Run off water ph questions

I am about a month into my first grow & learning new things daily thanks to the fine people on this website. I'm growing 3 strains from seed in sunshine #4 advanced. I was testing my water ph using the drops & also using distilled water but from reading here have switched to tap (letting it sit & using a bubble stone) & just bought a good ph meter. I suspect my ph was too high & probably not very accurate all along. I have some lower yellow leaves & crispy leaf edges but overall plants look pretty good, new growth strong stems. I watered & fertilized at 1/4 strength today with 5.7 ph & my run off water was at 6.3. Is that good or bad? What would a good run off ph be? I appreciate any solid advise I can get! Thanks!!

it should be a bit lower in coco. 5.5-6.

their specs say a 5.5-6.5 is okay. http://www.sunshineadvanced.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SSA-4-Tech-Talk-130109.pdf

tapwater has buffers in it, which will make it bounce back to (whatever it was buffered to) around 7.

you should filter your water through a brita (charcoal filter) before mixing you solution. then after youve mixed it, test it before you use it. i bet your tapwater is buffered higher than 6.5

dont listen to him if you leave your tap water out over night it will remove the chemicals leaving only the natural minerals (your ppm) and they cannot raise your ph lvls later. you are more or less looking for a 6 ph so if you watered with 5.7 and it came out 6.3 your soil is high right now like a 6.7 if your next run off is higher than 6.3 try putting a lower ph when you water like 5

i use tap water that sits out for 24 hrs. i add some lemon juice to lower the ph. i use a soil ph meter and stay right around 6.5 ph. you can get a meter for 12-15 bucks it worth it.

halfaweek said:

dont listen to him if you leave your tap water out over night it will remove the chemicals leaving only the natural minerals (your ppm) and they cannot raise your ph lvls later. you are more or less looking for a 6 ph so if you watered with 5.7 and it came out 6.3 your soil is high right now like a 6.7 if your next run off is higher than 6.3 try putting a lower ph when you water like 5

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buffers dont evaporate..if you let the tapwater evaporate there will be solids sitting at the bottem of the cup, which are the buffers and other metals and nasty products. only some chemicals like chlorine evaporate. aeration speeds up the process, or simple stirring.

get a filter.

Are you using soil?
The ph of run off from coco is irrelevant.

halfaweek said:

dont listen to him if you leave your tap water out over night it will remove the chemicals leaving only the natural minerals (your ppm) and they cannot raise your ph lvls later. you are more or less looking for a 6 ph so if you watered with 5.7 and it came out 6.3 your soil is high right now like a 6.7 if your next run off is higher than 6.3 try putting a lower ph when you water like 5

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While I agree that no one should listen to bmeat leaving water out over night does not do anything but make the water room temp.

Most municipal water treatment is done with chloramine which does not evaporate. Fluoride and other chemicals will never evaporate and can only be removed with a good filter.

Don't listen to bmeat, ever.

yeah, chloramine is a "more stable" form of chlorine plus ammonia (i think), which means itll be even harder for that to turn form solid to liquid and evaporate.

get a filter.

trousers and his plants are all mutants, like his son in his avatar.

I finally put bmeat on my ignore list! life is so calm without having to see the garbage he posts..

bmeat stop giving people advice your a tool i checked my citys water treatment page and they use chlorine second the stuff left by the water after its gone is calcium and other minerals that you say you dont want but the last time i checked my nutes contianed them wierd