Lowering PH

NinoGrows420 · Aug 23, 2019

Well tonight I just added bubbly water to my 1 gallon of mixed nutes and it dropped the ph from 5.9 to 5.6 I'm not sure if it will hurt the plant but the ph went down that's the goal right

Aquaman you think I'm gonna wake up in the am with some sad plants I sure hope not give me the run down sir if you dont mind I'm all eyes!

Aussie farm · Aug 23, 2019

Here's a little food for thought. Doesn't take much lemon juice to drop the pH of your water. First is my tap water probably 7.8 or even an 8 second is 500ml of the same water with .5ml of my home grown lemons.. Wow

Aqua Man · Aug 23, 2019

NinoGrows420 said:
Well tonight I just added bubbly water to my 1 gallon of mixed nutes and it dropped the ph from 5.9 to 5.6 I'm not sure if it will hurt the plant but the ph went down that's the goal right

Aquaman you think I'm gonna wake up in the am with some sad plants I sure hope not give me the run down sir if you dont mind I'm all eyes!

Nope you will be fine.

Fatboy · Aug 23, 2019

Newbie2019 said:
Looking for input on lowering water ph in small portions of water 2gal at a time. I found some stuff at the grow store but it’s 5ml to 55gal of water. Does anyone use muriatic acid? Or could I just put a drop of the stuff from the grow shop?

You can bubble the water with co2...very effective...monitor the pH to get where you want to go

NinoGrows420 · Aug 23, 2019

Thank u sir!!

Aqua Man · Aug 23, 2019

NinoGrows420 said:
Thank u sir!!

Just FYI though the ph won't stay down. Carbonated water is CO2 injected once it's opened and out of the bottle it will start off gassing and the ph will rise back up fairly quickly.

Fatboy · Aug 23, 2019

Aqua Man said:
Just FYI though the ph won't stay down. Carbonated water is CO2 injected once it's opened and out of the bottle it will start off gassing and the ph will rise back up fairly quickly.

It depends on what is dissolved in the water

Aqua Man · Aug 23, 2019

Fatboy said:
It depends on what is dissolved in the water

Carbonated water is CO2 dissolved in water creating carbonic acid. It off gasses fairly quickly and usually withing a couple hours.

Bobrown14 · Aug 24, 2019

Aqua Man said:
My experience also

Try RAIN water since that's the water that travels thru the atmosphere.

pH test the rain water as soon as you collect it and then wait several hours and test again.

Aqua Man · Aug 24, 2019

Bobrown14 said:
Try RAIN water since that's the water that travels thru the atmosphere.

pH test the rain water as soon as you collect it and then wait several hours and test again.

We were talking about tap water. I'm not quite sure why rain water would drop in ph after sitting. Small droplets should easily be at equalibrium so I can't see why it would absorb more co2. Never tested it though and I would never use it in hydro just for the sake of not bringing pathogens into my grow.

Bobrown14 · Aug 24, 2019

It actually tests pretty alkaline like upwards around 8pH or so and will drop down pretty fast.

Your tap water is already pH adjusted. They do that so the pipes dont rust faster.

Aqua Man · Aug 24, 2019

Bobrown14 said:
It actually tests pretty alkaline like upwards around 8pH or so and will drop down pretty fast.

Your tap water is already pH adjusted. They do that so the pipes dont rust faster.

Rain water is ph 8? Yeah tap water the keep alkaline so it does not degrade the coating on the pipes and pipes themselves. Its also under pressure with no place for gasses to escape so they stay in the water until it comes out of the tap. Like soda water. Once you open the pressure changes and gas exchange happens.

I'm not sure about rain water but I still can't see why the ph would change after sitting.

Aqua Man · Aug 24, 2019

Bobrown14 said:
It actually tests pretty alkaline like upwards around 8pH or so and will drop down pretty fast.

Your tap water is already pH adjusted. They do that so the pipes dont rust faster.

Also tap water is ph adjusted but carbonic acid still affects the ph.

jkpaw · Aug 24, 2019

Who has an opinion on RealLemon (or RealLime) concentrate? Wondering if it might be a little more predictable/stable than fresh lemons? Plus I always have some in my fridge.

BTW, last season I was trying fully organic soil for the first time and decided not to lower the pH -- since my city's water report indicated acceptable alkalinity levels, even though the tap is about 9. When my healthy seedlings graduated from distilled water I watered them from my small pond (which also is about pH 9 -- maybe because of the natural rain here, and/or from the fact that I frequently top it off from the tap). Anyway, those seedlings crinkled up pretty severely overnight, but recovered after a flush and switch back to pH'd water. Do people agree this crinkling was a pretty sure sign that my high pH is unacceptable, regardless of the alkalinity report?

Aqua Man, thanks for explaining something a few pages back that I never knew about why organic growers might want to use citric acid instead of phosphoric: that phosphoric is harder on the micro-nutrients. Last season I used Botanicare's pH down (phosphoric) because I thought it would be more stable than lemon juice, but maybe it undermined some of my good work brewing compost teas, etc.

Preparing for this season, after reading this thread, I'm thinking of switching back to peat instead of coir for 1/3 of my soil -- plus 1/3 compost (homemade in hot pile), and 1/3 perlite. I always water from the pond, as it's a great holding pool for de-chlorination -- plus it has thriving plant/fish life and muck. But is it possible to overdo pond water? Last season I think I might have overfed occasionally, but that was likely from the compost teas (thinking they were weaker than they actually were). How often would you use compost teas in 7-gallon fabric pots? After two days of bubbling, my tea still has high pH, so I suppose I'll still need to add lemon juice or RealLemon (but I'll skip phosphoric this time around).

Aqua Man · Aug 24, 2019

jkpaw said:
Who has an opinion on RealLemon (or RealLime) concentrate? Wondering if it might be a little more predictable/stable than fresh lemons? Plus I always have some in my fridge.

BTW, last season I was trying fully organic soil for the first time and decided not to lower the pH -- since my city's water report indicated acceptable alkalinity levels, even though the tap is about 9. When my healthy seedlings graduated from distilled water I watered them from my small pond (which also is about pH 9 -- maybe because of the natural rain here, and/or from the fact that I frequently top it off from the tap). Anyway, those seedlings crinkled up pretty severely overnight, but recovered after a flush and switch back to pH'd water. Do people agree this crinkling was a pretty sure sign that my high pH is unacceptable, regardless of the alkalinity report?

Aqua Man, thanks for explaining something a few pages back that I never knew about why organic growers might want to use citric acid instead of phosphoric: that phosphoric is harder on the micro-nutrients. Last season I used Botanicare's pH down (phosphoric) because I thought it would be more stable than lemon juice, but maybe it undermined some of my good work brewing compost teas, etc.

Preparing for this season, after reading this thread, I'm thinking of switching back to peat instead of coir for 1/3 of my soil -- plus 1/3 compost (homemade in hot pile), and 1/3 perlite. I always water from the pond, as it's a great holding pool for de-chlorination -- plus it has thriving plant/fish life and muck. But is it possible to overdo pond water? Last season I think I might have overfed occasionally, but that was likely from the compost teas (thinking they were weaker than they actually were). How often would you use compost teas in 7-gallon fabric pots? After two days of bubbling, my tea still has high pH, so I suppose I'll still need to add lemon juice or RealLemon (but I'll skip phosphoric this time around).

Your pond will have less than 50ppm of nitrates I'm almost sure of that. Probably more like 10-20ppm so you won't overdo it on feed. But if you have limestone in there it could affect your soil ph over time. I would get a simple GH/KH test kit from the pet store and test both tap and pond water. The ph won't really matter if you have a lower KH I would say 6-8 dkh or lower your good (in soil the lower the better soil you don't alter the soil ph and you won't need to ph the water to feed). You not so much interested in the general hardness as much as the carbonate hardness.

If your worried about chlorine just add some vitamin c it will break down chlorine and chloramines.

Sounds like your seedlings had some root issues. Can't say why though.

Fangthane · Aug 24, 2019

Aqua Man said:
If your worried about chlorine just add some vitamin c it will break down chlorine and chloramines.

I've been using this to take care of my water's chlorine/chloramine content: https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-Prim...6680757&s=gateway&sprefix=seac,aps,901&sr=8-1

Any reason I shouldn't? I'd asked the manufacturer if it's safe for planted aquaria, and they said it was.

All this talk of not pH'ing has made me curious. I let my girls dry out to the point they were pretty droopy yesterday, then gave them a good watering followed by a feed - without adjusting the pH of any of it. Guess we'll see how it goes. My tap water is around 8.7 pH and 135 ppm. With such relatively low ppm, I'm guessing (hoping) it can't possibly be all THAT hard? If my ladies die, I'm holding all of you personally responsible. :(

Aqua Man · Aug 24, 2019

Fangthane said:
I've been using this to take care of my water's chlorine/chloramine content: https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-Prim...6680757&s=gateway&sprefix=seac,aps,901&sr=8-1

Any reason I shouldn't? I'd asked the manufacturer if it's safe for planted aquaria, and they said it was.

All this talk of not pH'ing has made me curious. I let my girls dry out to the point they were pretty droopy yesterday, then gave them a good watering followed by a feed - without adjusting the pH of any of it. Guess we'll see how it goes. My tap water is around 8.7 pH and 135 ppm. With such relatively low ppm, I'm guessing (hoping) it can't possibly be all THAT hard? If my ladies die, I'm holding all of you personally responsible. :(

Yeah I use seachem prime also 1 cap treats 50gallons of water. Used it for years but it's not all that cheap. Not that it's expensive vitamin C is very cheap. I would say seachem is a great choice but does have a little sodium in it.

Fangthane · Aug 24, 2019

Aqua Man said:
I would say seachem is a great choice but does have a little sodium in it.

For someone small-time like me, who rarely uses more than 2 gallons of water at a time; at 2 drops per gallon, I've barely even put a dent in my bottle of Prime yet. Glad to hear that getting it wasn't a stupid choice.

dread808 · Aug 24, 2019

Newbie2019 said:
Looking for input on lowering water ph in small portions of water 2gal at a time. I found some stuff at the grow store but it’s 5ml to 55gal of water. Does anyone use muriatic acid? Or could I just put a drop of the stuff from the grow shop?

Just get some PH down in liquid form test in a 5 gallon bucket.. and then just use your water as you need it actually leaving your water around helps to dechlorinate it if you have that particular issue with your water i condition 300 gallon totes at a time it takes 20 oz of citric acid to bring my water from 8.6 down to 6.7. I am a soil grower. When you use liquefied citric acid a little bit goes a long way!

MIMedGrower · Aug 24, 2019

Fangthane said:
I've been using this to take care of my water's chlorine/chloramine content:

Any reason I shouldn't? I'd asked the manufacturer if it's safe for planted aquaria, and they said it was.

All this talk of not pH'ing has made me curious. I let my girls dry out to the point they were pretty droopy yesterday, then gave them a good watering followed by a feed - without adjusting the pH of any of it. Guess we'll see how it goes. My tap water is around 8.7 pH and 135 ppm. With such relatively low ppm, I'm guessing (hoping) it can't possibly be all THAT hard? If my ladies die, I'm holding all of you personally responsible. :(

Bet you dont have enough chlorine to matter either. The plants actually use some.

I bubbled buckets of water and phed when i was new. Dropped both and my plants stayed healthier. Noticed right away. The acid was building up in the soil and eventually dropping my ph.

Lowering PH

Lowering PH

NinoGrows420

Aussie farm

Aqua Man

Fatboy

NinoGrows420

Aqua Man

Fatboy

Aqua Man

Bobrown14

Aqua Man

Bobrown14

Aqua Man

Aqua Man

jkpaw

Aqua Man

Fangthane

Aqua Man

Fangthane

dread808

MIMedGrower

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