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Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

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Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by seymore_budz »

Anothet geat video from e-Gro

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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

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grumpygrower wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 9:28 pm
Anothet geat video from e-Gro

Holy fook how have I not gave a shit about this til just now. Grumpy man this video is awesome ALL GROWERS SHOULD WATCH THIS. I took like 15 screenshots of his slides that were very informational. Sounds like I should adjust my water pH before mixing my fish emulsion so that I can tie up and remove some of the acid in the soil that is likely building up due to my high alkaline water... that and I shouldnt be using cheap soil with nutes already in it
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by seymore_budz »

Mafoo.Martin wrote:
Mon May 25, 2020 2:04 pm
grumpygrower wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 9:28 pm
Anothet geat video from e-Gro

Holy fook how have I not gave a shit about this til just now. Grumpy man this video is awesome ALL GROWERS SHOULD WATCH THIS. I took like 15 screenshots of his slides that were very informational. Sounds like I should adjust my water pH before mixing my fish emulsion so that I can tie up and remove some of the acid in the soil that is likely building up due to my high alkaline water... that and I shouldnt be using cheap soil with nutes already in it
Glad you enjoyed it Mafoo.martin! IMO, water quality should be up there with light and environmental conditions. Too many people worry about what they're putting in the water but not many consider water quality. You normally see this with coco and soil grows as they progress into the later stages. The calcium carbonate starts to build up in the media and starts to play havoc with the plants.
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

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Alright so Ive only watched this once as my data this month is near zero so trying to remember the teachings. I have high alkaline water with a pH around 8.9.9.0. Now he said some goofy stuff like high alkaline water “tricks u into thinking its just a pH issue” when really the biggest issue we deal with is the bicarbonate in the water.

So... i acidify my water to ~6.3 right now. I could probably drop it a bit lower. So when I add this water to the root zone, the remnant bicarbonate absorbs hydrogen ions and slowly raises the pH of my substrate... which I think is causing some interveinal chlorosis and iron lockout now in the lower leaves of several different plants of mine.

I thought though that if I acidified my water this wouldnt be happening. Like I said before, do I need to acidify lower than 6.3??? Im concerned my water is junk and I dont know how to fix it
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by Sage »

I had similar, ph was around 8.2 with high alkalinity, after watching this I dug up a "zero water" pitcher i had in storage and now run about half my water through it. Now my ph takes no acid to adjust my nutes knock it right to about 6.0-6.4 and the plant is now very happy. I did half because it still giving me some cal, and some level of buffer.
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by seymore_budz »

Mafoo.Martin wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 3:45 am
Alright so Ive only watched this once as my data this month is near zero so trying to remember the teachings. I have high alkaline water with a pH around 8.9.9.0. Now he said some goofy stuff like high alkaline water “tricks u into thinking its just a pH issue” when really the biggest issue we deal with is the bicarbonate in the water.

So... i acidify my water to ~6.3 right now. I could probably drop it a bit lower. So when I add this water to the root zone, the remnant bicarbonate absorbs hydrogen ions and slowly raises the pH of my substrate... which I think is causing some interveinal chlorosis and iron lockout now in the lower leaves of several different plants of mine.

I thought though that if I acidified my water this wouldnt be happening. Like I said before, do I need to acidify lower than 6.3??? Im concerned my water is junk and I dont know how to fix it
So in lamens, the bicarb in your water is alkaline and acts as a buffer. If you have high levels in the water, not only does it increase the PH of the water, it locks it into place so it takes more acid to drop it causing an inbalance.

Further acidification occurs when your plants feed. Your plants release H+ ions when taking up food. These react with the calcium carbonate to produce calcium bicarbonate.

CaCO3 + H+ -> 2 HCO3 + Ca

This increases calcium levels in the media what in turn drops iron uptake as well as lowers the solubility of calcium carbonate and more builds up.
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by Sage »

sageridder wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 4:03 am
I had similar, ph was around 8.2 with high alkalinity, after watching this I dug up a "zero water" pitcher i had in storage and now run about half my water through it. Now my ph takes no acid to adjust my nutes knock it right to about 6.0-8.4 and the plant is now very happy. I did half because it still giving me some cal, and some level of buffer.
can't edit 6.0-6.4 is what was meant.
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by seymore_budz »

sageridder wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 11:02 am
sageridder wrote:
Wed May 27, 2020 4:03 am
I had similar, ph was around 8.2 with high alkalinity, after watching this I dug up a "zero water" pitcher i had in storage and now run about half my water through it. Now my ph takes no acid to adjust my nutes knock it right to about 6.0-8.4 and the plant is now very happy. I did half because it still giving me some cal, and some level of buffer.
can't edit 6.0-6.4 is what was meant.
Updated it for you bro :fist:
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by Mafooo »

Ok good I knew ai was mostly understanding this. Seeing the stoichiometry helps a lot actually. I love writing chemical reactions. Glad you did that.

And Sageride you just filter half ur water volume and recombine the filtered amd non filtered like the professor suggests to do. Interesting.

I think Im gonna start blending filtered water too. Im honestly concerned for these plants
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Re: Focus on the water alkalinity not the water PH

Post by Labs Dexter »

I couldnt understand the guy on video so i stopped at 15 mins in... but i think you guys explained it in simpler terms... i think

Soo onto topic where i live water is hard (as me weeeener when i wake up every morning lol but back to the point) i had issues for a long time with soil growing and coco from using the traditional ph ranges for both

in soil 5.5 going in is best same with organic for some reason i must ph

and coco plants lived with no issues at ph of 3.5-4.0

so am i right in thinking that you guys and that video are saying because my water is so hard plants are liking that lower ph going in ?

Run off is allways 5.8 in coco lol thats with the ph of 3.5-4.0 going in ..

cant remeber the run off of soil was a while ago with that
Thanks for looking in and God bless

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