What is the PH of your distilled water?

Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
Distilled water is supposed to be a neutral ph 7. When exposed to air the ph will drop.
My old gallon of distilled water tests ph6. A new gallon purchased yesterday tested PH 6.
im4satori purchased a gallon yesterday and his tested PH 6.

Anyone out there who has distilled water, let us know what your distilled water PH is and what you used to test the PH.
I would like to see how many of you have distilled water that tests PH 7.

The real need is to find out whether distilled water with a PH of 6 will deliver the same results as distilled water with a PH of 7 doing the soil slurry test. I think the results will be the same but won't know until someone with access to both PH 6 and PH 7 distilled waters can do a comparison.
If I could get some distilled water with a PH of 7 then I could compare the two and have results in 15 minutes, I just don't know where to buy distilled water that has a PH of 7. My last 3 jugs were 6.

Is there a quality issue and I am buying the cheap stuff? If there is a more expensive version of distilled water out there I'd try it.
If anyone has distilled water that tests PH 7, let us know the brand.
 
Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
Kingrow1 said:
Isn't that ppm past world drinking water health standards?
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IDK, it's pretty common in the desert south west in the US. It is because our drinking water comes from mountain run off. For drinking water, I convert it to RO, it's good when converted to RO.
 
Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
Dr.Nick Riviera said:
no, because you want an accurate reading of what goes in before testing.
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@im4satori feels the water for the slurry test needs to have a PH of 7 to start the test and that the ppms of the solution are not relevant. Hope I said that correctly.
I feel the ppms of the input water for the slurry test need to be as low as possible (my distilled tests 1 ppm) and that the PH is irrelevant.
Does your position match either of these or is it different?
Just want to understand the slurry test results I'm getting to see if they are reliable. I'm new to slurry testing.
 
Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
My thinking is without a buffer (low ppms) the PH of the slurry will more accurately reflect that of the soil.
 
D

Dr.Nick Riviera

Well-Known Member
Buba Blend said:
@im4satori feels the water for the slurry test needs to have a PH of 7 to start the test and that the ppms of the solution are not relevant. Hope I said that correctly.
I feel the ppms of the input water for the slurry test need to be as low as possible (my distilled tests 1 ppm) and that the PH is irrelevant.
Does your position match either of these or is it different?
Just want to understand the slurry test results I'm getting to see if they are reliable. I'm new to slurry testing.
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if testing for soil, wouldn't De ionized water be best? I would think as low of accurate readings of what your testing for is all that matters.
 
G

Grorilla

Member
Buba Blend said:
What brand distilled water did you buy that was 7?
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When i first started this grow i bought 5 gallons of walmart distilled water. All of which tested between 6-7. But I'll admit that was also before I had a digital meter so my results were probably less than accurate, but i cant see how how they could be that far off.
 
D

DirtDigginChick

Active Member
The labs we send our samples to test use distilled water with a pH of 7 for slurry testing. If you're distilled water is consistently testing at 6 I'm wondering if your meter needs to be calibrated? Which it would need to be calibrated for 7.01 and 4.01 to be 100% accurate. I know that was my problem when I pH'd my distilled water and it kept coming back at 5.5. I use off-brand (Spartan) distilled water and if I don't poke a hole in the jug (2.5 gallon) it stays at 7 all the way through.
 
Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
DirtDigginChick said:
The labs we send our samples to test use distilled water with a pH of 7 for slurry testing. If you're distilled water is consistently testing at 6 I'm wondering if your meter needs to be calibrated? Which it would need to be calibrated for 7.01 and 4.01 to be 100% accurate. I know that was my problem when I pH'd my distilled water and it kept coming back at 5.5. I use off-brand (Spartan) distilled water and if I don't poke a hole in the jug (2.5 gallon) it stays at 7 all the way through.
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Myself and another grower purchased a bottle yesterday and we both tested with the hydroponic drops as soon as we opened it. We both got similar results being yellow, mine look slightly orange, pics below from the test of the distilled water. I have been reading of many instances online of people seeing the same thing with their distilled water, some have purchased it and had a PH as low as 5.5.
Distilled water and soil are all that is supposed to be needed for a soil slurry test.
I can find plenty of sites and information that say use distilled water to do a soil slurry test.
I cannot find any useful information online that states the distilled water cannot be a PH of 6 for the test, that it has to be 7.
If anyone finds info saying the PH of the distilled water cannot be below 7, please post a link.

100_6118.JPG
 
D

DirtDigginChick

Active Member
Buba Blend said:
Myself and another grower purchased a bottle yesterday and we both tested with the hydroponic drops as soon as we opened it. We both got similar results being yellow, mine look slightly orange, pics below from the test of the distilled water. I have been reading of many instances online of people seeing the same thing with their distilled water, some have purchased it and had a PH as low as 5.5.
Distilled water and soil are all that is supposed to be needed for a soil slurry test.
I can find plenty of sites and information that say use distilled water to do a soil slurry test.
I cannot find any useful information online that states the distilled water cannot be a PH of 6 for the test, that it has to be 7.
If anyone finds info saying the PH of the distilled water cannot be below 7, please post a link.

View attachment 4014654
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I have a few sources of distilled water. I'll check them out and see if any of them are lower pH, if they are, I'll do some side-by-sides tomorrow and let you know what I come up with. One of the dudes I chat with about this was wondering if you don't use 50% water and 50% soil will it affect the result of the test? I'll be checking that as well.
 
Buba Blend

Buba Blend

Well-Known Member
DirtDigginChick said:
I have a few sources of distilled water. I'll check them out and see if any of them are lower pH, if they are, I'll do some side-by-sides tomorrow and let you know what I come up with. One of the dudes I chat with about this was wondering if you don't use 50% water and 50% soil will it affect the result of the test? I'll be checking that as well.
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I was just about to post something that might help. Online I find the EDU sites the most reliable.
See if this info helps.

Here is a paste and link from umass.edu about soil testing. I figure if distilled water PH was crucial they would say test the PH of the distilled water.
umass.edu
Most greenhouse soil tests measure pH (acidity), soluble salts, and specific major and minor elements. A soil test is designed to extract plant available nutrients for analysis. This accomplished by using an extracting solution which mimics the root systems in terms extracting nutrients from the soil. Nowadays, for greenhouse soilless media, the most common extracting solution is distilled water and the standard test is the saturated media extract (SME) method. In this procedure a paste is formed by mixing the sample with distilled water and, following an equilibration period, the liquid portion is analyzed for its nutrient content. Two other methods are used by some labs - 1:2 dilution and 1:5 dilution. These involve mixing the sample with larger volumes of water then equilibrating, filtering and analyzing the extract. All three are accepted methods, but SME is used by most commercial and many state labs.
Here is the link:
https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/soil-tests-sampling-interpreting-results-of-greenhouse-soil-0
 
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