Lowering PH

[cemchris]

I'm not sure whether I have chlorine or chloramine. When I fill up a gallon jug with tap water, I can put my nose right up to the opening and it definitely smells vaguely like a swimming pool. Couple of drops of Prime and I don't smell anything. I wasn't really worried about the plants themselves; I was more concerned with preserving whatever microbial life may be floating around my soil.

My plants mostly start getting kinda ugly part-way through flower. I'm wondering if maybe all the extra P I've been giving them when I use a metric shit-ton of pH Down may be contributing to the issues I tend to have later in the plants' lives. Kinda hoping this no-pH thing works out for me. It's my water's high pH starting point that always made me think twice when I wanted to stop adjusting it.

A metric shit ton of PH down is maybe 20-30 ppm of P at the most. If you are in soil that is not going to matter. You actually need P.

 

[cemchris]

Just a side note if you are ordering PH Down or Up online get the GH Dry ones. Crazy strong and cheap. I use Dry GH Up and have for a while.

 

[CTAZ13]

oh and already started a few auto purchased as feminized from seed bank. So see if I make them into males too. LOL I have read on another thread that they can in fact hermaphrodite in order to preserve DNA in a stressed grow season. IN future on outside grows I will definitely seek a place that has shad from 2-7 or so. Cause our 100+ temps are brutal. They are super rough on my bulldogs even in the shade with kiddy pools.

 

[CTAZ13]

I bought a bale at Home Depot yesterday for $14.25, I'm not sure but I think most Home Depot's carry it?

You must be in the cannabis neck of the woods. My home depots do not offer anything I have ever seen mentioned on any forum for cannabis other than to speak out against MG. LOL

This is my selection>

Search Results for soil at The Home Depot

Find Soils ready to be picked up today at your local Home Depot store.

www.homedepot.com

 

[Fatboy]

So am I just out of luck growing with my well water? I have read others say their hard water didnt cause issues.

Let me state this is my first grow of any kind of plant period. And I knew nothing and just grabbed some basic organic potting soil and added 25% perlite for aeration. But these utopia haze did fine til bloom and then just started turning yellow. I tried Roots Organics Budda bloom. Nothing. I also used epsom salts and PH down recommended dose and then doubled the dose and soil still stuck between 7.5 and 8 on the two plants. And the indica I have is doing much better than these but seems completely stagnant since about 2-3 weeks after entering flowering.

It looks male and quite spent at that

 

[Beachwalker]

You must be in the cannabis neck of the woods. My home depots do not offer anything I have ever seen mentioned on any forum for cannabis other than to speak out against MG. LOL

This is my selection>

Search Results for soil at The Home Depot

Find Soils ready to be picked up today at your local Home Depot store.

www.homedepot.com

Might be able to special-order it?

 

[Fangthane]

So see if I make them into males too. LOL I have read on another thread that they can in fact hermaphrodite in order to preserve DNA in a stressed grow season

I'm in AZ, and heat is a fairly constant issue for me. I've never had entire plants turn hermaphrodite, like yours seem to have done (assuming you actually had feminized seeds to begin with), but my last grow did end with me finding like 6 seeds scattered throughout my auto plants. For shits and giggles, I'm actually growing 2 of them out right now. By most standards, I'm sure they'd be considered beat up, but as far as my plants typically progress, they look about normal. I don't see any seeds yet.

How old are your auto seedlings? It looks like you may be making the same mistake that fucked me pretty royally over the past few months. Starting seeds in large-ish pots can be tricky, as far as proper watering goes. If you're only focusing on watering the small area right around the stem, you may give yourself growth issues.

 

[jkpaw]

I'm not sure why you don't want to adjust your pH? If it was already said I missed it, but I am curious? btw I use citric acid as a natural way to adjust my pH down

One reason it would be nice to avoid adjusting pH if it's not necessary: I suspect I've induced stressful swings while using phosphoric acid. (Meter losing calibration, etc.) It would make watering and feeding much simpler and easier. Early on I'd heard lemon juice was not stable, so I didn't try it -- but the pH-down was the only part of my last grow that was not organic.

This time I'll try citric acid (unless anyone has had good results with RealLemon). My last seedlings really did NOT seem to like un-adjusted water -- despite my city's report of acceptable alkalinity.

I've been learning to build my own soil from compost, and am gradually learning to lower the pH there with long-term minerals amendments. We'll see how that goes. For now, I'll keep adjusting.

 

[Beachwalker]

One reason it would be nice to avoid adjusting pH if it's not necessary: I suspect I've induced stressful swings while using phosphoric acid. (Meter losing calibration, etc.) It would make watering and feeding much simpler and easier. Early on I'd heard lemon juice was not stable, so I didn't try it -- but the pH-down was the only part of my last grow that was not organic.

This time I'll try citric acid (unless anyone has had good results with RealLemon). My last seedlings really did NOT seem to like un-adjusted water -- despite my city's report of acceptable alkalinity.

I've been learning to build my own soil from compost, and am gradually learning to lower the pH there with long-term minerals amendments. We'll see how that goes. For now, I'll keep adjusting.

Lol I hear you it would be way easier! I'm having trouble with my meter now and it's only a year old I think it's still under warranty (it's an Apera) but I can't grow without pHing my water because my pH is 8.9 but yeah I'd rather not do it too believe me! but at the end of the day I'd rather put bud in the jar so you know what I mean? :)

I just switch to citric acid it's great and it holds the pH for about 36 hours from my observations I also have just started building my own soil of sorts and I know what you mean about that but unless you're using 7-10 gallon pots you really ought to consider getting your pH game down pat because if you've got great soil in a big enough pot you might get away with no pH but if not, eh?

Best of luck and stop by the beach house if you want to check out my soil recipe I just posted it earlier today

 

[jkpaw]

oh and already started a few auto purchased as feminized from seed bank. So see if I make them into males too. LOL I have read on another thread that they can in fact hermaphrodite in order to preserve DNA in a stressed grow season. IN future on outside grows I will definitely seek a place that has shad from 2-7 or so. Cause our 100+ temps are brutal.

I fight heat a lot here too with (indoor) temps hovering above 80 during flowering. This time I'm adjusting my "season" to hopefully mitigate that.

But each grow so far I've dealt with some amount of seeds from feminized plants, which I attribute mainly to stress in late flowering. My last grow was best -- just a few seeds here and there -- and I suspect I'll keep improving as I learn better to keep everyone happy through flowering. Worst was when I was trying to flower mid- to late-summer (which turned out to be hell on my AC bills!