Indoor fox farm ocean forest - happy frog ??'s

[JbBurnin]

Hey jm, what are your methods of buffering ph? Raising or lowering it

 

[rhapsodyrcks]

Hey jm, what are your methods of buffering ph? Raising or lowering it

I would assume ph up and down..but there are other ways of doing it. ph up and down are just easy.

 

[JM]

ph up: baking soda
ph down: vinegar

I'm cheap!

my water runs 6.5-7.0 after bubbling... so i also use nutes to set it on... usually during a nutrient feed i can use the nutes to make the required ph for the soil I'm buffering.. if I'm feeding heavy i still have to baking soda back up a bit... I use lines plus other supplements just FYI.

if no nutes, I often have to drop a lil vinegar in to adjust.... I use promix soil which comes at 7.0 by my meter... so a little adjustment is required... 7.0 is fine for germ... but as they start to grow i start adjusting with phed water first... then at 7 days i trip in real light shot of nutes.... getting sidetracked...
my point is theres a relationship here... between soil ph, water ph, and nutrients... and that soil ph is most important and using water ph to gently buffer out your soil to proper ph can make all the difference in a grow.

 

[JM]

example:
my soil is 7.0
my water is 7.0 (for this demo)

seedlings go in and first watering is set to 6.0 ph (plain no nutes)
2-3 days the soil starts to dry up a bit... so another watering at 6.0 is added...
again 2-3 days.....
so on.... now we're at 7 days (in this case from germ as there is a big difference from 4 and 7 days in regards to feeding... never want to cook em too hard or early)... so 1ml GB, 5 ml Kelp seaweed fish fert, 1 capful of root drench(promote root explosions), and maybe a drop of molasses(good ferts nutrients for beneficial fungi) is added (per gallon water)... ph is tested .. so water went down to 6.8 say...
too high for me still as my soil is reading 6.9 or 6.8 at this point...
so i buffer the water down to 6.00 again..... water in thoroughly... good even distribution of nutes into soil this way... water till 10% runoff (this also removes excess salts)
couple days go by and soil dries out again... plants usually responding well to first nute shot, provided it was light enough...
phing waterr to 6.00 no nute still...
now Fastforward to day 14
our soil is starting to show around 6.5 stable.... so now its time to start using ph 6.3 as the run... cuz as the soil dries you'll often see it swing back up again towards 7.... so you're still bumping it in place... but with less delta (change from soil's PH)

you'd carry on till you were at soil ph 6.4 say.. as thats dead center between the "ideal" range 6.3 - 6.5 ... I say "ideal" because some strians prefer a little different ph and I simply wouldn't want to mislead your understanding.

:smokebuds:

hope this helps.

 

[JbBurnin]

Yes, that helped clarify some things. I really appreciate it.

I watered my babies today, I'm managing to get my runoff ph in a more ideal range.


The two in jiffy seed starter and perlite were watered with bat guano and bubbled tap water. Ph was 6.0 before, and runoff was at 6.8 on one and 7.0-7.2 on the other.

The two I have in promix organic are 6 and 8 days from seed.
I watered them with same guano mix, they recieved higher percentage distilled water vs guano tea. Ph was 6.0 again before going in, and runoff was 6.4 and 6.6 . Yeya, those sound like good numbers.

I feel added confidence having brought their ph down overall to more ideal ranges. You guys are great.


I think here shortly I'm gonna test the happy frog and ocean forest. Need to order some beans though

 

[JM]

I like my ProMix...

 

[PhammyDavis]

I like my ProMix...

I hear promix is the shizzznit. as well as sunshine mix #4. Just kinda nervous to make the transition into that type of medium. What would you recommend? 50/50 Promix and perlite. 50/50 SM#4 and perlite or 50/50 coco coir and perlite? Or maybe a combination of 2 and the the perlite?

 

[Muddy]

Pro Mix can be used as is without any amendment. If you add something like worm castings or manure, add as much perlite as you do castings or manure. No need to add any more perlite to straight Pro Mix.

 

[rhapsodyrcks]

Promix is outstanding and a good value...huge bag.

 

[JbBurnin]

My promix organic doesn't drain too well, the peat moss kinda floats around dryer than everything else. I think I could def use more perlite.


Is it better to water until u get runoff everytime ? Seems like the soil gets compacted and dries unevenly. Maybe I water too fast.