I'm a bit new to this but long story short i have a 120 litres reservoir i use to prep my water. I have an aerator and worm castings in a tea bag. I adjust my PH to 6.0 and a day later its back to 8.0. I use GH PH down and i dechlorinate the water using tap water conditioner. not sure why my PH is climbing. is this a noob thing ? Am i forgetting something ?
sounds like yer not really fightin pH so much as yer fightin the minerals in that water
lotta tap water has a bunch of bicarbonate / carbonate in it old timers just called it hard water or limey water. you can knock it down with pH down and itll look good for a minute then the water buffers itself right back up like a creek runnin over limestone. bottle acid dont change the nature of the water it just argues with it for a while
the air stone can make it show faster too. bubblin drives off co2 and that can let the pH climb. commercial hydro boys chase that number all day with bottles n meters but the water is tellin you what it is
id do this simple
take a bucket of yer tap water
no worm castings
no conditioner
no pH down
bubble it 24 hrs and test it
then test yer tap right out the faucet too. pH and ppm/ec if you got it. better yet get a cheap KH / alkalinity test like folks use for ponds or aquariums. thats the number that matters. pH is just the surface mood of the water alkalinity is the backbone
also id be careful leavin worm castings sittin in a 120L res. castings are good medicine for the soil but they aint meant to just sit in warm bubbly water forever. that turns into swamp tea pretty quick and then yer pH is gonna wander all over like a skunk in the brush. brew it separate for a day or so use it then clean the barrel
if yer in soil id stop tryin to nail 6.0 like some catalog grow chart. good soil with humus and biology will buffer a lot on its own. real dirt knows more than most of these shiny bottle programs. if yer in coco or hydro then yeah you gotta control it tighter but the fix is still the same figure out yer source water
if it keeps climbin back to 8 then cut that tap with rain water RO or some cleaner water. thats what id do before dumpin more acid in there. back when we were runnin old Afghani and Mexican lines up in the hills the best plants always came from balanced water living soil and selection not chasing numbers every morning
good water good soil good seed. thats where the real medicine starts not in the bottle aisle.
