New grower learning to balance the pH of his water

[ganjygav]

For a few years I got on fine with just my tap water. Then it started going downhill. It started with magnesium and calcium problems which didn't make my plants look very good. So of course next time I used a supplement,not realising it was the ph blocking it. Adding calmag did nothing but give me more problems.
Once I did some reading I finally admitted to myself maybe it's time to sort my ph out.
I had not even as much as tested it before.
This is my first grow checking and adjusting my ph and I'm at the point now I would normally have tiny little brown spots and other symptoms developing. There are none of these symptoms,my plants are growing strong and green.
If you don't believe me look at my previous grow, I binned it after 11 weeks of growing all together. It looked so bad I just gave up on it, way to much stress.
My gg#4 grew balls and my 2 northern lights were ravaged by all sorts of deficiencies.
Obviously I've still got 6 or 7 weeks left with this grow but all is great so far, some people don't need to ph their tap water and that's great but I do.
Now I wouldn't be without my ph pen. I've even got the guy who taught me to grow and originally told me I didn't need to ph in soil checking and adjusting his water lol.
All it took to convince him was to show how well my plants are doing.

 

[ceausescu]

For a few years I got on fine with just my tap water. Then it started going downhill. It started with magnesium and calcium problems which didn't make my plants look very good. So of course next time I used a supplement,not realising it was the ph blocking it. Adding calmag did nothing but give me more problems.
Once I did some reading I finally admitted to myself maybe it's time to sort my ph out.
I had not even as much as tested it before.
This is my first grow checking and adjusting my ph and I'm at the point now I would normally have tiny little brown spots and other symptoms developing. There are none of these symptoms,my plants are growing strong and green.
If you don't believe me look at my previous grow, I binned it after 11 weeks of growing all together. It looked so bad I just gave up on it, way to much stress.
My gg#4 grew balls and my 2 northern lights were ravaged by all sorts of deficiencies.
Obviously I've still got 6 or 7 weeks left with this grow but all is great so far, some people don't need to ph their tap water and that's great but I do.
Now I wouldn't be without my ph pen. I've even got the guy who taught me to grow and originally told me I didn't need to ph in soil checking and adjusting his water lol.
All it took to convince him was to show how well my plants are doing.

Cool keep up the good work are you sure your spots where not caused by over watering because that was the case for me.

 

[ganjygav]

Cool keep up the good work are you sure your spots where not caused by over watering because that was the case for me.

I'm a bit of an under watering type of guy,if anything I could have been making my soil to acidic by letting it get to dry.
I'm combating that by watering smaller amounts more frequently this time. Also I normally grow 4 plants max but this time Ive got 6 and I was finding it hard to keep up with who wanted food and who was on water only. So I've changed that to half strength feed every watering.
To be honest I've changed a lot of things this grow,brand of nutes,the ph thing,watering and feeding. But I'm pretty sure it's the ph adjusting that's made all the difference.
Besides it wasn't just spots,it was brown dead crinkly leaves. Yellow leaves and really small buds that just wouldn't grow.

 

[ceausescu]

I'm a bit of an under watering type of guy,if anything I could have been making my soil to acidic by letting it get to dry.
I'm combating that by watering smaller amounts more frequently this time. Also I normally grow 4 plants max but this time Ive got 6 and I was finding it hard to keep up with who wanted food and who was on water only. So I've changed that to half strength feed every watering.
To be honest I've changed a lot of things this grow,brand of nutes,the ph thing,watering and feeding. But I'm pretty sure it's the ph adjusting that's made all the difference.
Besides it wasn't just spots,it was brown dead crinkly leaves. Yellow leaves and really small buds that just wouldn't grow.

For sure your skills are getting better its not just the ph thing.
But you and everyone can try this on one plant like a side by side experiment with one plant getting the water without ph control.
I always experiment with nute strenght as well and a lot of things.

 

[ganjygav]

For sure your skills are getting better its not just the ph thing.
But you and everyone can try this on one plant like a side by side experiment with one plant getting the water without ph control.
I always experiment with nute strenght as well and a lot of things.

Ahh crap,
I had this horrible feeling I might of jinxed myself by bigging my plants up early. So I went upstairs and gave them a good looking over because I hadn't for a week.
Found some male preflowers on one plant,a bunch of 3 at one node and a single one a bit further down.
I was a bit wary of that plant anyway as the rest had already got prefloweing well underway at 15 days of 12/12. The plant which had grown the balls hadn't.
No biggie,it happens with fem seeds sometimes.
I still prefer the odds of females over regular seeds but that's just me.

I'm going to be on the hunt for clones after this grow, I'm up for doing that side by side. Probably good for me to do anyway to put my mind at ease.

 

[ceausescu]

Its not just you fem seeds have their place.Watch out for light leeks main cause for hermies.Good think you found the hermie early enough.

 

[ganjygav]

I'm pretty sure it's not light leaks. I have my lights on at night so they are in dark during the day. I have the windows blacked out. I've just been up and checked,there's no light in the room at all. I can't see my hand in front of my face it's that dark. Plus my plants are in a sealed tent so the plants definitely ain't getting any light.
I don't have many hermies to be fair. In the past 2 year I had a female seeds c99 go hermie but it was ill with the lockouts I've been getting and I've had the gg#4 grow balls but that plant I had snapped in half trying to lst her.
All that was left was the bottom 4 branches. So I probably stressed her with that.

 

[/sunglasses]

i only have 50 some odd posts and i just registered last month...but i've been on the scene and these forums over 11 years.

you don't need to ph water with a proper soil. a proper soil has buffers. if you are using soil made from decomposed manure and leaves and shit like that and you still need to adjust the ph of what you're putting in. i suggest you get some better soil, or better yet make your own.

as for hydro and coco and such you will need to adjust the pH. i personally wouldn't recommend vinegar as a ph down because i hear it's unstable. as in it will lower you ph for a while then the ph will rapidly return to where it was because it's short action. i've been using phosphoric acid which is all ph down is. i didn't buy any name brand, i just got some diluted phosphoric acid from a brewing/grow store. you don't need to buy ph up if you're using tap water. if you accidentally put too much acid to lower the ph then just add more tap water to dilute it back up. duh.

as for ph testing, i have a 1pint bottle i bought like 6 years ago or more that i never use anymore and a half full dropper bottle you can refill. works decent if you only need to get your ph into a range for soil. but if you're doing hydro you need a finer measurement.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/331692444078?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82
i bought something like this, but mine has an illuminated display. shit cost me like $15 2 years ago or so. i calibrated it once and haven't had to adjust it since. takes like 15-30 second for it to get down to absolutes. but you don't really need to wait that long for a true reading. plop it in and within 5 seconds it's at the correct ph within a 100th. no need to spend hundreds of dollars on bluelabs which i hear break really easily. do you need to dunk your whole ph pen into your solution to test? maybe you do, in which case go ahead and spend the extra $$$ for a waterproof submersible pen. me, i fill a shotglass half full and put my meter in and wait a few seconds.

if you're gonna get serious about growing you will eventually need a ppm meter too. i use this one.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HM-Digital-...588521?hash=item3efd1e3869:g:9akAAOSwa39U0uxM
i bought it at my local grow store for $30 or so. you know how that go.
you can buy both for like $20 bucks on ebay these days.

lastly i would show you pics of my grows but that's not gonna prove anything except i grew plants. the most important thing to know is how much to feed of what and when. ph and ppm meters assist in this. but they are no substitute for experience.