when u add an acid to an alkali or vice a versa that was a buffer. The more acid and base u add, the more it will resist ph changes.
Those pre-made buffers like you use to calibrate your ph pen are meant to be used with distilled water to get the desired ph.
But yeah, I prefer alkaline tap water and a little more acid to get it where I need it.

I have had great results not even using acid. Just adjusting the type of nitrogen I use and tap water.

 

[Three Berries]

You can get buffering solutions that will maintain a certain pH until used up, not so much the yoyo up and down. Really have no idea though if it would be useful.

 

[Boio_]

@CrushnYuba First of all, thank you a lot for your in depth response. This is conflicting information to me and I'd love to have it cleared up. Some people now told me that the pH after my RO filtering is normal but you are telling me it should be lower (what I initially assumed, then upon asking heard it wasn't so). The blumats seem like a good idea. I would like place 6 or so in different spots. The pots are 8L. I tried only tap water before and it resulted in damaged plants for me. There seems to be something building up in the soil however as even though I water at 6.5 after a few weeks the pH of the run off is significantly lower and I usually have to feed higher pH to bring it back to the 6-6.5 range.

 

[CrushnYuba]

No. Your ph should definitely be around 6. That's just book learnin science. You take the calcium and magnesium carbonate out of the water with RO and it drops. You put them back in with that carbonate based calmag and it goes back up. Could it maybe be a filter and not RO?
I can't imagine what would be in the tap water that would damage them. It would have to be some real trashy water.
It isn't necessarily build up that is lowering your runoff. It could very well be microbial from all that sugar based biobiz goop. or soil buffer related considering your soil mix is like 50% peat. If this your first run in this soil? They recommend adding lime on each run to buffer. They also say don't ph their nutrients because it will drop in your pots. Most nutrients will drop as they get used. In buffered mediums u don't really need to worry about it. Especially organic.

Blumats are so cool. I haven't played with them yet because they are not really reasonable to do on a large scale. But I have seen them do great in small gardens. I'm about to try them with capilary Mats for my starts. Get the tropf ones that are adjustable though. Don't get the Jrs. Keeping your soil at that perfect moisture all the time will definitely improve your game. I do the same thing on a larger scale with irrigation and an electronic moisture sensor.

 

[Boio_]

@CrushnYubaThanks for the response and please forgive my delay in answering. It was a very busy few weeks. This leaves me very confused. The system is a cheap Arka RO system I connected to my tap. it isn't my first run in this soil but I didn't know that about the lime. So how would I go about adding it and is it still worth it in week 6? I haven't been using the pH down as the nutrients were enough to bring the pH down enough.

I got the blumats and will use 7 per pot which still isn't enough to give the plants as much water as they usually drink but I'm banking on them being resilient enough to get on from the watering before I leave and whatever the blumats can output.

 

[CrushnYuba]

I wouldn't worry about the lime at this time. I rarely add lime. It takes a while to get used up. You can't really add it mid run. If you stop using the ph down and your run off is still dropping you just add some carbonate to offset it. Whatever is available. My local farm store has potassium carbonate in a 5 gallon bucket for like 10$. You could also just use your ph up (most likely bicarbonate). Lime should only be used to buffer ph in your soil. It just has the added benefit of adding cal and mag.

I doubt you need 7 blumats a pot. I don't know how big your pots are, but in all the blumat kits they use 1 or 2 tropf blumats a pot. Even the kits for 200 gallon pots have 2 sensors and some drip tape. For a 20 gallon pot they use like 1 and a few of those distributor emitters to spread it out. Check out the sustainable village website. Look at how they got the kits set up. 1 blumat can add an enormous amount of water through the day. It keeps putting out water until it reaches the moisture level that you have it set.

 

[Itsmychoice]

Post #1295 on this thread will tell you what i found to be the best way to set up blumats. It reads long but its really easy and most importantly is the best way to make them function flawlessly. https://www.icmag.com/threads/blumat-auto-watering.107370/page-65

 

[Boio_]

I wouldn't worry about the lime at this time. I rarely add lime. It takes a while to get used up. You can't really add it mid run. If you stop using the ph down and your run off is still dropping you just add some carbonate to offset it. Whatever is available. My local farm store has potassium carbonate in a 5 gallon bucket for like 10$. You could also just use your ph up (most likely bicarbonate). Lime should only be used to buffer ph in your soil. It just has the added benefit of adding cal and mag.

I doubt you need 7 blumats a pot. I don't know how big your pots are, but in all the blumat kits they use 1 or 2 tropf blumats a pot. Even the kits for 200 gallon pots have 2 sensors and some drip tape. For a 20 gallon pot they use like 1 and a few of those distributor emitters to spread it out. Check out the sustainable village website. Look at how they got the kits set up. 1 blumat can add an enormous amount of water through the day. It keeps putting out water until it reaches the moisture level that you have it set.

So I am back from the vacation and the water was enough. I simply chose 7 as the amount of water they transported according to the paper that came with said how much they can bring in and it wasn't enough. Now the plants sustained minor damage but that is ok. The pH issue however remains. I got mixed results upon looking on google whether I should buffer with lime for the next grow. Could you point me to where BioBizz says to do that?

 

[Boio_]

Post #1295 on this thread will tell you what i found to be the best way to set up blumats. It reads long but its really easy and most importantly is the best way to make them function flawlessly. https://www.icmag.com/threads/blumat-auto-watering.107370/page-65

Will give this a read, thank you!

 

[CrushnYuba]

BioBizz All Mix

BioBizz All Mix is a 100% organic potting soil, loaded with nutrients and packed with beneficial bacteria. Great for potting large plants and producing exceptional growth rates.

groworks.co.uk

I saw that when i was trying to find out the ingredients of the all mix. The bottom line is if you want to keep using the products you are using, you need lime. It's a very complicated system you are implementing. If it were me, i would just amend the soil and use straight water. Microbes, lime and roots will harmonize and control the ph of you let it. It will cost less and you will grow better weed.

Are you using the blumat jrs? I assume you are using the jrs because they aren't Adjustable. The tropf blumats can be adjusted according to the link itsmychoice posted. There is no limit to how much water they put out. You only need 1 or 2 sensors per pot. They run until the desired moisture level is reached. In not sure if they will like the bio bizz goop. But straight water or clean salts are definitely fine.

 

[Boio_]

I'm not hellbent on using what I use. Always trying to improve. How would you amend the soil? So for the setup you are talking about I'd just not feed any nutrients?

As for the Blumats, I might have bought the wrong ones then...It's ok I'll have a garden some day.

Are these the right ones?