Does PHup and PH down only work temporarily? PH reverts to original.

dknob said:

I got PH down and up and it works fine and dandy, but If I PH 1 gallon of water to 6.0 (from 7.0), come back in like 4-5 hours and shake it up REAL GOOD, the PH is still back to 7.

What the dealio?

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i get same problem dood

Whats the capacity on that thing? I don't see how it could be worth it to run anything less than a 5gallon boiler.. The smaller your still, the less energy efficient it would be, and you're looking at almost a kwh/litre best case scenario already.. If I was using that thing to fill up a res, then I'd have to run it 24/7 to keep up with demand.. But honestly I'm not that fussy about my plant water.. I know my water is decent, only seedlings got anything special.. I'd dechlorinate sometimes, sometimes not (kind of a loose cycle, dechlorinating more as the end became near)..

I think its a little less than a gallon. With two people and my 32 soil based plants, we're fine and have a water surplus. With 1 added person that drinks nothing but beer and water we're always low. They sell bigger ones, this one works for me.

A still is pretty easy to build too.. A stainless steel beer keg, a short copper or SS pipe, and some copper tubing will do it.. Or actually, since its only for water, and refluxing is less important you wouldn't even need the larger pipe.. Toss an immersion heater for a hot water tank in there and its a portable unit..
Have you ever run alcohol through that? If it condenses water it will condense alcohol, but you might want to tweak it so that no plastic comes into contact with alcohol vapor..

dknob said:

I think its a little less than a gallon. With two people and my 32 soil based plants, we're fine and have a water surplus. With 1 added person that drinks nothing but beer and water we're always low. They sell bigger ones, this one works for me.

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This is very good to know. We don't drink all that much water that's not passed through the refrigerator filter, but I do need something for my garden. I'd just like a low impact/low energy use solution.

Just keep in mind all 32 of those plants are in dixie cups and I water them every other day.

I just got off my ass to check

4 Liters capacity
580 watts

Seamaiden said:

This is very good to know. We don't drink all that much water that's not passed through the refrigerator filter, but I do need something for my garden. I'd just like a low impact/low energy use solution.

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And, it's PURIFIED (for less than an RO system costs), which is actually better than water passed through reverse osmosis. One last question, regarding waste. RO leaves a good bit of waste water that's not very useful for anything other than rinsing out the sink or flushing the toilet. Does this distiller leave much waste water?

Jesus Christ. You're going to see the shit at the bottom of the distiller after 1 or 2 goes and begin avoiding tap like the plague. I wont even cook with it. It builds up some nasty shit, and its probably even dangerous as far as I know.

Seamaiden said:

And, it's PURIFIED (for less than an RO system costs), which is actually better than water passed through reverse osmosis. One last question, regarding waste. RO leaves a good bit of waste water that's not very useful for anything other than rinsing out the sink or flushing the toilet. Does this distiller leave much waste water?

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Don't you find distilled water 'yucky'?

Ya know I did lots of research on the distiller like I do on anything and I found a good amount of propaganda about distilled water. I found one yahoo answers post where apparently someone heard distilled water tastes like shit. No It tastes like the purist water you can get. You're drinking steam. Other propaganda is that the distilled water leaches minerals out of your body causing mineral deficiencies. I highly doubt this....since.....I eat food. Maybe if someone was eating fast food or generic crap food all the time this could be a problem but not for me.

FYI When I bought this distiller new the water did taste like that new plastic smell because of the container they give you. It does come with directions to remove that smell/taste from the container. I recommend following those instructions twice before drinking.

born2killspam said:

Don't you find distilled water 'yucky'?

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The yucky part is when you open the distiller after it did a fresh batch, and you dump out the brown shit you would have been drinking. Plus the smell of the boiling chamber gets gross - but not the water.

Personally I find distilled water not great to drink.. Not basing that on any propanganda, just preference.. I actually like alot of iron in my water, but its not like those concentrations exist in any city water.. I still prefer tap water to distilled though, and double distilled is worse yet.. The only distilled water I want to drink is the unavoidable 4.42% that can't be removed with any reflux column..

What problem are you having with distilled? To me its like Arrowhead water. Just clean and ...watery lol.

born2killspam said:

Personally I find distilled water not great to drink.. Not basing that on any propanganda, just preference.. I actually like alot of iron in my water, but its not like those concentrations exist in any city water.. I still prefer tap water to distilled though, and double distilled is worse yet.. The only distilled water I want to drink is the unavoidable 4.42% that can't be removed with any reflux column..

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Honestly the best thing I found to maintain ph is discus buffer. Its a buffer powder for discus fish and it has not failed me in over a year. Discus Buffer

Zhu said:

Honestly the best thing I found to maintain ph is discus buffer. Its a buffer powder for discus fish and it has not failed me in over a year. Discus Buffer

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And, it's a SeaChem product. If anyone needs a voucher for SeaChem, you'll get it from me (and thousands of aquarists). Good call, Zhu.

One thing, please note that SeaChem's Discus Buffer (we want a discus tank, but can't agree on how to set it up) precipitates calcium and magnesium from the water column. Great for discus, maybe not so great for your grow.
Ah, FAQ on the buffer.
http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/DiscusBuffer_faq.html

If you use a buffer designed for fish the maximum buffering capacity will be at a higher pH than we desire, so if you need to lower the pH, its going to take alot more pH down initially, then after a while each drop will adjust it more and more, but then should stay pretty stable..
BTW, with pH down and milk of magnesia or Easy-Off you could probably make a decent knock off of that Discus buffer.. (but mixing acids and bases can be hazrdous!).

Um... I don't know about that, born. SeaChem products are very well-designed and manufactured by standards close to pharmaceutical standards (QC, etcetera). If you look at their chart you can knock it down to 5.8 with the DB product. They do have other products formulated differently, such as their Acid Buffer.

The science of buffers is pretty simple.. Mixing buffers with other things in solution can change the ball game though.. If this is an issue with common nutes, then this is where Seachem's research will be beneficial.. pH andd buffering capacity aren't the same thing though.. You can reach any pH with any buffer, the question is how effective the buffer is at resisting pH fluctuations 'at that pH'.. Magnesium hydroxide and phosphoric acid will produce salts that when added to pH 7ish water will take way more drops of pH down to go from 7 to 6.5 than would be needed to drop it from 6.5 to 6.. I'm pretty sure that is the major component in that stuff, although I'm sure there are other complimentary buffers too..

Check it out, they've got different formulations. I think it might be good to do a thread on the differences and definitions of the following:
pH
Buffering capacity
alkalinity
general hardness
pH shift/bounce

I don't do hydro, but my fish years have served me well in understanding what people here are talking about.

I was never clear whether you had much interest in growing, or if you were primarily collaborating with this knowledge base for the sake of your aquariums..
Understanding those things would be critical to a barebones diy approach, but alot of this is like plug & play.. Too much in my opinion obviously.. Thing is, you can usually get spectacular results in this just following recipes.. Pot plants are alot more resilient to abuse than the plethora of things in an aquarium, so its less likely that special measures that require an understanding of those concepts to implement are going to be absolutely necessary.. I mean 99% of the time you can actually grow pot hydroponically with any fertilizer, and ordinary tap water.. Won't be great, but they'll survive atleast.. Aquariums aren't so forgiving..
It would be cool if there was a Research & Theory forum though..