New grower tap water soil ph

[Rickylee]

My tap water is 7.5 and 150ppm i ph down to 6.5 and it rises over a few hrs back to 7 my runoff ph is at 7 sometimes higher i have a possible potassium difficency during mid flower just curious if my tap water is rising the soil ph to 7 or its ok having a runoff of 7 ph in oceanforest soil i have a feeling my water is also causing my soil ph to rise causing potassium

 

[BB22]

Growing in soil has a bit of a cheat code.

Even better if you’re on city water, which is usually regulated to be in the right range for growing stuff

You could drive yourself crazy testing all that stuff. Ive found it is not necessary.

I’m sure others will offer suggestions

 

[Rickylee]

Growing in soil has a bit of a cheat code.

Even better if you’re on city water, which is usually regulated to be in the right range for growing stuff

You could drive yourself crazy testing all that stuff. Ive found it is not necessary.

I’m sure others will offer suggestions

Growing in soil has a bit of a cheat code.

Even better if you’re on city water, which is usually regulated to be in the right range for growing stuff

You could drive yourself crazy testing all that stuff. Ive found it is not necessary.

I’m sure others will offer suggestions

Guess ill learn imon my own thanks

 

[BB22]

Guess ill learn imon my own thanks

Im a newer grower in soil.

I’ve found that achieving proper dry back. Combined with thorough, drenching of the medium, proper lighting and air flow has helped me way more than measuring any kind of PP

Best of luck

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

My tap water is 7.5 and 150ppm i ph down to 6.5 and it rises over a few hrs back to 7 my runoff ph is at 7 sometimes higher i have a possible potassium difficency during mid flower just curious if my tap water is rising the soil ph to 7 or its ok having a runoff of 7 ph in oceanforest soil i have a feeling my water is also causing my soil ph to rise causing potassium

My tap water is 7.6 pH every time I test it. That's not what my soil tests, though. It varies. A pH of 7.0 is okay for soil. The best soil pH is about 6.5. A pH below about 6.2 can cause micronutrient toxicity, and above 7.0 can cause macronutrient deficiencies.

There are several ways to test soil pH. I have a probe type tester from Amazon that is easy to use. A slurry test is also useful and instructions for the test can be found on the Internet.

Keep in mind that the pH of the water usually doesn't have a big effect on the pH of the soil. Soluble substances in the soil have a bigger effect on pH. Most commercial soils, however, like Ocean Forest for example, have buffers that adjust the soil pH. For that reason, it's rarely necessary to adjust the pH of soil the first time it's used.

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

Guess ill learn imon my own thanks

Don't give up so easily. You're not on your own if you give the forum a chance.

 

[BB22]

Don't give up so easily. You're not on your own if you give the forum a chance.

You really can learn some shit here! I didn’t mean to sound like a dick. Sorry if I did.

 

[Rickylee]

Im a newer grower in soil.

I’ve found that achieving proper dry back. Combined with thorough, drenching of the medium, proper lighting and air flow has helped me way more than measuring any kind of PP

Best of luck

My tap water is 7.6 pH every time I test it. That's not what my soil tests, though. It varies. A pH of 7.0 is okay for soil. The best soil pH is about 6.5. A pH below about 6.2 can cause micronutrient toxicity, and above 7.0 can cause macronutrient deficiencies.

There are several ways to test soil pH. I have a probe type tester from Amazon that is easy to use. A slurry test is also useful and instructions for the test can be found on the Internet.

Keep in mind that the pH of the water usually doesn't have a big effect on the pH of the soil. Soluble substances in the soil have a bigger effect on pH. Most commercial soils, however, like Ocean Forest for example, have buffers that adjust the soil pH. For that reason, it's rarely necessary to adjust the pH of soil the first time it's used.

I was worried the reason im having a deficiency during flower was my soil ph being high locking out potassium cause i had the same issue my last grow with a auto now my photo is doing the same thing not feeding synthetic nutes ive used greenrush and gaia green just wanted to pinpoint the issue o it doesn't happen and i know what to look for i have good air flow 4 inch exhaust in a 3x3 ts1000 light 12 inch oscillating fan i water only when the pot is fully dry and light both plants did great during beg but when i hit flower the leaves get what looks like potassium looking at pictures online ive raised my light thinking it was that same burnt tips and margins my runoff ppm was 800

Growing in soil has a bit of a cheat code.

Even better if you’re on city water, which is usually regulated to be in the right range for growing stuff

You could drive yourself crazy testing all that stuff. Ive found it is not necessary.

I’m sure others will offer suggestions

Yea i tested it because i have a deficiency toxicity or lockout during flower sonim on hear asking people that have grown more than 2 plants

 

[Rickylee]

You really can learn some shit here! I didn’t mean to sound like a dick. Sorry if I did.

You didn't

 

[Rickylee]

You didn't

Your right im pulling my hair out over the issue if my girls not happy im not

 

[Gmix]

Your in soil right

What are you feeding as normally soils buffer themselves & you don’t need to worry about ph

Or did I get to stoned & lose the plot

 

[BB22]

Sharing my grow

I have a couple IlGM Autos in One Gallon pots. A few clones and a couple seed starts .

Please, feel free to talk smack and critique

 

[LoveGrowingIt]

I was worried the reason im having a deficiency during flower was my soil ph being high locking out potassium cause i had the same issue my last grow with a auto now my photo is doing the same thing

It's possible. Test the pH of the soil to be sure. The pH would have to be greater than 7.0.

Posting a few pictures might help. They make it much easier for folks here to diagnose problems.

ive raised my light

Might be better to wait on that till the nutrient issue is resolved.

 

[Rickylee]

It's possible. Test the pH of the soil to be sure. The pH would have to be greater than 7.0.

Posting a few pictures might help. They make it much easier for folks here to diagnose problems.


Might be better to wait on that till the nutrient issue is resolved.

 

[Rickylee]

The pics online look the same is it toxicity difficency or lockout new growth is good once they grow for a couple days and get bigger they start looking this way runoff 800ppm 7ph input was 150ppm 6.5ph topdressing of gaia green 284 per instructions for a 5 gal pot and one of the 444 all purpose watered in with greenrush bloom 15 days ago not sure if its the greenrush bloom and i got burnt or im in lockout from potassium ive since watered only last watering yesterday i gave 1/8 teaspoon to a gallon of water greenrush seaweed extract to see if i was just lacking in potassium waiting for newer grouth to grow out a bit to tell if its getting worse i also raised my light incase it was that to me it looks like the potassium pictures ive seen but there's definitely potassium in the soil i top dressed with 284 2 weeks ago so maybe its just now becoming available or my soil ph is to high loke im think locking thngs up

 

[Rickylee]

The pics online look the same is it toxicity difficency or lockout new growth is good once they grow for a couple days and get bigger they start looking this way runoff 800ppm 7ph input was 150ppm 6.5ph topdressing of gaia green 284 per instructions for a 5 gal pot and one of the 444 all purpose watered in with greenrush bloom 15 days ago not sure if its the greenrush bloom and i got burnt or im in lockout from potassium ive since watered only last watering yesterday i gave 1/8 teaspoon to a gallon of water greenrush seaweed extract to see if i was just lacking in potassium waiting for newer grouth to grow out a bit to tell if its getting worse i also raised my light incase it was that to me it looks like the potassium pictures ive seen but there's definitely potassium in the soil i top dressed with 284 2 weeks ago so maybe its just now becoming available or my soil ph is to high loke im think locking thngs up

 

[Rickylee]

Or i have nute burn looks the same so does light burn but the red spots look like potassium

 

[JIMKSI64]

Ok let's address a few things about your grow
You are in Fox Farms soil and made a good choice for nutrition that is all organic. The soil is self buffering. Water will not change the pH of this soil.
Water is a very simple molecule. It is a covalent bond of oxygen and hydrogen. Covalent bond are very difficult to break as the breaking of the bonds in water would have to strip and electron from the outer shell of the molecule and this would bail a loose atom of H and O, something that does happen but at a very low rate. This electron movement is needed to change the PH of water.
This is the reason that a water source that a person could drink will never cause issues on an organic grow. I do not pH water until I add nutrition that changes pH.
Next the lockout issue.
What did your soil lockout from? Lockout is caused by a buildup of some sort that effects uptake of nutrition IN A CHEMICAL SALT GROW. It is so prevalent that nute manufacturers sell chemicals to break this buildup and flush to clean the salts.
Now you can lockout a organic grow. The number one issue for organic lockout is root issues caused by watering practices. Wet feet kills the biome causing a cascade of dieing roots and a buildup of dead material that also jacks PH. A properly balanced soil organic grow will throw pH numbers and especially EC numbers that are worthless if you try to compare those numbers against a chemical ferts grow. Conflation of grow mediums from one system to another is a major reason answers on this forum are sometimes totally wrong. Telling a new grower to always keep soil wet or to let that coco dry back are wrong because the grow mediums are so different. Some of the rules for pH have bled into soil from other methods. We all need to do a better job of asking for the data we need to fix the problem
Most of the deficiencies and lockouts and pH issues look alike. Much like health care problems have to be narrowed by a process of elimination. This should be done in a process that starts before you have a problem. It starts by writing down everything you do so you have the ability to unwind what is NOT the problems.
When hit with problems start with the very basics. Recheck your light settings temp and humidity. What is the transperation rate of the plant. This is what VDP gives you. From veg to flower VDP goes up to increase through put of water and nutrition. If the problem is one plant or one part of a plant look for airflow issues and temp issues causing microclimates or perhaps a sweep fan that stalls or one the rebound return points at one plant for 5 seconds. Eliminate each one of those obvious issues. This should take very little time.
Next is a review of the last thing you did. Ok you topped dressed with x product and 5 days later something is going down. Ok you moved up from 1.3 liters to 1.8 liters of water now this is happening. And the most important one in an organic grow is
Checked pots and all are light. Dryback had dirt pulled away from edge. Watered with xxx amount of water. What you should not be doing in organic is watered plant on 4th day cause that is what I do. I have gotten to the point where I am pulling the pots based on my weight lift and then weighing the pot.
When I collected data on how this is going I am putting the pot back in 30% of the time without a feed as my lift weight check is off.

This long screed is not going to fix your plant. I am a former instructor of young minds and professionals alike. I do not give answers. I give knowledge to allow you to fix your own grow. As several of points such as pH and EC and lockout do not even have anything to do with the organic nature of your grow the things that can be wrong are actually much smaller than you think.
In order to figure out this problem I would need a grow diary to follow along and see what has been done that led to this point.
One thing that I am curious about gia green growers is the lack of a carbohydrate boost for biome maintenance. My pour nutes have a sugar component in the 3rd bottle. A source of carbs for the biome should be a maintenance item in an organic grow.
Also power tip. In veg week 3 and 5 and flower 2 another add of Ocean Forest as top dress works very well and also recharges the Humic Acid components in the grow. About an inch deep and then watered. Any thing organic you put in your pot takes a while to break down and be converted. Adding organics to the pot to fix a problem normally takes too long you have to be ahead of the soil to run organics.

 

[Rickylee]

Ok let's address a few things about your grow
You are in Fox Farms soil and made a good choice for nutrition that is all organic. The soil is self buffering. Water will not change the pH of this soil.
Water is a very simple molecule. It is a covalent bond of oxygen and hydrogen. Covalent bond are very difficult to break as the breaking of the bonds in water would have to strip and electron from the outer shell of the molecule and this would bail a loose atom of H and O, something that does happen but at a very low rate. This electron movement is needed to change the PH of water.
This is the reason that a water source that a person could drink will never cause issues on an organic grow. I do not pH water until I add nutrition that changes pH.
Next the lockout issue.
What did your soil lockout from? Lockout is caused by a buildup of some sort that effects uptake of nutrition IN A CHEMICAL SALT GROW. It is so prevalent that nute manufacturers sell chemicals to break this buildup and flush to clean the salts.
Now you can lockout a organic grow. The number one issue for organic lockout is root issues caused by watering practices. Wet feet kills the biome causing a cascade of dieing roots and a buildup of dead material that also jacks PH. A properly balanced soil organic grow will throw pH numbers and especially EC numbers that are worthless if you try to compare those numbers against a chemical ferts grow. Conflation of grow mediums from one system to another is a major reason answers on this forum are sometimes totally wrong. Telling a new grower to always keep soil wet or to let that coco dry back are wrong because the grow mediums are so different. Some of the rules for pH have bled into soil from other methods. We all need to do a better job of asking for the data we need to fix the problem
Most of the deficiencies and lockouts and pH issues look alike. Much like health care problems have to be narrowed by a process of elimination. This should be done in a process that starts before you have a problem. It starts by writing down everything you do so you have the ability to unwind what is NOT the problems.
When hit with problems start with the very basics. Recheck your light settings temp and humidity. What is the transperation rate of the plant. This is what VDP gives you. From veg to flower VDP goes up to increase through put of water and nutrition. If the problem is one plant or one part of a plant look for airflow issues and temp issues causing microclimates or perhaps a sweep fan that stalls or one the rebound return points at one plant for 5 seconds. Eliminate each one of those obvious issues. This should take very little time.
Next is a review of the last thing you did. Ok you topped dressed with x product and 5 days later something is going down. Ok you moved up from 1.3 liters to 1.8 liters of water now this is happening. And the most important one in an organic grow is
Checked pots and all are light. Dryback had dirt pulled away from edge. Watered with xxx amount of water. What you should not be doing in organic is watered plant on 4th day cause that is what I do. I have gotten to the point where I am pulling the pots based on my weight lift and then weighing the pot.
When I collected data on how this is going I am putting the pot back in 30% of the time without a feed as my lift weight check is off.

This long screed is not going to fix your plant. I am a former instructor of young minds and professionals alike. I do not give answers. I give knowledge to allow you to fix your own grow. As several of points such as pH and EC and lockout do not even have anything to do with the organic nature of your grow the things that can be wrong are actually much smaller than you think.
In order to figure out this problem I would need a grow diary to follow along and see what has been done that led to this point.
One thing that I am curious about gia green growers is the lack of a carbohydrate boost for biome maintenance. My pour nutes have a sugar component in the 3rd bottle. A source of carbs for the biome should be a maintenance item in an organic grow.
Also power tip. In veg week 3 and 5 and flower 2 another add of Ocean Forest as top dress works very well and also recharges the Humic Acid components in the grow. About an inch deep and then watered. Any thing organic you put in your pot takes a while to break down and be converted. Adding organics to the pot to fix a problem normally takes too long you have to be ahead of the soil to run organics.

Thanks for your reply man lots of good information here thank you

 

[ATLien415]

Most of the deficiencies and lockouts and pH issues look alike. Much like health care problems have to be narrowed by a process of elimination. This should be done in a process that starts before you have a problem. It starts by writing down everything you do so you have the ability to unwind what is NOT the problems.

Astute and expert answer. One thing that I often see not being explained to newer growers/fresh learners is WHY the industry relies on tissue testing, not logic trees... A standard dich. key for discerning cannabis nutrient concerns is great, for someone who wants to understand soil health. On the cultivating side, imagine if your car's oil light only went off 3 weeks after it was out of oil... We wouldn't be using the oil light anymore, would we? When we discern something with the plant tissue with our human eyes, it is already days to weeks into the issue. For this reason, the quicker-than-eyes discernment, tissue testing is standard in any grow room with weight on the line. Otherwise, you're automatically in a hyper-reactive posture.

Just keep in mind that what you are seeing on the plant is likely the issue of last week, or the week before. Too often we see this and the cultivator iterate and iterate and iterate back and forth back and forth when it comes to making these types of adjustments.