Ideal PH Target range

Richard Drysift said:

I haven’t checked PH in years. I just dump it out of my dehumidifier and give it to all the plants in my house. If your use a good base soil that contains compost and either mycorrhizae or add it yourself ph should pretty much stay in range by itself. Nobody ever ph-s the water that falls from the sky yet plants on earth seem to be ok with that. Try just watering plants with normal plain un-ph-ed water; nutrient solutions need to be ph adjusted of course but the soil itself should already be ph balanced…ph-ing plain water doesn’t make sense ..that is ..unless you grow in a hydroponic medium.

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Not an expert grower by any means but I have read using dehumid water for consumable plants is a bad idea. Leave it to you to make your own decisions but what I’ve read scared me away from it.

Richard Drysift said:

I haven’t checked PH in years. I just dump it out of my dehumidifier and give it to all the plants in my house. If your use a good base soil that contains compost and either mycorrhizae or add it yourself ph should pretty much stay in range by itself. Nobody ever ph-s the water that falls from the sky yet plants on earth seem to be ok with that. Try just watering plants with normal plain un-ph-ed water; nutrient solutions need to be ph adjusted of course but the soil itself should already be ph balanced…ph-ing plain water doesn’t make sense ..that is ..unless you grow in a hydroponic medium.

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Yeah I don't bother with potential hydrogen either. I've an EC wand though. 8 X 2 m table that's a combination hybrid nft, ebb n flow. Greenhouse hydroponics. Collected rain water. Tested potential hydrogen once with nutrients insitu 6.6. No point wasting time, money and adding salts to my solution.

If I had hard water then I'd modify pH, like op. I've been in that situation before but you don't need to be too obsessive. Keep it around 6-7 your good. Mind I been doing this 30 + years. So I figure let folk do whatever, they learn from their mistakes, awesome. If not that's not my problem.

Supra98x said:

Not an expert grower by any means but I have read using dehumid water for consumable plants is a bad idea. Leave it to you to make your own decisions but what I’ve read scared me away from it.

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Only if you have a dirty house basically or house plants with disease. Heavy metal contaminants will come from the air you breathe, just a quick 411. So you live near a major road your dehumidifier air is going to be absolutely full of heavy metals.

Intuition should tell you that by keeping a sterile environment and cleaning your dehumidifier you won't have water full of contaminants. Infact you should clean your dehumidifier regularly as it used to dry your cannabis. Think I'd want mouldy air blasting on my drying plants, hell no.

Be responsible with your kit and no BS dumbass online article will even make you sweat. I mean common don't these bloggers clean their houses?

Irrelevanttwat said:

Only if you have a dirty house basically or house plants with disease. Heavy metal contaminants will come from the air you breathe, just a quick 411. So you live near a major road your dehumidifier air is going to be absolutely full of heavy metals.

Intuition should tell you that by keeping a sterile environment and cleaning your dehumidifier you won't have water full of contaminants. Infact you should clean your dehumidifier regularly as it used to dry your cannabis. Think I'd want mouldy air blasting on my drying plants, hell no.

Be responsible with your kit and no BS dumbass online article will even make you sweat. I mean common don't these bloggers clean their houses?

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Haha fair - I like the rainwater idea, mostly though it’s simple enough for me to use distilled that it’s one less thing for me to think/worry about.

Supra98x said:

Not an expert grower by any means but I have read using dehumid water for consumable plants is a bad idea. Leave it to you to make your own decisions but what I’ve read scared me away from it.

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I am an expert grower; been watering with dehumidifier water for decades. Don’t worry about me I do not drink it I just water plants with it. Been on these forums since I had AOL dial up internet charged hourly. Rain water is the best and I use it when I remember to put my buckets out when it rains otherwise plants are fine with dehumidifier water. I clean it out with bleach every few months plus I totally dig heavy metal anyway so it’s all cool

What are using to test ph?

Richard Drysift said:

I am an expert grower; been watering with dehumidifier water for decades. Don’t worry about me I do not drink it I just water plants with it. Been on these forums since I had AOL dial up internet charged hourly. Rain water is the best and I use it when I remember to put my buckets out when it rains otherwise plants are fine with dehumidifier water. I clean it out with bleach every few months plus I totally dig heavy metal anyway so it’s all cool

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It's basically distilled water without using RO membranes. So many people have a misconception that unbuffered water such as dehumidifier condensate, rain water, Reverse Osmosis and Distilled water needs to be pH balanced. This has never been the case for me growing in Coco or Soil unless obviously adding fertilizer to the water. With the nutrients I use they mix to a 5.8-6.0 without any adjustment in RO filtered water. I use Potassium Silicate (common form of Silica) to keep pH from crashing downwards in coco.

You do not need to pH balance pure water, especially in Soil.

I'm using the GH trio in soil w/ eight plants. So every time I mix a batch of solution it's eight individual gallon jugs.

By testing I did note modified water PH will rise if the water just sits in the jugs.

I add GH Micro close > shake the jugs, add GH Grow close > shake the jugs, add GH Bloom close > shake the jugs. Test PH, add PH down to 6.5 PH shaking the jugs.

Do you posters have a better way?

rmax said:

I'm using the GH trio in soil w/ eight plants. So every time I mix a batch of solution it's eight individual gallon jugs.

By testing I did note modified water PH will rise if the water just sits in the jugs.

I add GH Micro close > shake the jugs, add GH Grow close > shake the jugs, add GH Bloom close > shake the jugs. Test PH, add PH down to 6.5 PH shaking the jugs.

Do you posters have a better way?

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That's a lot of work. When using Trio, I'd add the micro/gro/bloom forumulation for the week/timeperiod I was feeding in then shake it up and test pH and adjust it to the right place and water right away. Don't mix it up and let it sit. Also, i think you're doing way more work than you need to. Measure and put into the jugs and shake to mix once.

rmax said:

I think you're right,. I looked up stats on pubs.usgs.gov and PH isn't supposed to exceed 7.9. Maybe I should report the water company to the FEDS. Bust the case wide open. Shrugging shoulders.

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What do you say when the feds ask why your testing you tap water PH?

Weedoguido said:

What do you say when the feds ask why your testing you tap water PH?

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coffee tasted funny.

but there's a few things you can do to make this easier on yourself. Get a 30 or 55 gallon resealable barrel to store your water in. Controlling the PH in a larger body of water is MUCH easier. You will notice gradual slow changes instead of massive swings. A nice RO unit would help, but is not necessary. Also I will say some nutrient lines are VERY well designed and tend to bring the PH right where you need without much need for adjustment. Others seem to buffer the wrong way Good luck with this.

Weedoguido said:

What do you say when the feds ask why your testing you tap water PH?

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The dog's teeth are falling out.

Weedoguido said:

What do you say when the feds ask why your testing you tap water PH?

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why would the feds be asking?

a2lute said:

Get a 30 or 55 gallon resealable barrel to store your water in. Controlling the PH in a larger body of water is MUCH easier. You will notice gradual slow changes instead of massive swings.

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I thought of getting a food grade drum then slapping a tap into the side with a float valve, air bubbler and Bluelab PH controller. But that's expensive for me right now.

To setup the drum and manually maintain still requires PH testing of the water before each use.

I tested one gallon by PH'ing down to 6.5 and letting it sit for a few days. As I tested later PH climbed to 7.

rmax said:

I thought of getting a food grade drum then slapping a tap into the side with a float valve, air bubbler and Bluelab PH controller. But that's expensive for me right now.

To setup the drum and manually maintain still requires PH testing of the water before each use.

I tested one gallon by PH'ing down to 6.5 and letting it sit for a few days. As I tested later PH climbed to 7.

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i use a 30 gal trashcan as my feed res. you just need a stable nute regimen really. it takes 2 days to adjust mine down and then it stays there for a week.

You should be able to find a used pickle drum or something on FB or CL for 20-60 bucks. That's as fancy as you need to get. And yeah, you should use some more stable nutes, but so what if you don't? Your problem you stated was PH swinging wildly with tiny amounts of up and down. you could just fill the drum up with water, ph it, and take some out and mix your nutes in your little jugs.

While the complete setup with RO unit, auto-dosing pH unit and circulator is nice, you don't need to dive straight off the deep end. Just fix your over and under adjusting PH issue to start. Also don't use an air bubbler, use a cheapo fountain pump going up to the top and pouring back down. the aeration can cause worse ph changes, and circulating the water keeps the DO as high as it can get anyways.

From use/testing I notice the nutes change the PH very little. Maybe a .1 if anything.

Right now I'm dealing with 8.1 tap water.

Are you laying down the idea of mixing larger batches of soultion at one time? Instead of eight individual gallon jugs mix-up eight gallons of solution in a drum/garbage can and draw from there. Sounds good.

Lowering ph with drops doesn't get rid of the actual stuff in the water that's raising the hardness.

rmax said:

From use/testing I notice the nutes change the PH very little. Maybe a .1 if anything.

Right now I'm dealing with 8.1 tap water.

Are you laying down the idea of mixing larger batches of soultion at one time? Instead of eight individual gallon jugs mix-up eight gallons of solution in a drum/garbage can and draw from there. Sounds good.

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Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. it will be much easier on you.

And Popop is correct, you will not be removing the ions (Ca and Mg usually) that cause hardness. But as long as you get the PH right when you are watering, your plants will actually use these as micro nutrients. You probably have too many if your water wants to stabilize at that high of a PH, but just plan for an RO unit sometime in the future.

Here is some light reading on hardness and PH. FYI, fish people know a SHITTON about hardness and ph.

I don't know your soil because we don't have it in my country, but if it's a good quality soil and rich with microbial life, you don't have to be as accurate with pH. Just get it close to 6.5 or 7 after adding nutrients and it will buffer on it's own eventually.

I use Biobizz Light Mix soil mixed with Plant Magic Granules, all of the Biobizz Nutrients and Silic Boost by Atami. My water is hard and alkaline, the pH is close to 9, and i often have limescale on my kitchen appliances.
I leave the water open for about a day, then i first add the silica, mix and wait 10 minutes, mix the Biobizz nutes and add citric acid granules to lower the pH between 6.5 and 7, never less than 6.5. I don't wait to see if it fluctuates and just water, so far luckily everything is going alright.
I use pH color drops for measuring, so far they are the most reliable for me. The digital one i have is wonky, and the pH strips i have are weirdly colored so i can't measure properly.

How many plants you got? Try measuring in detail for one plant, and for the other just get the pH close to 6.5-7 and see which performs better. I believe the more ''neglected'' plant would be healthier, but that's just a hunch.