What is the best ph water level range for auto flowers?

Hi everyone, recently picked up some Bubble and Kush XL autoflowers I am growing using Foxfarm ocean soil. Just getting now to learning about nutrients and maintaining balanced ph level water. Looking for some general tips and advice on what to learn and do to have healthy auto flowers.

1) What is the best range to have my ph water levels at? Also what is the PROCESS for adjusting and changing ph water levels? How can I change the ph level for water, is there something I need to buy/do?

2) Should I or Should I not add nutrients to my fox farm ocean soil? If so, what kind do you recommend/have used? And in what week/stage do you feed your plants? I know most people add nutrients in ocean soil after 4 weeks.

Thank you all so much.

Ph should range from 6.0 to 6.8

You adjust it with ph up or down from your local hydro store. There are home items that work as well but im not going to get into that.

You will need a Ph tester. Strips will do for now. But a good Ph tester is where its at imo.

Fox farms soil is filled with nutrients so you probably won't need anything for the 1st 3 to 4 weeks. I have made the mistake of adding nutrients from the get go and it will stunt your plants.

Wizzlebiz said:

Ph should range from 6.0 to 6.8

You adjust it with ph up or down from your local hydro store. There are home items that work as well but im not going to get into that.

You will need a Ph tester. Strips will do for now. But a good Ph tester is where its at imo.

Fox farms soil is filled with nutrients so you probably won't need anything for the 1st 3 to 4 weeks. I have made the mistake of adding nutrients from the get go and it will stunt your plants.

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I have a tester so I will test my tap water and then I guess pick up a up or down ph bottle.

As for the nutrients- what should I use after 4 weeks?

marsormai said:

I have a tester so I will test my tap water and then I guess pick up a up or down ph bottle.

As for the nutrients- what should I use after 4 weeks?

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I personally use foxfarms line of nutrients. For your purposes with autoflowers you would want the 2 bloom nutrients they offer if you choose to go with them.

Big bloom and tiger bloom. They work in tandem. I also use Cha ching the last 3 weeks of the grow. They also have another one called grow big. That one is for the veg stage in which will only be the 1st 3 to 4 weeks of the life cycle of an auto. For my autos I give the grow big only week 3 and only if I havent seen it begin to flower.

With that said there are alot of really good nutrients out there. Some other folks hopefully will chime in with other suggestions.

Wizzlebiz said:

I personally use foxfarms line of nutrients. For your purposes with autoflowers you would want the 2 bloom nutrients they offer of you choose to go with them.

Big bloom and tiger bloom. They work in tandem. I also use Cha ching the last 3 weeks of the grow.

With that said there are alot of really good nutrients out there. Some other folks hopefully will chime in with other suggestions.

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Thank you I haven't gotten down the whole rabbit hole of nutrients so this is def somewhere I can start. Thank you! And please link up any other threads you see about nutrients.

marsormai said:

Hi everyone, recently picked up some Bubble and Kush XL autoflowers I am growing using Foxfarm ocean soil. Just getting now to learning about nutrients and maintaining balanced ph level water. Looking for some general tips and advice on what to learn and do to have healthy auto flowers.

1) What is the best range to have my ph water levels at? Also what is the PROCESS for adjusting and changing ph water levels? How can I change the ph level for water, is there something I need to buy/do?

2) Should I or Should I not add nutrients to my fox farm ocean soil? If so, what kind do you recommend/have used? And in what week/stage do you feed your plants? I know most people add nutrients in ocean soil after 4 weeks.

Thank you all so much.

Click to expand...

pH control is necessary for hydroponic grows, including soilless. Soil has innate buffering power.

I used unpHed water when I ran a grow of Happy Frog, until it ran out of nutes. Then I treated it as drain to waste with General Hydro “Flora” 3-part plus cal-mag.

In future, admixing some powdered dolomite lime to the soil (I don’t recall how much) adds Ca, Mg and buffering power.

marsormai said:

Hi everyone, recently picked up some Bubble and Kush XL autoflowers I am growing using Foxfarm ocean soil. Just getting now to learning about nutrients and maintaining balanced ph level water. Looking for some general tips and advice on what to learn and do to have healthy auto flowers.

1) What is the best range to have my ph water levels at? Also what is the PROCESS for adjusting and changing ph water levels? How can I change the ph level for water, is there something I need to buy/do?

2) Should I or Should I not add nutrients to my fox farm ocean soil? If so, what kind do you recommend/have used? And in what week/stage do you feed your plants? I know most people add nutrients in ocean soil after 4 weeks.

Thank you all so much.

Click to expand...

Welcome to RIU. This should help you with your question. It is best to let the PH float up and down a bit.

Doug Dawson said:

Welcome to RIU. This should help you with your question. It is best to let the PH float up and down a bit.

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Hes growing in soil. 5.5 is a bit low for soil isn't it?

If you are going to use salts, then always test your soils pH first so you can either fix the soils pH if it isn't in the optimal range, or if you don't have the things readily available for you to fix the soil directly, (lime and sulfur / sulphur), you will at least know exactly what pH your water / feed will always need to be at so the plant living in that soil will always get the nutrients they need in the correct pH range to optimize their ability to uptake those nutrients!


And as for adjusting your water / nutrient(s) pH, you are better off buying the pH up / down powders and using distilled water to make up your pH Up and pH Down solutions as those pre-made mixes are usually overly diluted with water, and a lot of them use straight tap water in their manufacturing process so there is always trace amounts of chlorine or monochloramine in them! Yeah, you would think that the manufactures who do that wouldn't because their products will be used to grow plants, but they don't care, same goes for a lot of them bottled salts / nutrient lines, many of them also have chlorine or monochloramine in them, as they are made up with tap water!