Does PH DOWN effect Microbial life in between feeds?

so I am aware the Ph'ing is unnecessary when using AACT and infact the acidity/salts will kill the microbial life given by your AACT's. My problem is: I use well water that has a PH at around 7.8 which gave me fairly bad PH fluctuation issues early on as it is so high (leaves curling, spotting, discoloration, and almost mutated growth) and am worried that using non PH'd water will return my plants to that state of uncertainty and stress. Would PH down still effect the microbial life and nutrient uptake if used for regular waterings (not in teas)?

Any experience with this issue?

I will note that I was using a combination of bottled organic nutrients and have stepped away from that as I plan to do just teas only the rest of the way. Before, it was easy as I would PH my water and just add the nutes.

Anyone out there have experience or knowledge on this?

For me, it has not. I noticed no decrease when using GH ph down. In fact, my nitrates were still climbing.
This is with dwc with nothing but compost tea, no added chems.

MrJingles said:

For me, it has not. I noticed no decrease when using GH ph down. In fact, my nitrates were still climbing.
This is with dwc with nothing but compost tea, no added chems.

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That's good to know as I will be trying out a DWC in a few months. Right now, I am in unamended Roots Organic Original and have just been doing AACT's. I suppose I could experiment a tad. You think your results would change much given me using soil and it would be collecting salts more so I'm guessing?

Salts from the tea? I guess it depends on what's in it.
Experiment a bit, that's all I'm doing.
I have seen a slight buildup but I think it's from the hard well water I use and from not changing the res that often.
My tea has very little salt. I cycle it like you would soil or an aquaponics tank, I'm talking months old tea.
The ppm of my tea is usually the same as the water before it started brewing. Molasses has salt in it also, but I don't use sugars.

MrJingles said:

Salts from the tea? I guess it depends on what's in it.
Experiment a bit, that's all I'm doing.
I have seen a slight buildup but I think it's from the hard well water I use and from not changing the res that often.
My tea has very little salt. I cycle it like you would soil or an aquaponics tank, I'm talking months old tea.
The ppm of my tea is usually the same as the water before it started brewing. Molasses has salt in it also, but I don't use sugars.

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I mean the ingredients of PH Down being Potassium Carbonate (salt) and Hydroxide. My PH is very high in my well water and I am simply wondering if using PH Down to correct my waters PH for regular waterings inbetween AACT feedings (no PH Down use for tea water) would effect the microbial life, etc. There are no salts in my teas. The last tea I made was 2 EC which is approximately 1400 PPM I believe but from what I know, it's hard to gauge a true reading on Organics in teas and such.

@RonBurgundysMustache

why are you applying so many aact's?? the soil is ready to grow in (it comes amended). only one aact should be needed to boost microbe life, and then not much else should need to be done. you shouldn't even have needed to use bottled nutes (or used them in very low amounts).

you can get RO water from a grocery store for about .30c a gallon i'm pretty sure. if you only have a couple plants... i would highly suggest going that route... that is if your PPM is high from your well water. the ph of the well water should not matter, what matters more is the amount of dissolved solids in it (TDS)

ShLUbY said:

@RonBurgundysMustache

why are you applying so many aact's?? the soil is ready to grow in (it comes amended). only one aact should be needed to boost microbe life, and then not much else should need to be done. you shouldn't even have needed to use bottled nutes (or used them in very low amounts).

you can get RO water from a grocery store for about .30c a gallon i'm pretty sure. if you only have a couple plants... i would highly suggest going that route... that is if your PPM is high from your well water. the ph of the well water should not matter, what matters more is the amount of dissolved solids in it (TDS)

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I suppose I should have worded that differently. I was speaking more futuristically. I have only done one AACT just last week prior to flower. Flower started two days ago. I only used some nutes to combat a CalMag deficiency not a full feed regimine. Other than that, I struggled with clear PH fluctuation issues early on when brought in from a caregiver. That's it. Nothing else. They loved the tea. My well water is about 0.2 EC or roughly 140 PPM I think that converts to.

ShLUbY said:

@RonBurgundysMustache

why are you applying so many aact's?? the soil is ready to grow in (it comes amended). only one aact should be needed to boost microbe life, and then not much else should need to be done. you shouldn't even have needed to use bottled nutes (or used them in very low amounts).

you can get RO water from a grocery store for about .30c a gallon i'm pretty sure. if you only have a couple plants... i would highly suggest going that route... that is if your PPM is high from your well water. the ph of the well water should not matter, what matters more is the amount of dissolved solids in it (TDS)

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I suppose I should have added dolomite into the mix early on. Yes, I only have 12 plants. All look great now and the only issues SO FAR have been the PH fluctuation issue from the first week of being here. If getting RO was hard to come by here (I live in way northern Maine closest hospital is an hour away if that gives an idea to the availability of some otherwise common things), would you say to continue watering with PH down (assuming Potassium carbonate destroys the microbial life) or water as is with my 140 PPM well water?

Have you tried allowing the well water to sit for a day or two?
My well water fluctuates a lot in the first 24hrs if I ph it straight away. I fill a 5 gallon bucket, keep an air stone in it 24/7 and ph it once after allowing it to bubble for 24 hrs.
I too was worried about salt build up from the ph down, that's why I tried the bucket method, a lot less ph down. Sorry man, though that question was about tea haha.

Your soil should have a buffer in it though, unless it doesn't. Top dress some lime until it stabilizes.
If the soil is still cycling, that causes a lot of ph swings.
Once the cycle starts to stabilizes, so should the ph. Messing with the ph only slows the cycling process.
An api water master test kit can be used to test runoff, it'l tell you how far along the cycling is.
I use the kits to test soils, my tea and my hydro.

MrJingles said:

Have you tried allowing the well water to sit for a day or two?
My well water fluctuates a lot in the first 24hrs if I ph it straight away. I fill a 5 gallon bucket, keep an air stone in it 24/7 and ph it once after allowing it to bubble for 24 hrs.
I too was worried about salt build up from the ph down, that's why I tried the bucket method, a lot less ph down. Sorry man, though that question was about tea haha.

Your soil should have a buffer in it though, unless it doesn't. Top dress some lime until it stabilizes.
If the soil is still cycling, that causes a lot of ph swings.
Once the cycle starts to stabilizes, so should the ph. Messing with the ph only slows the cycling process.
An api water master test kit can be used to test runoff, it'l tell you how far along the cycling is.
I use the kits to test soils, my tea and my hydro.

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Yeah I was debating top dressing with some dolomite. I think I'll give that a go and see how they handle it. Maybe since they're in flower, bigger, and of course older, they can handle a bit of fluctuation better than the clones who are sensitive to most anything early on. No problem! Haha, as I stated previously, I could and should have worded things differently so not to confuse anyone! I appreciate your feedback Jingles!

MrJingles said:

Salts from the tea? I guess it depends on what's in it.
Experiment a bit, that's all I'm doing.
I have seen a slight buildup but I think it's from the hard well water I use and from not changing the res that often.
My tea has very little salt. I cycle it like you would soil or an aquaponics tank, I'm talking months old tea.
The ppm of my tea is usually the same as the water before it started brewing. Molasses has salt in it also, but I don't use sugars.

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salts= mineral salts not equal to table salt. quality tea has plenty mineral salts

RonBurgundysMustache said:

Yeah I was debating top dressing with some dolomite. I think I'll give that a go and see how they handle it. Maybe since they're in flower, bigger, and of course older, they can handle a bit of fluctuation better than the clones who are sensitive to most anything early on. No problem! Haha, as I stated previously, I could and should have worded things differently so not to confuse anyone! I appreciate your feedback Jingles!

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are you 100% certain the plant issues are from the water PH?
reason I ask is I have well water too, fairly alkaline (around 7.5 iirc),and it doesn't effect the plants at all
also an organic soil with a plant already growing in it is hard to mess that ph up
many, many soil maladies will manifest themselves similar to a PH issue, and it's oftentimes treated incorrectly, with treatments only exacerbating the issue
poor aeration, too much dissolve organic nutrients, over watering, etc.

greasemonkeymann said:

are you 100% certain the plant issues are from the water PH?
reason I ask is I have well water too, fairly alkaline (around 7.5 iirc),and it doesn't effect the plants at all
also an organic soil with a plant already growing in it is hard to mess that ph up
many, many soil maladies will manifest themselves similar to a PH issue, and it's oftentimes treated incorrectly, with treatments only exacerbating the issue
poor aeration, too much dissolve organic nutrients, over watering, etc.

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I was pretty damn sure but not 100%, no. I hadn't fed anything at that point as they were about 2 week old clones that I received from a caregiver and wanted to give them time to adjust to the new environment. Was only watering and hadn't checked my Ph because since starting super soil I did away with that. The only other thing I can think of is the lighting. I noticed light bleaching and I do not have a dimmable ballast so they went from the caregivers T5 to straight under (2) 600w Eye Hortilux Blue MH's. The mix is Roots Organic Original with no extra aeration (non super soil with no additives) and I planned on just too dressing with compost and other amendments along the way. As soon as I brought my PH from 7.8 down to 6.3 on average, all new growth looked great and I haven't had an issue like that since. I don't have all of the images I took from that time on my phone but I do have one of the bleaching...this coupled with odd twisting and mutations of the leaf occurred and has now left. I do notice that after the leaves did that again recently but it was VERY MINOR. Still noticeable.

Only other issue at the same time appeared to be calcium...

RonBurgundysMustache said:

Only other issue at the same time appeared to be calcium...

View attachment 3911176

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i'm not liking the looks of the leaf on that one
double check the undersides..
first pic looks almost like light bleaching but not quite..
how the plant's "body language"
perky?, droopy?
hows the growth?

RonBurgundysMustache said:

View attachment 3911172

. As soon as I brought my PH from 7.8 down to 6.3 on average, all new growth looked great and I haven't had an issue like that since. .

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sounds like you had it right then, if the only change you made was for the water ph, then you got it.

RonBurgundysMustache said:

Only other issue at the same time appeared to be calcium...

View attachment 3911176

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I have no experience with this, but many people use apple cider vinegar or lemon juice for an organic ph down.
never done it though.
I haven't checked or adjusted PH since the Clinton administration..
back in my non-organic days..

greasemonkeymann said:

i'm not liking the looks of the leaf on that one
double check the undersides..
first pic looks almost like light bleaching but not quite..
how the plant's "body language"
perky?, droopy?
hows the growth?


sounds like you had it right then, if the only change you made was for the water ph, then you got it.

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Yeah when it rains it pours right? I saw one thing then another and another all within a weeks time. I believe it was CalMag/PH but growth is great now and since the first AACT I did a few days ago they've gone crazy and look even happier than ever. I'll post a before and after even though you may not be able to see the deficiencies in the photos. This is merely to show growth. First picture was taken at two weeks in tent (march 7th notice the slight drooping) and second/third photo was take at 13 days later on March 20th (2 days ago).

greasemonkeymann said:

I have no experience with this, but many people use apple cider vinegar or lemon juice for an organic ph down.
never done it though.
I haven't checked or adjusted PH since the Clinton administration..
back in my non-organic days..

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Yeah I was thinking of doing that or just adding dolomite to my top dress I'm about to put on in the next few days. I may try and do a water or two as is with the well water from the tap and see how the respond.

RonBurgundysMustache said:

Yeah I was thinking of doing that or just adding dolomite to my top dress I'm about to put on in the next few days. I may try and do a water or two as is with the well water from the tap and see how the respond.

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only thing with d-lime is that it's not inert, may be a good idea to JUST adjust the ph without adding any micros