i have never needed to buy ph up, my water is 8 , water is the ph up i ever need
Don't use organic acids for ph control. They aren't stable and don't keep the ph at any given level very long. Get the proper stuff at the hydro store. Its not that expensive, I can't understand why people cheap out on something so fundamental to your plant's health.
Try using vinegar and baking soda in a hydro setup...the plants will show lockout symptoms within 24 hours, guaranteed.
Some companies promote using chemicals to buffer your hydroponics nutrients. So what is a buffer? A buffer is a
chemical that helps maintain pH stability of the nutrient solution.
A lot of growers aren’t aware of this little known fact, but a lot of nutrient companies use magnesium, calcium and
potassium carbonate or bicarbonate as their pH buffers. This is absolutely not a good idea.
Here’s why: remember that carbonates and bicarbonates are anions and add to the alkalinity of your nutrient
solution and growing medium, and even though they might buffer the pH a
bit, these “down and dirty” pH buffers will cause your growing mediums pH
to accelerate up.
http://www.growersunderground.com/pHManifestoBalancing Your pH
When adjusting your reservoir’s nutrients to adjust your pH. For example, potassium hydroxide (also called caustic
potash) can be used to raise your pH up. Use nitric and phosphoric acid to lower your pH down.
You can use nitric acid in your vegetative cycle because it will add nitrogen to your crop and phosphoric acid in your
flowering cycle because it will add phosphorus.
And guess what? Personally I prefer to use nitric acid in my flowering cycle because tissue samples have shown
your favorite plant doesn’t use a whole lot of phosphorus during flowering. In fact, in most cases nitrogen use increases.
If you’re looking for organic forms of pH down you can use citric acid to bring the pH down. This you can get at a
vitamin store; just make sure that it is a really pure type of citric acid.
You can even use vinegar (acetic acid) but the acetic acid varies in different vinegars so you have to be a bit more
careful and watch what goes on. For this reason, citric acid is the preferred acid to use