Need expertise on soil/ph and these plant problems please

Sorry for the long post but Im trying to give you guys as much info as possible here. So allot of what Im reading says that you really dont need to worry about pH if you use soil. Then I read that it matters. So if Im using soil should I buy a pH tester or not? My buddy says I dont need to worry about pH. We have great tap water here in Boston I will say that, but Im not sure about the pH. I think my problem might be that Ive been using pH down thinking that it was too high thus hurting my plant. I used a cheap Ph tester from HomeDepot with the 2 prongs. I stuck it directly in my water and the pH meter jumped up high so Ive been adding pH down. Im thinking that this is not what I should be doing now that I stop and think about it and maybe that is not good for testing water. I only really started noticing problems with my plants AFTER I started using the pH down. I added Cal Mag once so far and my plants showed signs of over watering so I have only done a foliar spray with some Cal Mag in it twice in 2 days recently. I def have purple stems and Ive had that for a while, I just never thought that was a problem till I had a problem and started researching my yellowing browning dying leaves. I was thinking about buying an Oakton pH tester but they have some real bad reviews about them not working after a couple months and like I said allot of people say soil adjusts itself. Im going to transplant into Happy Frog soil soon when I get my T5 8 lamp in the mail. What should I do here?

Looks overfed. buy a pH and ppm tester and stop listening to your buddy and start listening to your gut.

you do need to be concerned with pH of your nutrients that you're pouring into your soil and you do need to know the pH of the soil. It's also helpful to measure the pH of the run off because that's really the pH of what you're doing.

If you have not seen it read this, lots of excellent information.

https://www.rollitup.org/blogs/blog17764-ph-your-tap-water-soil.html

your using tap water huh? How do you know it's great tapwater? You can download a copy of your city's water treatment plan. Even so, I'd still avoid it. I know you have great water treatment facilities, still though

Ok. I give it Bio Thrive and some Root Buster every few days for feeding thats about it. Its possible I used too much of one or the other because I just kinda eyeball it when I do it, and I havent been mixing a gallon at a time. Im gonna get a gallon container and start doing more proper mixing. This is all learning for me so the mistakes are good I suppose. Should I buy some Epsom Salt? It needs Mag right? How soon should I notice the purp stems going away after I adjust levels?

I suppose the tap water is subject to change but overall we have what they say is the best tap water in the country, I dunno. There are tests every month you can look at.

did they test the water that came out of your pipe? The problem is often created in the plumbing the feed your house. iron and such can leach from the pipes in into the water

best tap water in the country, that's not saying much at all.

I see this stuff all the time, people using tap water, and full nutrient regime's. Those rust spots, the burning, the purple stems. Your shit is fucked my friend.

You probably need to start giving them just plain water. Stop adding stuff. You may have locked up your medium there pretty bad by now. Perhaps a leaching is needed.

have you checked the runoff ph?

I know they are fucked but are they hopeless? I have plenty of seeds so I'm not to worried as I've been viewing these more as test plants till I get properly set up. I only give it Bio thrive and some root buster because my root system was not good because the first couple months it for no light. I need a pH meter that works

I live in an old building so maybe I should take a sample of the h2o and get it tested. Makes complete sense about the pipes and I know they are old in the building

my ppm's out of tap are 110 constantly.

maybe check if you have a water filter that is really old somewhere that never got replaced, it wouldn't hurt. costs ~14$ to replace a water filter

those 2 prong testers are junk. If you want to be serious about this, get either a drop pH test kit (~20$) or a digital meter (~110$) with a PH meter cleaning + calibration kit(~30$)
if you buy the meter, definately clean that shit. It looks to me like you have pH issues and not water ppm issues, especially since you say your water is drinkable.

i've always though about something like this for soil grows, since it changes the pH of the water to nuetral and cleans it at the same time http://www.amazon.com/H2gO-Portable-Alkaline-Water-Purifier/dp/B003105N9Y

this is the liquid testing kit http://www.amazon.com/General-Hydroponics-GH1514-Control-Kit/dp/B000BNKWZY/ref=pd_rhf_ee_s_cp_7_2JEX?ie=UTF8&refRID=0C4DPA0G17E4X7D3K515


definately check the link on the 2nd or 3rd post the guy put up; the most important thing with pH is an accurate reading..

If my medium is fucked up, which it clearly is, what if I just put it in fresh soil? Would that work? I only have 2 plants so not like its a pain in my ass to transplant em which I was going to do in a few days anyway when my lights come, and they need bigger containers. I bought soil yesterday just need to get bigger pots first.

Don't give up. You don't learn shit that way.

Your plants will pull through. transplanting them might help. then again, it might cause unwanted shock. Just stop giving them the biobizz and root shit. Go buy some Reverse Osmosis water outside a grocery store for 25cents/gal.

get some epsom salt, and add .5tsp epson/1gal water to start. Make sure the dirt is ready for a watering, and give them a good flushing of just straight RO water, get lots of runoff. Then finish with a little bit of the epsom salt water as if you were watering normally. Wait until the dirt is good and dry, and the pots are light to water again. Don't overwater. That doesn't mean too much water, that means not enough time between waterings. Don't get that confused.

It will take some time for all the purple stems to turn green again. But new growth should be normal, hopefully.

If that doesn't work. well, most likely it will fuck it up even more, but you'll know pretty quick. lol. chalk it up to learning, and give her hell.

Also, You should be watering with straight water, every other watering. The nute labels don't say it, but it's good practice. It helps keep buildups down, and the likelihood of locking up your dirt is minimized. Not all elements/minerals are absorbed equally.

for example, You may give them full strength nutes. But your plants may only take up half the available nitrogen, a quarter potash, and no phosphorous (not mentioning any of the micros). Then you water again with full strength nutes. Now your soil has 1.5x the available nitrogen you intended for, 1.75x potash, and 2x the amount of phosphrous. Then you do it again, and so on, and so on. until all your ratios are fucked, and your soil is locked. That's exxagerated a bit, but you catch my drift?

Yes, that is the kind of info I was looking for TY! I'm going to do exactly that. I'll update in a week with new pics. Should I pull all the bad leaves? I've only been pulling the really dead ones cause I didn't want to further stress the plant but I'm worried if I pull to many it will just spread quicker to other leaves.

I didn't know you could buy RO water either. Thanks for the tip

Hey Tony I had the same curiosity about water and bought a ph test kit recently (general hydroponics) and confirmed what I needed to know, my tap PH is pretty good and my runoff is perfect. I like soil cuz it's good at doing its thing I also use a refillable pitcher that has a carbon filter-this removes the chlorine and possibly chloramine from your tap water. If you don't use RO water or a carbon filter let your tap water sit out for a few days to evaporate the chlorine-it's bad for plants and easy to remove. I am a soil grower and I do not adjust ph at all...yet. If I see any issues the first thing I will do is check ph because that is where many problems start. I'm not a very experienced grower but I know my girls and when they are happy! I premix soil (since you mentioned transplanting) and allow it to "cook" a little since I add blood meal and bone meal and a few other organic bits of love. A good site to read (besides this awesome site) is grow weed easy.com Nebula Haze has some great info on soil growing and soil preparation! Like others said, take what your friend and all of us say with grain-you will know better than us what is going on with YOUR plants

a few of mine started douching similarly.....started throwing epsom salts at them chasing a mag def.....back on the aforementioned beside the grocery store water...0ppm 6.5-7.0 pH (green in the test vial).....already looking better....plain Happy Frog + Dolomite lime.

My tap water is 180ppm......ppl keep calling me a "water snob" but dude two weeks from now when everything bounces back we will have proof......I was told our water is ok for growing as long as you let the chlorine evaporate.....I think they were mistaken.

So I got my tds and ph meter and my tap water read 91 tds and 9.5ph. I had been using ph down anyways so Im sure I have a nut lockout problem. Now that I know that, the other problem was Ive been finding it hard to find RO water at the stores here in Boston. No one ever knows what Im even asking for when I call. Just been giving my plants plain water no ph down or anything for now until I can find RO water and giver her a good flush. Updates to come. Also I got my UltraGrow T5 4' 8 bulb but I got the bloom bulbs in it right now. Gotta buy some veg bulbs. I bought the bloom bulbs with it planning on putting them under the lights before they got sick. I obviously can't put em in bloom just yet till they are out of the woods. Im gonna let em veg till they get good and healthy though. Updates soon. Thx all!

91 aint too bad man can I ask how you were using the pH down without a way to measure the pH? Like your tap is 9.5, you know that now but what was the water pH when you added the down? Be careful with big pH swings in your water.

I had a two prong ph tester from home depot I was using