OK, here it is.
btw-I did see that pH: The fertilizer solution does not require pH adjustment.
After emailing a friend of mine who is a medical grower in Michigan, I now have to digress from my early statement, at least partially.
My friend does not use EJ but a local grower he knows does, and he recalls a conversation with this local grower. In the 5+ years he had been using EJ in soil-less mediums, he had never checked the PH of the mix before feeding. From his recollection of the conversation the grower stated that bubbling would raise the PH a bit naturally but it was meaningless as the PH of the water and nutes didn't matter as long as the soil maintained it's PH.
My friend also added, unless the PH of the water/mix is lower than 5, there should be no reason to up the PH at all because organics feed the microbes, and the microbes than feed the plant, and between that process the PH difference is dealt with. But being you say you have a 5 PH mix, with EJ, as long as you have a good soil-less medium(pro-mix or peat/perlite/vermiculite/maybe 10-20% worm castings) with the dolomite lime to maintain a consistent PH in the soil, you could get away with not manually raising your PH mix before feed. BUT. It wouldn't hurt to do so in my opinion because from my understanding it would be safer and healthier to up your PH only to high 5s or very low 6s, since the natural organic process, at least with EJ, raises the PH. So feeding a water/mix with a PH of 6.5 or higher may be unhealthy for the plants, at the high 5s or low 6s it would probably be safe, much safer than leaving it at 5 or lower. My opinion only.
I also took a look at some other forums on this specific issue as I have only been using EJ a short while and I want to master it, and I found many veteran EJ growers, especially medical marijuana specific, DO NOT PH their mix for the very reasons I stated above.
So what I will do on my next grow, and what you should do now, is don't PH your EJ mix at all. Just bubble for 24 hours with the pump and airstone you ordered and feed. See what happens. If results are great than perfect, if not than I would up the PH to 6 before feeding. Either get a expensive soil PH meter or use the just as accurate powder kits and check the runoff and/or the actual soil for PH levels every week and see what it's doing.
I'm glad I came across this post because I have been uping my EJ mixes PH to 6.5 or higher throughout my entire first organic grow, which was successful, but the yield was questionable and I had numerous issues especially in veg an dearly flower with similar deficiencies like the one you have. Although for me it was a cal/mag deficiency that may or may not have caused PH issues in the soil, and the lime in the soil took care of that.
Lesson I learned here was don't pretend to know everything. Good Luck
