GoodGuy118
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Realized that I didn't put anything about the medium. I'm using Hydrocrunch (hydroton).
I'm doing an undercurrent RDWC. 5 27 gallon containers (4 with plants and 1 as a res).Are you in dwc or flood/drip? No reason to use air unless you are in dwc of some sorts or adding a bunch of organic shit.
Welcome to the Farm!!!
A few questions for ya!
Have you calibrated your PH tester (4.0 & 7.0 minimum)?
What is the ph of your tap water?
City or well water? ... D'oh just saw that you specifically said "well water"
What is the ph of your fresh RO water?
Did you wash your medium before using it?
What nutes & additives have you added?
How much?
Running a O2 generator?
Chilled or not? (personal curiosity)?
I am sure others will have more questions, but these will get the party started :cool:
I used liquid ph down as well and my ph in theh res would climb up. I think the ph degraded inside the container overtime. Try Earth juice natural ph down (solid crystals) should hold the ph down in the res.I got some Gold Blue ph down and used it to drop the ph (I have a gallon of regular ph down on order)
Maybe not a reliable reading at 20ppm but you should definitely see a difference between tap with 8.2ph and R/O.Nope it's not. Well, not necessarily.
Regular pH meters can't measure solutions with very low ppm like ro water, you would need a special electrode for that. The reading a regular meter gives in such solutions means absolutely nothing, you could as well roll dice to get a value...
Yes, seems its been deleted?!
No idea why, can't think of a good reason.
Was a little chaotic but besides that I don't know what's the problem.
To be clear the part about neutralizing carbonate wasn't directed at you specifically, it's just in general something everybody involved with growing crops should know about I thought.
And dH (not DH or dGH) means deutsche Härte, "German hardness".
Got it confused with dGH. It's an obsolete unit for general hardness, thought it is KH and in international use.
I get the difference between permanent and temporary hardness ;)
So yeah, in general I get what you say.
But it's been nearly two decades now and it's getting hard sometimes to get it all together.
What equilibrium do you mean?
There are a some involving CO2.
Sometimes hard to wrap my head around such stuff in second language.
I think, as you said too, it's the carbonate "buffer". But either you or me got something wrong.
Or we've got a misunderstanding.
As I recall you got HCO3¯, with addition of the H+ of an acid you get Water and CO2.
Because the equilibrium H2CO3 - CO2 is way on the right side and only minute quantities of carbonic acid are formed you'll have the CO2 gasing off. The faster the more you agitate. As both, carbonic acid and solute CO2, react acidic your pH rises as the CO2 leaves the water and your acid has been neutralized.
That's the CO2 I meant, coming from the neutralized carbonate.
And cause at our conditions there isn't much carbonic acid that's all there is to the carbonate buffer. Or not?
It's important as a buffer in our Blood but in nutrient solutions in my experience less is always better and straight ro with nutrients free of carbonates is best.
And as I said in the deleted post my tap water does exactly that till the point is reached where there's only ~30ppm HCO3¯ left. So I can either pH it to 5.5 and have it rise to 6.5+ two to three times a day for a couple days or just put in the calculated amount acid to break the carbonate buffer and leave it bubbling for a couple hours.
And with 400ppm carbonate in the water why shouldn't a couple hundred ppms CO2 leave the solution?
If they aren't what's happening with it?
About the sulfuric acid, I looked and found nothing of concern. Inhaling sulfuric acid mists heightens the chances of lung cancer, but so do other mineral acids as well and you shouldn't inhale acid fumes anyway.
If you do, lung cancer is the least of your problems I'd say ;)
So until I see new information on that I stand by my recommendation, sulfuric acid is great for pH adjustments but best is a combination of nitric, phosphoric and sulfuric acid.
And you should get clean sulfuric acid, I've got no idea if acid sold as electrolyte for lead accumulators has harmful contaminants.
Some people i know took the advice and like it a lot.
So, on topic and things not adding up:
He has those problems with well/tap water and just set up an ro unit if I got it right. So most probably those problems will be solved with that. If not that would be quite puzzling.
And I think I may be wrong on the corells, usually there aren't enough in dwc to cause something like that with those little net pots. Let's wait and see what Goodguy has got to say to that.
(Sorry if it's chaotic and poorly written, not a good day today...)
My well water tests at 8. I dropped the ph down to 6. Within hours with the air on, the ph was rising. I added 1/2 strength AN nutrients after getting it “in the zone”. It will rise all the way to 8.5-8.7 within a day. I got some Gold Blue ph down and used it to drop the ph (I have a gallon of regular ph down on order). It climbs back quickly with the air on, but if I turn the air off, it climbs much more slowly. It has stunted (if not killed) 2 of the plants and seems to have stunted the others as well. I bought an RO Buddie and am ROing a 55 gallon drum of water. When I test the RO water, the ph is still 8.0 after the RO but the PPM drops from 450ish down to 20ish. Any thoughts/recommendations?. TIA
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